Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Holy Church has set aside to remember and celebrate a doctrine: the doctrine of the holy Trinity, that there is one God who is three distinct Persons--Father, Son and Holy Spirit. With the other great feasts of the Church, we usually remember an event, like Jesus’ conception and birth, His death and burial, His resurrection and ascension; or we remember the saints of the Church, those who have gone before us and left us an example of faith and good works. But today our festival does not focus on an event or a person; instead, it focuses on a doctrine!
What a doctrine it is! On the one hand it is the most basic doctrine: who is God? And on the other hand it is the deepest and most profound of doctrines because it delves into who God is and He is something we cannot fully comprehend and fathom with our human minds. Who can understand this doctrine of the Trinity--the teaching of Scripture, the revelation of God that He is one divine being and yet three distinct Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit? The Athanasian Creed so beautifully sets out this doctrine and leaves the tension between the one and the three, between unitarianism and tritheism, when, for example, it says: So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God. Whoever thinks that he has figured out and come to understand the doctrine of the holy Trinity, hasn’t. Whoever thinks they have, has fallen into the ditch of one heresy or another.
So let us just let the mystery remain and accept the fact that we will never figure it out. But, at the same time, the mystery/ the fact we cannot figure it out--let that drive us to think and ponder it all the more! Yes, we will never get to the bottom of it or resolve it, but what great things happen as we fill our minds/ occupy our minds with God! Really, the fact that the doctrine of the Trinity--that there is one God and yet three distinct Persons--should be a great comfort to us. And the reason is this: if we cannot figure it out, that means this doctrine of who God is, is not of human origin; it is something greater than us, something that God had to reveal! And if it is something that God revealed to us--that He is the great three-in-one--that must show us how much God loves us and wants us to know Him! If He didn’t want us to know Him, if He didn’t want us to enter into relationship with Him, would He have revealed Himself to us? Hardly! He would have left us in ignorance. So, yes, we really do have cause to celebrate the doctrine of the Trinity!
The other religions of the world reject the doctrine of the Trinity. That’s why Christianity is the true and saving faith because Christianity alone, by God’s grace, knows and teaches rightly who God is. The very fact that we, dear Christian, know the true God rightly and love and worship Him, that is not a feather in our cap. Instead, it is very humbling to us because it is the grace of God toward us; the very fact that we are Christians is nothing but God’s pure grace and mercy to us. The holy and mighty, and incomprehensible, God is also gracious and merciful to us, revealing Himself to us who would otherwise not know Him. This is worthy of our praise and celebration this Trinity Sunday and beyond!
Our text today helps us understand this fact: that the Holy Triune God is holy and mighty and He is merciful and gracious. It is the account of the call of Isaiah into the prophetic ministry. And it begins this way: In the year that King Uzziah died [that was the mid 8th century BC], I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted… This vision of Isaiah is a divine revelation. It was not a product of his mind/ imagination because God revealed Himself to Isaiah. He saw what is invisible to the bodily eye but truly saw something as God manifested His glory in human form in a way that a finite creature could grasp/ comprehend it. Even here God condescended to our weakness and limitations--and why? --So Isaiah, then, and us today could catch a bit of a glimpse of who/ what He is.
I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple… So here we come to an interesting question: How did the holy Triune God reveal Himself, or better put: which Person of the holy Trinity did Isaiah see? The Holy Spirit, through St. John in his Gospel tells us! There St. John is talking about the people not believing Jesus and then he quotes a verse right after our text [v.10] and then St. John writes [8.41]: These things Isaiah said when he saw His [Jesus’] glory and spoke of Him. It was the Messiah, the pre-incarnate Jesus, the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity that Isaiah saw. And so Isaiah sees the Son/ Second Person of the Trinity, the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted. What a glorious image of the almighty power of God: sitting on a throne, He is ready to exercise His kingly rule and prerogative. He is high and exalted far above all earthly rulers. And even Isaiah’s time marker, In the year that King Uzziah died, tells us about God’s rule and might--earthly rulers/ human kings come and go; empires rise and fall; but through it all the Lord [is] sitting on a throne, high and exalted. He is ruling all things in heaven and earth. For us, dear Christian, this almighty power of the holy Triune God is a great comfort. He is in charge and ruling all things. When it looks like evil and sin, chaos and confusion are ruling/ running the show they aren’t. Even these things are subject to almighty God and have to serve His good and gracious purposes! The Lord [is] sitting on a throne, high and exalted.
