Holy Trinity

[AI translation] In response to the call, which has been made several times in this congregation, for everyone to write down what problem, what Word they would like to hear preached here in this congregation, I have now received a very difficult question, and I would like to respond to it this Sunday by preaching God's message. I am sure that this question has been on the minds of many other believers, if not formulated in the same way as this one: "Why is God Trinity and not Holy Infinity? Why simplify God, is this not a primitive human concept? I don't know if it's in the Bible in those terms? But how can the infinite God, in Whom all things are together, be triune? Not only power, but also knowledge, love, will, strength, art, colours, shapes, imagination, humour to create a penguin, playfulness, because we cannot even list, we have no words, we have no imagination, what God could be like?"In short, the problem of the Trinity. And I am happy to talk about it because, on the one hand, I know that it is a problem for many other people, not only for the person who wrote it, but also because the first Sunday after Pentecost, which was last Sunday, used to be Trinity Sunday in the old church order. It is an occasion to look back on the Christian feasts of the past and to bring together the great divine gifts of Christmas, which represents the love of the Father, Good Friday, which represents the redemptive work of the Son, Easter and Pentecost, which recalls the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. For this is how, in the great Christian feasts, God revealed himself as Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the whole Trinity, one eternal God.
Now indeed this word, in this form, the Trinity, does not really occur in the Bible, but the point is all the more important. However, this kind of wording, the Trinity, is really not very fortunate, because it can give rise to misunderstanding. That is why there has been so much controversy and so much derision throughout history about the very problem of the Trinity. For the thinking mind immediately wonders: if God is one, how can there be three? And if there are three, why can there be one? Many attempts have been made to explain this in many different ways, with images and metaphors. Many have said, let us think of water. Whether we look at it as water, as steam, or as ice, in three very different manifestations, it doesn't change the point, it remains H2O. I used to say, for example to my confirmation candidates, what am I to my children? Father. And for my wife? Husband. And for you? Uncle Alexander. Well, so, again, in three ways, and perhaps in more ways than one, the same one is me. So in a way, there is this trinity in the one God, that we are talking about the same one God, whether it is the Father, Jesus or the Holy Spirit!
So, Father, Son, Holy Spirit means that three times we are the same one God! I said it was sort of like that, but I said it was sort of like that because it's not really like that. Because these images and all the other metaphors and explanations do not actually explain to us the mystery of God's being and existence, but rather point to the mystery itself. By this word, Trinity, we confess, first of all, our belief that God is not something, but Someone, not Providence, but the Provider, not Eternity, but the Eternal, not Immortality, but the only Immortal, not the natural law which sustains the world, but its Creator, not the moral world-order, but its Lord. It is not, therefore, an impersonal power, but a mighty Personality. Just as you and I are separate, distinct persons, but God is so supremely a person, so very different, and so much more than the human person, that we can only speak of Him in such a stammering way, plural Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And this is by no means a reduction, by no means a diminution of the being of God, but rather it is a perception of the immeasurable richness, the infinitude, and yet the fullness of His being in Himself, which simply cannot be expressed and perceived in human words, which cannot be grasped by human reason. It may be a logical absurdity, but this Trinity in the one God is the very description of His being above all human thought and conception.
Let us never forget that God is God and we are human. And let me confess that I even rejoice in the fact that for me the being of God is so elusive and ineffable. I could not even believe in a God whom I could understand in all respects, whom I could include within the categories of my human logic. For that would mean that I had ascended, taken possession of, and even revealed that I had made Him. I created it with my own imagination. The essence of God, His being, will always remain a mystery, and the mystery surrounding His being is not dispelled even by His self-revelation, but rather unfolded. Yes, the mystery itself is unfolded and detailed when He declares Himself thus through the words of the Bible, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The same mystery is expressed in the Scripture which I have just read, that the Most High and Most High, Who eternally exists, says: "I dwell in majesty and in excellency, but also with the contrite and lowly in heart, to quicken the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite." Let's just try to elaborate on that a little bit, because the whole Trinity is in there. So it says that God dwells in highness and holiness. Exalted, not locally of course, but qualitatively exalted. What that means is that he is above all that is, so God is not a piece of this world, but a power outside and above it. And in holiness, he says, that is, in absolute perfect purity, in a light that has no shadow, in an inaccessible light that is utterly inaccessible to us. In an essential distance that cannot be traversed by thought, feeling, imagination, will, or the most powerful telescope. This glory and mystery of God above all is expressed by the word Father.
