John 16:12-15 Cluj

There is an old puzzle, about a man who walked ten miles south, then ten miles west, and then ten miles north, and wound up just where he had begun.  How could he do it?  On most maps, this is impossible; he could only walk in a great big letter U.  On most maps, yes -- but what if he were standing at the North Pole?

As a boy in school, I was taught that the angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees, that this was in immutable law of numbers.  But in fact, on the surface of a sphere, the numbers don't add up quite like that.  Indeed, there is an entire world of mathematics -- non-Euclidean geometry, it is called -- in which the numbers add up differently.  (One of its pioneers was born right here in Cluj, Janos Bolyai, after whom the university is named).  The laws and results of this geometry are hard to reconcile with what we thought we knew about the world.  They are strange numbers, to be sure, but they are real numbers.  They add up, and in their own way they describe a reality we cannot always perceive.

Math was never my best subject, yet even I can do the simplest addition.  One plus one equals two; one plus one plus one equals three.  Those are the numbers.   Except, of course, that sometimes the numbers are strange.  Today, Christians all over the world celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity.  Today, we proclaim, with the saints before us, that sometimes one plus one plus one equals -- well, One.

What we really say is that we worship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three names, three distinct persons, who are somehow only one God.  In the words of an old creed, "what the Father is, so is the Son, and so is the Spirit ... uncreated, infinite, and eternal."  Yet there are not three beings who are uncreated and infinite and eternal, but only one.  From the very beginning, this vision of God has ben strange to those who did not share it; no less than the Cross itself, the Trinity has been "a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles."

To those who do not believe, it is a silly medieval idea, hammered out by white-bearded bishops in their secret councils; it is illogical and unreasonable; it is a case of strange, strange numbers. But to Christians, the Holy Trinity is the mystery at God's own heart.  We see it all through the Bible.  In the beginning, when God made us, Scripture does not say "Let me create man in my own image;" it says "Let us create man in our own image."  It says that the Breath of God, the Spirit, was moving over the water; and later, it says that the Word of God, the incarnate Son, was there as well, "that without him was not one thing created."  When the Son is baptized in the Jordan river, we hear a voice from heaven, and behold the Spirit com ing down like a dove.  And on the eve of his betrayal, Jesus tried to describe it, in the words of our lesson today:  "When the Spirit [... comes], he will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine."  They work together; no, more than that -- they are together, permanently, one being: the Father, Son, and Spirit.

There wasn't always a feast, or even a name.  The word "Trinity" doesn't appear in the Bible; it was first used by the brilliant African theologian, Tertullian, in the second century.  A thousand years later, when somebody proposed to the Pope that he declare a feast, he declined, saying that when Christians gather, their worship always celebrates the Trinity.  And indeed we do; our service begins and ends in the Name of the Trinity, which is our beginning and our ending too.  This is the Name which we remember when we trace the Cross of Christ upon our hearts, the Name in which we baptize.

That, for me, is the most important part.  This is the Name in which we have been saved from death; this is the Name by which we have been set apart for eternal life.  This is the name we bless, and in which we have been blessed:  the mysterious, obscure, but beautiful and perfect Name of God.

Years ago, our brother Anthonysteel was washed with water and the Name of the Trinity.  His baptism, like yours or mine, was a gift from God, a permanent blessing which will never be taken away, and which need never be repeated.  But like many Christians, he has grown in faith since then, deepened his understanding of what it means to be a child of God.  So he comes among us today, as we gather around the waters of life, to affirm his baptism, to be confirmed and upheld in his faith, to receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This is a chance for all of us, whether we were baptized just last week, or so long ago that we cannot remember it, and must trust the story told us by our parents.  This is a chance for all of us to affirm our faith, to return in our hearts to the fountain of life, which is not in any case a bowl of water, but rather the eternal Word of God.

So let us turn together, toward God the Three-in-One, toward God the One-in-Three.  Let us turn to the strange numbers, the hidden depths, the secrets beyond our mere human wisdom. Let us turn, even if we do not fully understand, and affirm with saints and angels the mystery of God.  Amen.