Last week Don preached on Pentecost with Holy Spirit interrupting the world. Today for Trinity Sunday we hear about the Holy Spirit, the friend, the advocate coming to be with the disciples. Jesus will soon leave, and the disciples will be persecuted and martyred. But Jesus will send the Spirit of Truth to be with them.
Have you ever taken a friend or family member with you to a doctor appointment? You invite them for moral support and to be another set of ears; to ask questions and advocate for you, especially when you are dealing with a new and possibly life threatening diagnosis. A diagnosis you never thought would be given to you. Hearing the doctor can be almost impossible above the chatter of fear and panic. You are so grateful to have a dear friend with you in that moment, to lean on, to cry with, and to walk the journey together. It is hard to hear in those moments, hard to understand what is being said because it will alter your life. The disciples could not hear what Jesus was telling them, because it would alter their life, so Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to help them hear, understand, and live in this new reality without Jesus’ physical presence. The Holy Spirit became the friend in the doctor’s office.
On my way to my preaching conference two weeks ago, I had lunch with my college roommate who is a doctor. She has been introducing me to functional medicine, training she took beyond medical school that sees health in a more holistic way. It seeks to restore a body to health, resetting its original functionality. By contrast, traditional medicine focuses on treating symptoms. You have an infection you get an antibiotic. You have pain and you get a prescription for pain. Functional medicine treats the cause of the symptoms, not just the symptoms. For years I have been taking anti-inflammatory medicine for a stomach issue, but was never offered a solution to address the cause of the inflammation. Functional medicine gave me an alternative which is starting to heal my stomach. Giving my system what it needs to become healthy rather than simply trying to manage symptoms.
Traditional is the way things have always been done, the way we usually do things. Functional is more about how something operates or functions. Traditional and functional might also be terms we use as we think about the trinity. Traditionally we think of the Trinity as three in one; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Scriptures, baptism, our prayers all declare this three part reality of God. I love the Father, Son, relational nature of God, drawing us into a closer connection. Through Jesus you and I are intimately connected to this powerful being, one we call Father. Here, the Father begets the Son meaning they are of the same nature much like we discussed two weeks ago “the fruit does not fall too far from the tree.” In addition, the Spirit proceeds from the Father, comes from God moving in and through creation. You see all three aspects of God were there from the beginning, with Spirit, “ruach” in Hebrew, translated as wind blowing over the deep. So Spirit, “ruach”, can also be breath or the life force of creation. I would love to have the live force of creation sitting with me in the doctor’s office.
To get at the functional nature of the trinity I want you to take a deep breath. Breathe in and breathe out. What happens when you breathe? Your diaphragm lowers creating negative air pressure, like a vacuum, which draws air which is outside your body, into your lungs. The molecules are colliding as our lungs take the oxygen they need. Our breathing is an exchange: we take in roughly 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen. We exhale the same 80% nitrogen, but the other 20% has changed. When we breathe in oxygen and use it we create carbon dioxide. So we exhale 15% oxygen and 5% carbon dioxide.
Breathing is a bodily function, a way of doing that works. Functional trinity is seeing how the trinity actually works, or functions, in your life. So compared to the relational Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the functional trinity explains how the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer work in your life. Creator God, designed our very life to depend upon breathing, without it we die. We depend on inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. That miraculous chemical exchange, that movement of air, of Spirit, gives us life. But what we exhale CO2 is toxic, would kill us. In God’s infinite wisdom, God created a world with plants and trees that depend on carbon dioxide, reversing the process we need to continue breathing. God did not just create the world, the world God created is intricately balanced and nuanced so that every part fits together wonderfully. That is a functional Creator.
Jesus is our Redeemer. God sent Jesus to save the world, to be our peace, to forgive our sins. Jesus is the way “God’s love has been pour out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rms. 5). God’s love gets there much like oxygen gets to our blood so that our hearts can pump it. Christ dying, leaving the disciples, created a negative pressure, a vacuum, in need of God. Just like our lungs work on negative air pressure, Christ leaving formed a vacuum for God. Their lungs were starving for breath, for life. So Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, the breath of life, to fill their lungs and our lungs. The Holy Spirit was the new born breath of life for the church and the breath of new life for every person’s lungs gasping for God. So when you hear Redeemer, do not just think of savior from sin, but the one who sent the paramedics with the oxygen you desperately need; the one who saved your life with the breath of life, the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is the redeemer, the paramedic saving your life, giving you life. The Holy Spirit is the sustainer providing the ongoing remedy. Just like air sustains us in life, the Holy Spirit sustains us in God. It is how we feel God’s presence, how we know Christ’s love, how we live our deeply rooted faith. When Jesus was with the disciples revealing God’s love and his teaching, they could not understand fully, not until after the resurrection. That is why Jesus sent his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth to help make sense of what is hard to understand. It is like when you get a diagnosis, you don’t know there is life after until you are on the other side of treatment. Then, you are resurrected into new life. Throughout it all you have leaned on the Holy Spirit, breathed in the Holy Spirit, who sustains you through every difficult moment.
God as creator, redeemer and sustainer shows us how the divine works, functions in your life. That is all dependent on God being three in one, working together in a spiritual dance, flowing in and out like we inhale and exhale air. This relational reality of God is a give and take. The same way God sent Jesus, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes what Jesus taught, becoming the spirit of truth and gives it to us. We join in this dance and we resuscitate the church as we give glory to God. Through this inhale and exhale, this give and take, this breathing of the Spirit, the spirit becomes the spirit of truth in us, we glorify God, three in one.
Your very life is dependent upon the relational and functional reality of the trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit moving together as seamlessly as you inhale and exhale. Creator God balancing a world with plants, plants that need CO2, so you can breathe. Jesus redeeming a world so we can breathe in his love, as freely as you breathe in oxygen. The Spirit of Truth, the breath of genesis, sustaining us in every breath we take. Glory be to the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sustainer. Amen.
