These Three Bear Witness

“These three bear witness: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit”
By Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee
Sunday, June 14, 2025
Reading: 1 John 5:6-13

I spent the last week teaching a class on the Trinity. So, you might think I’ve got all I need for the sermon this morning. Uh, no, not really. The doctrine of the Trinity names what no one can name: God is three and one and no one can understand that. If you come away from this sermon shaking your head and saying, ‘didn’t get that one,’ good, I’ve done my job perfectly.

The doctrine of the Trinity did not arrive fully baked with the Bible. It took some reflection and pondering, a few centuries’ worth. But it is the most widely agreed upon Christian teaching: Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, when this teaching goes up the flagpole, we all salute. Because it’s about Jesus. The most basic Christian teaching is that Jesus saves. That’s the belief we’re baptized into. And it’s already a problem. Saving is God’s job alone. Now there’s a second one saving? How many gods are there exactly? And how is Jesus related to the other One who saves? It’s sobering that our most treasured teaching is already a problem, our most precious language makes us all go ‘huh? Run that by me one more time.’ If anyone has trouble with faith, trinitarians can understand.

As if that’s not enough, there’s a third running around we also claim is God: the Holy Spirit, whom we celebrated last week at Pentecost. The Spirit raises Jesus from the dead. He’ll raise us one day too—he’s bringing a whole new creation. That’s all great. But now we have three. And our faith is born of Judaism for whom there is clearly only one God. Let me put the problem this way—Orthodox Jews can’t even come into a Christian church. Because they say we’re polytheists, pagans, we worship three gods. They can actually pray in a mosque, because they’re convinced Muslims pray to only one God. They’re pretty sure we Christians messed that up.

But we Christians do worship only one God in our own way. God the Father eternally begets God the Son. Then the Father and the Son pour themselves out and there’s a Holy Spirit. That’s all in eternity. But then the Trinity creates everything that is. All three persons pour themselves out again, and there’s a world. The persons of the Trinity show us how to be a person: pour yourself out for others. Don’t climb over their faces. Bend low to serve them. That’s not just a good idea, wise teaching. That’s who God is.

I was involved in planning a conference recently. And those who attended kept asking: whose idea was this? We honestly couldn’t answer. Which of us seven came up with this? Don’t remember, it was a creative collaboration, it’d be wrong to credit any one of us alone. So it is with God: a creative collaboration in which all work only as one.

The passage you heard from 1st John used to be a classic text we Christians trotted out to prove the doctrine of the Trinity from our Bible. If you look at your grandma’s King James Version, it’ll say in 1st John 5:8 that the Father, the Word, and the Spirit agree, and these three are one. That’s based on later manuscripts and is not correct. The version you heard is a little more opaque: the Spirit and the water and the blood agree. That is, God the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God whose suffering includes blood and water flowing from his side. In whatever version, this passage still shows the overall pattern of the Bible: we have God who creates and loves, the Son of God who becomes human and saves, and the Spirit who makes us and all creation new. God is not up there, out there, far away. God envelopes us from below in three-fold love. The trinity is not a math problem or a logic problem. It’s a love problem. Do we love like Jesus? Not yet? No worries. God still has work to do on all of us.

The Trinity is one of those things you learn about better by saying what it’s not than what it is. We don’t believe the Trinity is one God appearing in three different ways. Like sometimes I’m in work clothes, sometimes in bicycling clothes, sometime in bedtime clothes. That’s just me with three different looks. The Trinity is not a woman who’s a lawyer and a mum and a friend—that’s just one with three different sets of relationships. But in the Trinity, relationship is all there is. God doesn’t just seem like three to us, God is three eternally. The Trinity is also not three parts of one thing. Like the crust and toppings and cheese of a pizza or the yoke and shell and white of an egg. Then each person would be one-third of God. But the Son is all the God there is. So is the Spirit. Except the Son is not the Spirit and neither one is the Father. Got it? No? Good. St. Augustine said, “If you understand it, it is not God.”

