Sermon: Above, Beside, and Within (2026)

Delivered at St. Mark United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on May 31, 2026, Trinity Sunday

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Above, Beside, and Within

Audio Version

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.  When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.  And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:16-20 (NRSV)

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

From “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!” by Richard Heber

The Disciples have trekked from Jerusalem to Galilee.  A few days earlier, Mary Magdalene and another woman named Mary visited the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, who had just been brutally and wrongfully executed by crucifixion.  To their surprise, they watched as an angel descended from heaven and rolled the stone away, revealing the tomb to be empty.  Seated atop the stone, the heavenly messenger told them that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead and then instructed them to tell the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.  As the two women ran to tell the Disciples the good news, they encountered the risen Jesus Himself, who repeated the angel's instruction to tell the Disciples to meet Him in Galilee.¹

The Disciples ascend a mountain in Galilee, and they find Jesus alive and well, just as the two Marys had told them.  They fall down and worship Him, though some of them are not quite sure that they can believe what they are seeing.  Jesus says to the Disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”²

In the Gospel of Matthew, the earthly ministry of Jesus is bookended with references to the three Persons of the Holy Trinity.  Shortly before Jesus began His public ministry, He went to the Jordan River to be baptized.  As He emerged from the water, the heavens were torn open; the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove and descended upon Him; and a Voice from heaven was heard, proclaiming, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”³  The Son, at His baptism, received the power of the Spirit and the blessing of the Father.  As we just heard, Jesus ends His earthly ministry by commissioning the Disciples to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”⁴

Today, the first Sunday after Pentecost, is Trinity Sunday, a day set aside for remembering that God has been revealed to us in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Though we can read about all three Persons of the Trinity in the Bible, the word trinity is found nowhere in our holy scriptures.  The first recorded use of the word trinity to describe God is in the writings of the second-century theologian Theophilus of Antioch.⁵  A creed was formalized around the Trinity at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and this creed was revised at the First Council of Constantinople in 381.⁶  The Nicene Creed states, “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.”  The creed continues, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.”  The creed goes on to state, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”⁷

Something that makes the Trinity particularly difficult to explain is that it is so easy to say something heretical, something contrary to the established teachings of the Church.  For example, one might think that, if the Father is God, and if the Son is God, and if the Spirit is God, then perhaps God takes different forms at different times.  This idea, known as modalism, is generally regarded as a heresy because it denies that the Trinity is three distinct Persons.⁸  With that in mind, one might think that, if the Father is not the Son, and if the Son is not the Spirit, and if the Spirit is not the Father, then maybe we actually worship three distinct Gods.  This idea, called tritheism, is also considered a heresy⁹ because Christianity is a monotheistic religion.  Though we speak of a Triune God, we agree with our Jewish brothers and sisters, who daily proclaim, Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad¹⁰ (“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one”).¹¹

Explaining what the Trinity is not seems to be a lot easier than explaining what the Trinity actually is.  The Trinity is a mystery and a paradox.  God is one, yet somehow, at the same time, God is three.  Perhaps it would be simpler to consider the Triune God's relationship with humanity and to consider the ways humanity has experienced the Triune God.


God Above Us

The Trinity reminds us that God is above us.  The parental title of the first Person of the Trinity, the Father, reminds us that God is our divine, loving Parent and that we are all children under God's authority.  God is our Creator and our Provider: God gave us life and every blessing we enjoy in life.  In the words of one beloved hymn, “All I have needed thy hand hath provided.”¹²  God is also our sovereign Lord and the Ruler over all creation.

When I say that God is above us, I mean not only that God reigns above us but also that God is above our intellect.  God says through one prophet, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, / nor are your ways my ways... / For as the heavens are higher than the earth, / so are my ways higher than your ways / and my thoughts than your thoughts.”¹³  When Job wants to argue with God, God says to him, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? / Tell me, if you have understanding. / Who determined its measurements – surely you know! / Or who stretched the line upon it?”¹⁴  The psalmist David reflects on God's complete knowledge of him and on God's continuous presence with him and says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; / it is so high that I cannot attain it.”  He reflects on how carefully and thoughtfully God knit him together and proclaims, “How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! / How vast is the sum of them! / I try to count them – they are more than the sand...”¹⁵  Indeed, our knowledge of the divine is but a drop in an ocean.