But the mystery is increased by the fact that this same Father dwells somewhere above us, not only on high and in holiness, but at the same time with the reprobate and the humble-hearted. So he is not only somewhere above us, but is also right with us, as truly as a fellow-sufferer, a friend, a brother. So the One who is quite above human life is also quite within human life. So much so that He is present in our lives, in solidarity with us, in our sorrow and in our grief, with us in our struggles, sitting down with us at our dinner table, taking our sins upon Himself, coming with us to our death, and all this so real and so natural, as He has almost shown it in a tangible form in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Who really lived a whole human life here among us from birth to death. So this life-and-death solidarity of that high and holy God is expressed by this word Son, or Jesus. And, to make the mystery even greater, this same God wants to live not only in the mystery of the sphere above us, not only in the communion of destiny with us, but at the same time in us. So, somewhere in our souls, somewhere in our hearts, as He says, to "quicken the spirit of the humble and to quicken the heart of the brokenhearted".
So this high and majestic God wants to be in our movements, wants to be in our hearts, in our thoughts, in our actions, in our love, in our prayer, in our service, in our medical, engineering, domestic, factory work, in our artistic creation as an inspiring and moving force, as a heavenly power that animates and guides and purifies for good. This mystery of God living in us and animating us is what we call the Holy Spirit.
Behold, the mystery of the whole Trinity. The same God above me, beside me and in me. The same God in the heights and yet in the depths, far and yet near, beyond reach and yet within me. In unimaginable and yet tangible reality. Unapproachable and yet in the closest communion of life with me. Somewhat like the sun shining in the immeasurable distance, reaching the earth with its rays and filling the room with its brilliant light and life-giving warmth. This dynamic tension is expressed by the trinity of Father, Son, Holy Spirit in the one true God! But more than anything else, He Himself says it more clearly when He says, "I dwell in the high and holy places, but also with the brokenhearted and humble, to quicken the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the brokenhearted."
Now, Brethren, I know very well that in all this explanation, and not at all, I have explained the mystery of God's being. In fact, it is precisely the danger of rationalizing and degrading His living reality to a conceptual formula for ourselves, in the desire to explain Him at all costs. For the point about God is precisely that He is not a topic of conversation, but a conversation partner. So the real way to know God is not by talking about Him, but by being in personal communion with Him. It is in His fellowship with me and in my conversation with Him that the true mystery of Him is known. To calculate Him as a mathematical formula, to deduce Him as an experimental result, I cannot. But if I reach out to Him in true faith, I can touch Him, as the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus' garment and was healed by it. And that if I truly listen in faith to His Word in the Bible, I can hear His voice, and that if I truly obey Him with a humble heart, I can feel His power within me.
Let me tell you, Brothers and Sisters, for my part, I always experience God's living reality most when I talk to Him most honestly, when I pour out my heart to Him, when I give my life into His hands so that He can quicken me as He says here, when I entrust my destiny to Him to be as He wills. And I always experience the living reality of God most when I make the same gesture towards someone as He makes towards me, that is, when I bend down to another broken-hearted or humble soul and take solidarity with him and share in his joy or his pain and try to let God's goodness, love and compassion flow through me in some concrete way of helping love towards that other person. That is, when the movement of Christ towards someone is realized in me in action.
Let me just add, which perhaps I should not, that now is a particularly good time for us to do this. There is no need to go into much detail, because all of us have a heart full of compassion for the hundreds and thousands of people who have been so catastrophically affected by the floods. Here, Brothers and Sisters, is an opportunity to try to practice this bowing down. So that our brothers and sisters in distress may feel that the Budapest congregation is in solidarity with them, that they are not alone, and that we all share in their sorrow and difficulties and try to let God's help and love flow through us. Let us try to turn to God not with the objective curiosity of the intellect, but with the humility of a spirit that is looking for grace and help, and let us try to go out with a truly helpful goodwill towards the other person, so that we will not be stuck with incomprehensible problems, but will happily worship the God whom we have come to know in Jesus, who has taken up our destiny, as our helping Father in heaven on high, through his Holy Spirit who lives in us!
Let us all praise Him now by singing hymn 226, verse 4:
Praise God the Father on high,
Our Lord Christ, all in one majesty,
And with the Holy Spirit all in one power:
Trinity one God, bless us in all our ways.
Amen
Date: 31 May 1970.