The Trinity is a three-fold pattern of love. The teaching shows us that God did not have to create. God already is all the love God ever “needs” in the divine life. Creation is unnecessary, a bonus, didn’t have to be here. So, we should give thanks we do exist. And creation makes sense. God is already nothing but relationship. So God makes countless more relationships. The threefold relations spill over, and we have supernovas and orangutans and you and me. In rival faiths when Christianity arose, creation was usually an accident, a bloody aftermath of gods slaughtering one another. The world as the carcass of a defeated enemy. More modern myths have that God was lonely, needed company, and so made us. No, no, and no. If you like, God is always fulsome kindness between others. So God makes more others. Didn’t have to. But said “why not?” and there’s a world.

Hard to envision? You’re not alone.

Here are some failed efforts to imagine the Trinity. One, a three headed monster. Yikes. Sharing eyes so only four of those. Nice red lips too. Whatever we mean by the Trinity we don’t mean something monstruous. So that won’t work. One of my students last week suggested the Trinity is like three athletes playing at their best. Specifically mentioned Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman from the Chicago Bulls’ glory years. As much as I loved watching those guys, it doesn’t work. They’re obviously three—we’re back to worshiping three gods. And Pip and Rodman eventually got traded away. They could vanish. If one person of the divine Trinity could be removed the other two would go too. And let’s be clear: MJ was king of that hill. Jordan famously said there might be no I in team, but there is in win. The persons of the Trinity are all altogether God, no greater or lesser. Plus, Rodman could never shoot.

Here are some slightly better efforts to imagine the unimaginable. The image on your bulletin cover is also on the screens, it’s an icon from Russia in the 1400s. It’s based on a story in Genesis where three visitors come to Abraham and Sarah in the heat of the day and are treated like royalty. Turns out they’re angels, and they reaffirm God’s promise: the childless couple will have countless children. Sarah laughs—this is too good to be true. The icon ignores Abraham and Sarah and concentrates on the three angelic figures. They bow to one another gracefully. They’re androgynous—no gender, since God has no gender. The figure on the left may be the Father, since the other two defer to that one. The figure in the middle may be the Son, since there’s a tree behind him signifying the cross. The Spirit on the right points sharply down, to say God always pours God’s self out. And there’s food on the table. A seat for us. The holy eucharist? The feast Sarah prepared? Don’t know. Now this is a borderline case—they’re obviously three! But they’re also identical. I stood in front of this at a gallery in Moscow 25 years ago and every single person crossed themselves. Atheism might have been mandated by the Soviets for a century, but Orthodox people still knew what to do in the presence of God.

Another effort to imagine the unimaginable comes from my favourite ancient thinker, St. Augustine, African genius. Think of your own memory, reason, and will. You can’t remember something without your reason; can’t will anything without your memory. In other words, these three, memory reason, and will, can’t operate alone, only in harmony. Like a chord on the piano. Another borderline case. It can suggest God is just one with three mental capacities. But it’s not too bad. As long as we remember every analogy limps. Augustine tries again another time: God is like a lover, the beloved, and the love in between them. Think of relationships: we date them with anniversaries; they become their own thing almost. A Jewish friend says this is why every marriage needs marriage counselors: two people alone destroy one another. A third speaks wisdom and kindness to keep them going in love. “You Christians should understand that” he said to me. Augustine puts it this way: when you see love, you see a Trinity. That’s sometimes been imagined via a couple longing for a child. Or throwing a party. Love reaches out by nature to include more. A glimpse of God that.

None of these illustrations fully work. We cannot imagine the way God is God. What we can imagine, is the way God is among us. The Son: poured out to be a servant and die for us. God is for us. The Spirit poured out to make us part of the divine life. God is in us. Scripture says: “Because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” The Spirit plants a prayer in us to pray the way Jesus does and call God daddy, mum. We can’t understand the Trinity, but we can pray. We can desire. We can long for God. When we do, that’s God in us, transfiguring us into Jesus, to name God the way he does. The Trinity’s not out there. It’s in here. Right underneath our ribs like Mary. Longing for a world only God can bring about.

