Text: John 16:12-15
12-15 ‘I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth has come, he will lead you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own authority and out of his own knowledge, but he will speak all that he will hear, and he will tell you of the things to come. He will glorify me, for he will take of the things which belong to me, and will tell you of them. All things that the Father has are mine. That is why I said that the Spirit will take of the things which belong to me, and tell them to you.’ (NSRV, Anglicized Edition)
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
Today is another one of those days in the life of the church where we observe several things at the same time. Today, for us here at St. John’s, we’re observing Trinity Sunday, and celebrating Logan’s upcoming graduation. We have a long-standing tradition of honoring our graduates, because the church recognizes that in life there are many “rites of passage.” Baptism is one; Confirmation, which we just celebrated last Sunday, is another.
Graduation is most definitely a time of celebration. It’s a time to reflect on the years of schooling, of growth, of accomplishment. Logan, you have made it! You have succeeded in so many ways – in your classes, in your sports activities, in your various jobs – and you will go on to succeed in many, many other things.
Graduation is significant for many reasons, but the one that comes most readily to mind is that it means change, particularly for Logan, but also for Logan’s family. Like so many others, Logan will soon be leaving home and spreading his wings. There are many events in life that happen, sometimes whether we’re ready for them or not. This is one of them.
How fitting, then, that today’s Gospel lesson is the one we just heard. It is all about change, not being ready – and how to deal with it.
This passage is part of what you might call Jesus’ “farewell pep talk” to his disciples. But he says something to them that kind of resonates with us today – he says, “I have so many more things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now.” And we can imagine the disciples sitting back and saying “What? Why not? Come on, tell us! Don’t leave leave us hanging!”
We don’t like only getting half the story, either. We want all the facts! We want them right now! “Tell us!” we say. “We can handle it!”
We’re never told, though, what all those “other things” are. But it’s a teaching moment; and, just like any other good teacher, Jesus parses out information to the disciples in bits, not because he thinks they’re stupid, but because it’s important for them to understand what he’s telling them now before he moves on to something else.
Just like in our years of schooling, our teachers would begin maybe with an overview of a subject; and then, week by week, they gave us more and more information as we were able to absorb it.
The most important thing Jesus wants to impress on the disciples is that they will not be left alone. Yes, he’s going to be leaving them, but he’s got a plan. He’s sending them what he calls the “Spirit of Truth,” which we know to be the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity. The Spirit will supply the wisdom and the knowledge that they can’t bear at the moment; and the Holy Spirit will transform them and empower them to do and dare great things.
We tend to think of this “doing and daring” as something that’s restricted to church. It’s not. As Christians, all of our lives are lived under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whether we’re doing “churchy stuff” or not. To put it another way, because we are Christians, and because we’ve been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, everything we do in life is “churchy stuff” – caring for those less fortunate, showing God’s love in big and small ways, and – as Jesus taught the disciples last week and added to today – trying to be courageous even when you are trembling inside.
All of that is what the Holy Spirit helps us to do and to be.
Now, we have all grown up knowing about the Holy Spirit, and talking about the Holy Spirit, and believing in the Holy Spirit. But how does the Holy Spirit fit into the whole grand scheme of things? The concept of the Trinity is the single most difficult concept for us to understand. God is one, but also three; three persons, but one God. At Sonshine every Thursday morning, I start the chapel services by saying “We gather in the name of God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, three in one. Amen.” St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, famous used the shamrock, which normally has three leaves, to explain the Trinity to people whom he was trying to convert to Christianity. He would hold up a shamrock, and say words like, “Just as this shamrock has three leaves, but is yet one plant, so does God have three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – but is yet one God.” And that’s just about the best description I know of to describe the Trinity. Yet, at the end of the day, even with that explanation, we’re still probably left a bit confused.
But it really doesn’t matter. The original intent of the Trinity was really just to explain in some way the disciples’ actual experience with the living God, their witness to God’s activity among them in Jesus, and their encounter with, and transformation by, the power of the Holy Spirit. The term “Trinity” became their “thumbnail sketch” of all of that. Somewhere along the line, through the progress of the centuries between then and now, it became an article of faith, a doctrine, a dogma – that is to say, “a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.” In the darker periods of the church’s history, people lost their lives for not believing in the Trinity in the way the authorities of the day expected them to.
And that is sad; because, as Lucy Lind Hogan writes, “The Holy Trinity is definitely one of those difficult, challenging, thought-provoking doctrines of our faith. But we should not think of it as an exam question that must be answered before we will be admitted to the heavenly banquet. Nor is the Trinity an IQ test to identify the superior intellects and weed out those who are not worthy. Rather … the Trinity is ‘ultimately a practical doctrine with radical consequences for Christian life . . . [it] is the specifically Christian way of speaking about God, [and] what it means to participate in the life of God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit.’”[1]
The concept of the Trinity is a mystery. It’s a part of God’s truth that we understand imperfectly; but, over time, we grow into understanding it more and more, through the power and the work of the Holy Spirit.
This is what Jesus is getting at in today’s lesson. We don’t need to have all the answers in order to be faithful. People who claim to have all the answers never do, anyway. As David Lose puts it, “I think it’s kind of awesome that Jesus promises that the Spirit will come and guide [the disciples] into truth. That there are some things they simply can’t bear yet. That they have more to learn. That the disciples – those who have spent so much time with Jesus – do not have all the answers. Because all of that means that the Christian community then – and now! – continues to be dependent. Dependent on the Spirit and dependent on each other, because the Spirit so often speaks to us through the person and words of those around us.”[2]
So, rather than getting all wrapped around the axle as to what the Trinity is and what it means, let’s instead open our eyes and hearts to what that Triune God of ours is actually doing in our midst; let’s experience that relational, communal nature of God, and then strive to be a community that values one other. Let’s respond to the needs of the world in which we live in confidence, hope, and love.
Today, that Triune God has called Logan from our midst to go on to new adventures, new challenges, and new accomplishments. Graduation is a major step into the unknown future, just as the future of the disciples without Jesus was a major step. But just as in the case of the disciples, neither you, Logan, nor we, are left alone. We’re not left totally to ourselves, but we have the assistance, the comfort, and the guidance of God’s own Spirit with us every step of the way!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1697
[2] http://www.davidlose.net/2016/05/trinity-c-shh-dont-mention-the-trinity/