The miracle of miracles

Amongst the clergy, Trinity Sunday is traditionally the day when they would rather not preach.  And If you were lucky enough to have a curate then you’d give them the task!

The reason is that on the face of it the idea that one can be three and three can be one is so complicated and counter intuitive that it is beyond rational explanation.  Well I’m paid to have a go in any case so here goes. God may be beyond all adequate explanation......

........But then so is a human being! And as it says in Genesis that we are made in the image of God then perhaps we can look at ourselves to get some insight.

We all of us have consciousness. We are alive. We are something rather than nothing. Where does that life force come from and what is it? This first fact about our very existance is beyond scientific study. Consciousness is still a mystery.

The former professor of theoretical physics at Cambridge university John Polkinghorne, now an Anglican priest wrote once that “about 11 billion years ago all creation, us included, was nothing but a chemical soup. The greatest miracle in the universe is that billions of years later a part of that soup came alive, became conscious, and gained an intelligence so great that we could examine the universe in which we find ourselves and know that we were all once chemical soup!” This is the miracle of miracles.

This consciousness of ours is not disembodied. We have a physical presence in the world. Our consciousness is embodied. We have hands and feet and eyes and ears.

And what links those two things together is our will, our intelligence – that which guides and directs these bodies of ours as to how to act.  We are one but we have three aspects to our existance

So with God.

The Father is the sourceless source of all things, the creator, the first cause, the source of all life and consciousness. It is to this source that all our prayers are directed, as Jesus taught us....”Our Father, who art in heaven”

Physical creation is the result, the outworking of that primal consciousness

And the Spirit was the creative wisdom, the word, that was there with the Father in the beginning that caused this physical universe to come into being.

Christians believe that Jesus was the “word made flesh.”  The Greek word Logos which which we translate “Word” can mean simply “word” or it can mean “wisdom” or it can also encompass “meaning” We can say Jesus was the “word made flesh” because we believe that in Jesus we have the perfect human response to  the Father’s Spirit. His body, his will and his actions were in perfect accord with God so he attracted the title “Son of God”.

Our job as Christians is to do likewise, to seek the Spirit of God and so grow into a Christ-like response to his spirit as modelled for us by Jesus Christ.

This is what we are doing here. Opening our hearts to the guiding Spirit of God who speaks to us in many and various ways. He speaks as a still small voice within, he can speak to us through scripture, He can speak to us through music, beauty, science, He can speak to us through sacraments and prayer.  He can speak to us through other people and he can speak through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

In order to hear, we need to be listening. Let’s resolve to open our ears and our hearts to God’s prompting. Let us try to see and hear God in nature, in each other this morning, in scripture, in communion, and in the life of Jesus.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.