My job as your pastor is to pray for you. I love praying for you: it’s an honour to be let into your lives and to approach God on your behalf. But a little confession: I forget sometimes. Or don’t pray as much as you deserve. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. But I honestly don’t worry. God is all the prayer God needs. The Spirit prays for us. The Son prays for us. The Father listens. So, all the prayer gets done. When we pray, we join a conversation already in progress. That’s good for us and the ones we pray for. Failure is not like leaving the stove on. It’s more like falling asleep in mum’s arms.

Paul tells us elsewhere we are adopted children. Jesus is God’s natural Son, only begotten Son. That doesn’t mean there was a mom, or sex was involved or that the Father is older than the Son—those things are true among us humans but not in God. To call God Father and Son is to say whatever the Father is, the Son also is. Whatever the Son is, the Father also is. And then you and I become adopted daughters and sons also. Jesus calls God Father, Abba, daddy. Hebrew speaking children still call their papas “abba.” The Trinity is not a math or logic conundrum. No. It’s God’s life, and we’re engulfed in it. Made part of it by baptism and faith.

One of my students last week adopted one son and birthed others. The judge at the adoption hearing told her something extraordinary. Adopting this child meant she cannot give him up. She could, God forbid, give up her biological children for adoption. But the one she adopts? Hers forever. No going back. God could sooner give up Jesus than give us up. Isn’t that extraordinary?!

It’s Father’s Day today: a happy one to all who celebrate. I still find it a little odd that we say “happy Father’s Day” to folks who aren’t our fathers, but maybe that’s just me. I do think it’s good to celebrate fatherhood. And family—I do need a new belt — call Jeff Bezos. It’s also a good day to thank those who’ve mentored, coached us, done car ride pickup, been friends’ dads, the works. It takes a battalion of people to make us human. Each one gives us a glimpse of what God is like, just like a mother gives us a glimpse of God’s kindness. But of course, these human relationships are also broken, abused, and abusing. Fathers and mothers both do harm even when we’re trying not to. Keeps therapists in business and very busy. God as a parent is not an abuser. Never too busy for us. Can’t be annoyed with us. All the ways we humans are limited and that we fail, not so with God. I love watching y’all parent in here. Dads anyone would wish for, moms who set the standard, grandparents deeply involved in grandkids’ lives. And we all fall short, don’t we? All fail and are failed. Only God does not. Cannot. Is like us at our best, only infinitely better.

The Trinity does not want us to try and imagine the impossible. The Trinity points our attention to Jesus Christ. I saw an incredible image of him last week. This is from New Mt. Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago. And it’s Jesus with a slave ship from the middle passage as his abdomen. Scholars estimate between five and ten million Africans died on the gruesome ocean voyage from Africa to the Americas. Jesus is absorbing all that pain into himself. And will one day raise it from the grave.

Finally, an image of the Holy Spirit from one of you. You’re decades sober now, you speak openly of the marriage that alcohol wrecked and the new one you don’t deserve. And when you’re at AA meetings, multiple friends tell me, young kids trying to get sober gather around you. They don’t know what to ask for, they just want to be near you. Hoping to catch some wisdom. Hoping the holiness and health rub off and they become more human. That’s God the Holy Spirit: making us like Jesus, like the One we long for.

So, what do we take away from the Trinity? How’s this good news? God doesn’t need us. But God likes us. And God doesn’t leave us alone. In fact, God won’t be God without us. God takes flesh from Mary and dies for us. God is poured out on us at Pentecost in a flurry of wind, fire, and language. God is closer than the next breath we take. The next time we feel lonely, God is closer than mum or dad. God the Trinity envelopes us and won’t leave us alone. And all that is, as they say, good news. Thanks be to God. Amen.