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June 3, 2007

Triune

Preacher: Pastor Braun Campbell Category: Biblical

Festival of the Holy Trinity
"Triune"

Each weekend, our worship services focus on a particular theme, an aspect of our identity as Christians, people who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ. This first weekend after Pentecost marks the Festival of the Holy Trinity, and you may notice that our readings from Scripture, our hymns and prayers - even the sermon - should work together to help us all to focus on who the Triune God is and what He does.

I'm wearing glasses this week as a result of a visit to the optometrist. Nothing really out of the ordinary there: I was running low on the contact lenses that I usually wear to correct my vision, and it'd been over a year since my last eye exam. It'd been even longer since I'd last gotten a pair of glasses, so the doctor gave me a new prescription. I thought I'd try the glasses out for a couple of days as a change of pace, but I noticed that something seemed to be a bit off on one side. When I went back in to the optometrist's office, they said that everything seemed to be in order - but that the effect that I'd noticed was coming from the glasses correcting astigmatism, so I should keep wearing the glasses for another week or so. The lenses are working to correct my focus.

That problem - flawed focus - seems to pop up in other aspects of life. In school or at work, it can be difficult to really just focus on one thing when there are so many distractions in life. There always seem to be other tasks that require our attention, competing for our focus. Our vision can be blurred when we try to focus on to many things at once, or when we focus on the wrong point. Life gets confusing and we start to feel disoriented. Flawed focus can lead to headaches and dizziness, when the world starts to feel like it's spinning out of control. And if we spend much time or effort trying to move closer to the wrong focal point, we end up wasting our energy and getting run down.

One of the highlights of this weekend's worship comes in the form of the Athanasian Creed, which we'll be speaking together as our confession of faith in a short while. (If you'd like a sneak peek, you can turn to page 54 in Lutheran Book of Worship.) This is one of what we call the three ecumenical creeds, brief statements of what we confess - what we proclaim. When we express our faith in the words of the creeds, we are telling what we, along with Christians from across time and space, believe about God. The creeds are not Scripture, but they faithfully express what Scripture teaches. Like lenses, they can help to focus our vision. They set out sight on the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and what He has done and still does to save us from our flawed focus.

The Athanasian Creed is the longest of the three, which is probably one of the reasons that we only use it once a year in our worship services. Its length owes to its subject matter. Unlike the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the Athanasian Creed goes into some detail about who the Triune God is. "Triune" means "Three in One." The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three Persons, but one God, coeternal and coequal. Not three gods, but one God. This initial focus of the creed is on the relationship of the Persons and the divine nature. This is the God who loves us and has revealed Himself to us in His Word. In its brief paragraphs, this creed touches upon concepts that Garrison Keillor might say are most often considered by the doctors of the church and Lutheran confirmation students.

Ultimately, though, the Athanasian Creed focuses on the Triune God as has He has revealed Himself to us, His creatures: in our Lord Jesus Christ, both true God and true man. He is the one who takes our blurry vision, our flawed focus, and restores our sight. When we've become dizzy and disoriented in our sin, he is the one who stops the world from spinning all out of control be anchoring it with his cross. Faith that is focused on Jesus, as this creed confesses, saves us and brings us to eternal life.

As a congregation, we are being called to focus. This weekend, the members of our congregation have an opportunity to return their pledges for the Building God's Vision for Tomorrow capital campaign. As Pastor Meehan pointed out in the sermon a few weeks ago, this campaign intends to support our work together, as expressed in our new mission and vision statements. Although its initial goal is to raise the funds required to purchase new land and new facilities, the focus on the campaign is much greater. Just as we talked about one week ago at Pentecost, the mission that our Triune God has given to His Church is to tell the Good News: this is the ultimate focus of Building God's Vision for Tomorrow. We are to manage our time, efforts, and resources - including our church property and facilities - for the benefit of all those who need to hear the Gospel message. This is not merely about new land and new buildings but about using all that we've been given to proclaim that free gift of grace in the crucified, risen, and ascended Messiah, Jesus.

As we confess our faith in the words of the Athanasian Creed, may God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, focus us as His people.

Amen.