One of the Ten Commandments forbids the creation of idols or images of gods to worship.¹⁶  Some would go so far as to say that it also forbids images of the one true God, since such images cannot adequately represent God.  In the Book of Exodus, it could be inferred that the golden calf the Israelites wrongly worshiped in the wilderness was created to represent the God “who brought [them] up out of the land of Egypt.”¹⁷  I wonder if the same commandment might also apply to our mental images of God.  If we finite humans cannot fully comprehend an infinite God, then we would do well to hold our own conceptions of God with humility and with an open hand, lest we become guilty of creating idols in our minds.  The French philosopher Voltaire once observed, “If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.”¹⁸

Ultimately, God is a mystery.  I think that maybe the mystery and otherness of God can be frightening to us.  C.S. Lewis writes that the fear of God is less like the fear of a tiger and more like the fear of a ghost.  If a tiger was in the room, we would be afraid because of what we know about it, but, if a ghost was in the room, we would be afraid because of what we don't know about it.¹⁹  The latter kind of fear is not a totally inappropriate response to God, for we must never let ourselves think that we've figured God out.  That said, I think the conflicting messages we hear about God can be a source of anxiety.  Some people speak only of God's grace, mercy, and love, while others speak primarily of God's anger and judgment, and the two groups often seem to be at odds with each other.  Whom shall we believe?


God Beside Us

What if the infinite God decided to describe God's self in a way that we finite humans can understand – or perhaps I should say, in a Word we can understand.  What if God somehow left behind the glory of Heaven and took on human flesh and blood to walk beside us?²⁰  What if, in the words of Eugene Peterson, God “moved into the neighborhood” with us?²¹  This is essentially what we learn from an ancient Christian hymn found at the beginning of the Gospel of John.  In it, we read,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...  
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth...  
No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made Him known.²²

The Greek term translated into English as word is logos,²³ which could also be translated as reason, logic, or order.²⁴  It is this word logos that John uses to describe second person of the Trinity, the Son, who is made known to us in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is God Incarnate – God in the flesh.  Brian Zahnd, one of my favorite preachers, likes to say, “God is like Jesus.  God has always been like Jesus.  There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.  We have not always known what God is like – but now we do.”²⁵  When we are confused and frightened by the conflicting messages we hear about God, we are invited to look to Jesus and see what God is truly like.

The Church teaches us that Christ is fully God and, at the same time, fully human.  In the Gospels, He is called both Son of God and Son of Man.  In Christ, we see that God is fully capable of empathizing with us, for we know that God has actually walked a mile in our shoes.  In Christ, we know that God has experienced the beauty, the messiness, and even the pain of being human.²⁶  To say that Christ is fully human is to say that He entered fully into the human experience, but it is not to say that He is just like us.²⁷  According to the creation poem at the very beginning of the Bible, God created humanity in God's own Image.²⁸  To be human is to bear the Image of God, but the divine Image we bear has been distorted by our sin.²⁹  Christ, who perfectly bears the Image of God, came to Earth as part of a divine plan to save a broken creation, and part of His mission was to show us how to be fully human.  Interestingly, in the Common English Bible, whenever Jesus would refer to Himself as the Son of Man in other translations of the Bible, He calls Himself the Human One, reminding us that He is the one who is truly human.


God Within Us

In the Gospel of John, Jesus said to the Disciples, on the evening before He was arrested, tried, and crucified, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.”³⁰  Different translations of the Bible use different words to describe the divine Presence the Father will send on the Son's behalf.  The New Revised Standard Version uses the word advocate; the older King James Version uses the word comforter; and the more recent Common English Bible uses the word companion.  The original Greek word used to describe this Presence is paraklētos, which describes someone “called to one's side.”  Alternately, it could mean “counselor,” “intercessor,” or simply “helper.”³¹  Jesus told the Disciples that this “Paraclete” will dwell within them.³²  He was referring, of course, to the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus told the Disciples that the Holy Spirit will remind them of everything He has already taught them and that the Holy Spirit will continue to teach them.³³  He later said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth...”³⁴  Jesus, by His own admission, did not teach the Disciples everything they needed to know, but He promised them that the Spirit would continue to teach them after He returned to the Father.