Now we catch a glimpse of the holiness of our holy Triune God: Above Him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two they covered their faces. With two they covered their feet. With two they flew. One called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the LOrd of Armies! The whole earth is full of His glory. Here are the holy angels! These are the seraphim, which means “burning ones”--burning with holiness and purity. These angels are positioned by the throne in the presence of God, flanking Him as, if you will, an honor guard. What a scene of the absolute holiness of God. Here are the holy angels and yet what do we see? Each one had six wings. With two they covered their faces. With two they covered their feet. With two they flew. These absolutely holy beings themselves cannot gaze directly at the glory of God--they had to cover their faces with their wings. These holy beings burning with holiness could not endure the sight of the essential holiness of God. It might be similar to us trying to look directly into the sun--we have to shade/ cover our eyes. And there is more! With two they covered their feet. Not only did they cover their eyes but they covered their feet. Here these holy beings in the presence of the most holy and absolute God still covered their feet out of their feelings of humility and modesty. Even they felt humble and unworthy before God. With two they flew. These holy beings serve the absolutely holy triune God, as they fly about and carry out the will and orders of God.
As if we do not already have enough of a sense of God’s holiness: One called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the LOrd of Armies! The whole earth is full of His glory. Here in this scene of heaven we catch a glimpse of the Trinity. Notice, even though it is the Son, the Second Person of the holy Trinity that Isaiah sees, the other two Persons--the Father and the Holy Spirit--are not separated, like Jesus tells Philip the apostle[Jn 14.9]: He who has seen Me has seen the Father. So when the holy angels call out, Holy, holy, holy is the LOrd of Armies!, that is a praise of the holy Trinity! Notice the three times “holy”! That’s not just pointing to God’s absolute holiness; it’s pointing to the Father being absolutely holy in and of Himself, the Son being absolutely holy in and of Himself, the Holy Spirit being absolutely holy in and of Himself: Three “holies” but only one holy. Each Person of the Trinity is a possessor of divine holiness in its fullness and glory. This is why this OT is such a beautiful reading for Trinity Sunday. It is one of the OT passages that points to the doctrine of the Trinity. Notice: 3 times holy--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--but one/ singular the LOrd of Armies. In our worship, in the communion liturgy, we join our praise with the angels as we sing the Sanctus. We are in the presence of this God! Let us ponder that and worship Him in awe and wonder!
Dear Christian, this is the God we worship--the holy Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit--one God and yet three distinct Persons and who is absolutely holy and mighty! But as we see this scene of God is all His might, glory, majesty and holiness--as we put ourselves in the scene with Isaiah: How we must feel and recognize our sin. If the holy angels have to cover their eyes and feet in humility and unworthiness, how much more so us! And that was Isaiah’s reaction: Then I said, “I am doomed! I’m ruined, because I am a man with unclean lips, and I dwell among a people with unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the LOrd of Armies.” The thing to remember is that the Lord opened Isaiah’s eyes to see the reality, to what what we normally don’t/ can’t. So always before us is the holy Triune God; we are always in His presence; nothing/ no sin remains hidden to Him. What a call to recognize our true spiritual condition and to repent of our sin.
But as much as the holy Triune God is mighty and holy, so is He just as much merciful and gracious. With Isaiah’s recognition of his own sin and unworthiness, the Lord doesn’t strike him down. Instead, in mercy and grace He forgives Him. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, carrying a glowing coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with the coal and said, “Look, this has touched your lips, so your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.” Here is that glorious gift of God to us--the forgiveness of sin. Wherever there is the recognition of our sin and the desire for the forgiveness, there is forgiveness! The apostle writes [1 Jn 1.9]: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Here we see that greatness of God’s mercy--the very God who is absolutely holy and mighty, the holy Triune God--He forgives us our sin. Notice here with Isaiah: your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven because why? Because what happened? This forgiveness is not because of anything Isaiah did; this forgiveness is because of God’s gracious work and gift!
Here we come to the great work of redemption. Here we remember that yes, the Son of God, the Second Person of the holy Trinity became true man and came to be our Savior, suffering and dying for our sins on the cross but all of this work was in accord with the counsel of the holy Triune God. With Isaiah, we see that a coal was taken from the altar. And altar implies/ says what? --Sacrifice! A sacrifice had to be made and it was--Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for our sin. Isaiah’s sin, your sin, my sin has been atoned for by Jesus/ the Son of God and His holy life and innocent suffering and death--and the amazing thing? --This same Son of God/ Second Person of the holy Trinity whom Isaiah saw high and exalted, is also the same One who was the Lord’s Suffering Servant Isaiah prophesied later [Is 52.13]: Behold, My Servant...shall be exalted and be very high--exalted and raised up on the cross as the perfect once for all sacrifice for sin. He who is holy and mighty and God over all was also enthroned on the cross so that we might have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Now in Him, our guilt is taken away and our sin covered. This is the work of the holy Triune God for us--He who is holy and mighty is also merciful and gracious. He is one God yet three Persons--Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is the God of our salvation. INJ Amen.