Peace and Freedom with God - Holy Trinity Sunday
Author: Pastor Scott Schul
June 15, 2025
As I said during the
announcements, today is the Festival of the Holy Trinity. This Sunday is truly an odd duck amongst the
other dates on the church calendar. You
see, all the others, like the Baptism of Jesus, Easter, and Pentecost, are
based on a person or an historic event. But this day, Holy Trinity Sunday, is the only festival day that’s
based not on a person or an event but on a doctrine – a belief. Now admittedly, it’s an important doctrine, an essential doctrine, one that’s core to our identity
as Christians. But even the greatest theological
minds of history have struggled and failed to describe the Trinity in a manner
that’s both doctrinally faithful and understandable. So I’m well aware that any attempt by me to
explain this doctrine with theological precision and clarity will result in
utter failure.
So I want to approach
Holy Trinity Sunday from a different angle that I think is more practical and
helpful to our faith as Lutheran Christians. To do that, let’s compare two upcoming anniversaries and how they’re
likely to be marked. The first one will
happen this summer, as we celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the
Council of Nicaea. That council, begun
in 325, was called by the Emperor Constantine, who had famously converted to
Christianity as part of a “battlefield epiphany.”
Constantine wasn’t much
of a theologian, but even he could see that Christianity was being weakened by
widely inconsistent beliefs and teachings about the nature of God the Father,
Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. So he called
this council, filled with the world’s brightest theologians, and tasked them
with sorting it all out. As you can
imagine, opinions were strong. There
are even stories of fistfights among future saints. But in the end, the result was the foundation
for what we will recite later this service, the famous Nicene Creed.1 Just watch as this anniversary unfolds. I predict that nearly all the books and
articles will put everyone to sleep because they’ll all be focused on those dense,
hardcore doctrinal formulations that all of us theologians like to pretend we
understand.
Compare all that with another upcoming anniversary. Did you know that
in 2028, just three years away, it’ll be the 100th anniversary of
the discovery of penicillin? As a boy I
remember hearing what a monumental difference it made in the quality and
longevity of life when penicillin became widely available. With the impact it had on treating American
troops during WW2, one might even argue that penicillin altered the course of
history. Now when this anniversary rolls around, do you think the celebrations and commemorations will
be focused on detailed, high level scientific discussions of formulations and
chemical reactions that are incomprehensible to the normal person? I don’t. Instead, I think we’ll see interviews of people testifying that they
would’ve died without this “wonder drug.” And we’ll hear that an estimated 500 million lives have been saved by
this one incredible discovery.2 In other words, we’ll be celebrating the impact of penicillin,
not its technical formulation.
Today, let’s do the
same thing with the Holy Trinity. Let’s
set aside the obscure, virtually unknowable technical formulation of this
doctrine and just celebrate the Holy Trinity’s impact on us. Because the Holy Trinity has saved more lives
than all the drugs ever discovered or invented. And so, I want us to focus on our first
lesson, from Paul’s famous letter to the Romans. It’s fitting that we do so, because Romans
forms the heart of our theological worldview as Lutheran Christians. Luther called Romans “the chief part of the
New Testament,” “the purest gospel,” and “something every Christian should know
by heart.”3
So let’s explore the
brief excerpt from Romans 5 that makes up our first lesson, because it mentions
each member of the Trinity: God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy
Spirit. To begin, note that we are
justified, or we might say “made holy or righteous,” by faith in Jesus Christ. That’s a central notion for us as
Lutherans. Our faith is in Jesus Christ. Not ourselves or some charismatic guru on TV,
and certainly not our own works, regardless how pious or popular they might
appear. We are saved by faith. But where does that faith come from? Is it something we acquire through long years
of study or contemplation, or heroic acts of self-denial or sacrifice? All those things can help, but as Luther
famously teaches us in the Small Catechism, our efforts alone will be
fruitless. It is the Holy Spirit that
calls us through the gospel, enlightens us with gifts, makes us holy, and keeps
us in the true faith.4
OK friends. Now we’re getting closer to a reason to
celebrate the Holy Trinity. We are made
holy by Christ, and given faith in his work for us by the Holy Spirit. We cannot do either of these things by ourselves or for ourselves. It’s
all gift. It’s all grace. But still, you might be saying, “so what?
What’s the big deal? I get lots of gifts
I don’t want or need.” Well, turn again
to our lesson from Romans 5. Because of
these gifts of faith in Christ and holiness through his grace, we have peace
with God. Go ahead and repeat that
to yourself: “I have peace with God.”
Rest in that assurance
for a moment. You have peace with God! None of us can fully fathom how important
that is. So many forces in the world-
economic, political, social, spiritual, and so on- are hard at work, every
minute of every day, trying to pry us away from God by convincing us that we
don’t need God, or God doesn’t exist, or that the true gospel is about
self-loyalty, self-preservation, and self-promotion. It’s all lies, and those forces delight in
using us, exploiting us, and discarding us as trash. Don’t believe a word of it, because by the
grace of the Holy Trinity we have peace with God. God was never our enemy. God by nature will always only love us. But we forget. So today, we remember and can rest again in
that blessed state of being. We are at
peace with God because our relationship with God is made unbreakable by God’s
grace and mercy.
The Greek Word
translated as “peace” has a double meaning. It can also be translated “freedom.” So imagine: you have freedom with God. Repeat that to yourself: “I have freedom with
God.” We don’t talk enough nowadays
about the blessing of this kind of spiritual freedom. We are freed from the agonizing mental and
physical burden of trying to save ourselves. I’ve been to ancient places where the tradition was for people to climb
massive flights of hard, stone staircases on their bare knees to prove their
worthiness to God. It’s not
necessary! You are freed from that!
You’re also free
because you know that death is not the last word. Imagine how imprisoned by grief you’d be if
you thought every relationship you treasured simply ended at death. In the Holy Trinity we have a future! Now of course in this life all of us face
adversity. This year alone I’ve endured
a nasty car accident and a tick bite. But those setbacks don’t define or control me anymore than the
inevitable adversities in your life define or control you. We have freedom in God! As Romans reminds us, in our freedom our
adversities don’t crush us; they produce endurance. And endurance produces character, and
character produces hope. To live in hope
is the ultimate freedom, and that’s a blessing of our Holy Trinity.
I know I’ve probably
piled a lot on you today, but the bottom line is that on this Holy Trinity
Sunday, don’t get tangled in the weeds. The goal today is not to hammer doctrine into your heart but to open that heart to the grace, mercy, and love of our Holy Trinity. So let’s travel life’s journey lightly and
joyfully, unburdened by worldly worries and possessions that weigh us down,
distract, and divide… because we have peace with God. We have freedom with God. And so we have everything we need. Amen.
Sermon
Text: Romans 5:1-5
Citations
1 I encourage you to read
ELCA Presiding Bishop Eaton’s entertaining article on the Council; it’s
available online at
www.livinglutheran.org/2025/03/an-ancient-creed-is-relevant/
2 www.path.ox.ac.uk/centenary/our-history/;
www.ibms.org/resources/news/penicillin-the-war-time-miracle-drug-that-saved-millions/
3 Luther’s Works (AE), Vol. 35, p. 365.
4 Luther’s Small
Catechism, Explanation to the Third Article of the Creed
© 2025 Rev. Scott E. Schul, all rights reserved
Gospel Text: John 16:12-15
[Jesus said,] 12 “I
still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When
the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will
not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to
you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me because he
will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father
has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare
it to you.”
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