The Holy Spirit will empower the Disciples to do what Jesus commissions them to do.  In the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus says to the Disciples just before He ascends to Heaven, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”³⁵  Ten days later, while the Disciples are gathered together in their meeting place, they hear the sound of a mighty wind.  Suddenly tongues of fire appear in the room and land upon each of them.  The Disciples then run into the street, speaking languages they did not previously know, and a crowd of people from many different nations gathers around them to hear their message.³⁶  That day of Pentecost, which we commemorated last Sunday, is sometimes called the “birthday of the Church,” and the same Holy Fire that appeared that day has mobilized the Church ever since.


The Image of God

If human beings do indeed bear the Image of God, then perhaps the Trinity teaches us not only who God is, but also who we are.  When Jesus taught the Disciples to pray, He taught them to address God as “our Father in heaven.”³⁷  We are all beloved children of the Father; the Son provides us the definitive example of what it means to live into our identities as children of God; and the Holy Spirit empowers us to do so.  Perhaps the Trinity also reveals something about who we are collectively.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus prayed that those who follow Him may be one with each other as He and the Father are one.³⁸  The Trinity is three Persons yet one God.  Similarly the Church is many individuals yet one “body.”

St. Paul uses some fascinating metaphors in his letters to describe the Church.  He writes that the Church is the Body of Christ, meaning that individual followers of Christ work together like parts of a body, of which Christ is the head.³⁹  In the words attributed to St. Teresa of Avila,

Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world.  Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people.

Paul also writes that the Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit of God dwells within us and among us.⁴⁰  As the Church, we are commissioned by Christ to carry on His work by making disciples and passing along His teachings, and we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do what we have been commissioned to do.


The Trinity teaches us that, though God is ultimately beyond human comprehension, God is, by no means, distant from humanity.  As Jesus says to the Disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”⁴¹  God reigns above us as our Creator, Lord, and Parent in ways we cannot even begin to understand.  God came to walk beside us, stepping into our experience and showing us how to live.  God dwells within us, guiding us, empowering us, and sustaining us day by day.  The Trinity also teaches us who we are.  We are children of the Father who are empowered by the Spirit to become more like the Son and to carry on His work in the world.

Thanks be to God.


Notes:

1. Matthew 28:1-10
2. Matthew 28:16-20 (NRSV)
3. Matthew 3:13-17 (NRSV)
4. Matthew 28:18-20 (NRSV)
5. Wikipedia: “Trinity”
6. Wikipedia: “Nicene Creed”
7. Quotes were taken from the Nicene Creed as printed in The United Methodist Hymnal.  no. 880
8. Wikipedia: “Sabellianism”
9. Wikipedia: “Tritheism”
10. Wikipedia: “Shema”
11. Deuteronomy 6:4 (NKJV)
12. From “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” by Thomas Chisholm
13. Isaiah 55:8-9 (NRSV)
14. Job 38:4-5 (NRSV)
15. Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 (NRSV)
16. Exodus 20:4-6
17. Exodus 32:1-5
18. Wikiquote: “Voltaire”
19. C.S. Lewis.  The Problem of Pain.  ch. 1
20. Philippians 2:5-7
21. John 1:14 (The Message)
22. John 1:1, 14, 18 (NRSV)
23. Blue Letter Bible: “Logos”
24. Wikipedia: “Logos”
25. Brian Zahnd.  “God Is Like Jesus.”  BrianZahnd.com, 08/11/2011.
26. Hebrews 4:15
27. Peter Rollins.  “Salvation for Zombies.”
28. Genesis 1:27
29. Kenneth L. Carder.  Living Our Beliefs: The United Methodist Way.  2009, Discipleship Resources.  ch. 4-5
30. John 14:15-16 (NRSV)
31. Blue Letter Bible: “paraklētos”
32. John 14:17
33. John 14:25-26
34. John 16:12-13a (NRSV)
35. Acts 1:8 (NRSV)
36. Acts 2:1-11
37. Matthew 6:9 (NRSV)
38. John 17:20-23
39. 1 Corinthians 12:27-28, Colossians 1:18
40. 1 Corinthians 3:16
41. Matthew 28:20 (NRSV)

The image featured in this sermon is public domain.