Trinity Sunday – 7^th June 2009.     John 3 1-17

Don’t let a name confuse you.

Soon after I was ordained I was hearing a young girl at St Matthew’s school read when she suddenly stopped and said  ‘are you still Mrs Webb’, they had just been told to call me the Revd. Rosemary.    ‘Yes’ I replied.    ‘That’s very confusing’ was her reply.     I could have added I was once Miss Ross – three different names but still the same person, not three people but one, the same old me on the inside.

And today is Trinity Sunday, which many people find confusing, what are we saying, are Moslems right when they say we have three Gods?    Of course they are not, we have the one omnipotent God, God in Heaven who we call the Father, God who came to live among us who we call the Son, and the God here with us now, the Holy Spirit, invisible to the eye, but within us and about us.   The Trinity is the one true God, it is love manifesting itself in three ways, but it is the one true love.

Ignatius teaches us that we come from love, we return to love, and love is all around.     If we know that, then that knowledge forms the core of our relationship with God.    For we know that it is God who loves us first; that it is God who calls us Beloved; that it is God who through his love cries with us and suffers with us, but never leaves us.  

At Jesus’ Baptism God spoke the words, ‘this is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.       And in our own baptism we are incorporated into the Church, His Body here on earth now, and today Yasmine will become through her baptism a member of that body.

 Throughout the Old Testament God promised the Jewish people that he would send the Messiah – and they believed it, but when he came they couldn’t accept him because he didn’t fit their expectations.    They were so sure they understood – they couldn’t see God when he came to live among them.     When they met him face to face they missed the opportunity to praise him.

But as we heard in the Gospel, something was making Nicodemus, a Pharisees, a member of the Ruling Council think perhaps this Jesus was the Messiah, perhaps the Jews had got in wrong.   We can’t blame him for being scared about what the other Pharisees might think, we can’t blame him for going when it was dark so he couldn’t be seen, but we have to admire him for having the guts to think he might have got it wrong.

As a Pharisee Nicodemus had power, had status, in a way they were the celebrities of the time.   But the Jews believed that the Messiah would come in glory and power, he wouldn’t be wandering around the countryside with a group of followers, healing the sick, talking of love, their Messiah would be powerful alter everything overnight, he would overthrow the Roman rulers and give their homeland back to the Jews.

And still today this can be a problem for many people, Christianity is spiritual not earthly.     Being born again, is not as Nicodemus imagined going back into our mother’s womb and being born for a second time, it is being open to the Holy Spirit, allowing the Holy Spirit to enter into our hearts so that we become transformed.   It is not something we can physically get hold of but it is turning to God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, trusting in his power and allowing his light to guide us in the darkness.

For Christians, knowing God as Abba or Father is to know God as Jesus knows God.     To know God as the Son is to know God as the disciples knew God, and to know God as Spirit is to know God as all the disciples on Pentecost experienced God, and as people have known God throughout all time.    

On this Trinity Sunday let us praise and give thanks to God the Father, creator of all, God the Son who came to earth to show us how to live our lives, and God the Holy Spirit who is here with each of us today and always. Amen