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Trinity Sunday

John 16
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”


I suppose a summer sermon is as good a time as any to reveal the secrets of preaching school.

Everything, it seems, began with an E. First was elocution, literally teaching us how to speak. And that was only after learning how to breathe, among the more valuable things I learned at school.

Then there was exegesis, learning to read the Bible seriously but not literally. Exegetes—those who practice exegesis—learn how to explain without explaining away, an important skill when you’re handling words of life.

And then there was equivalence, specifically dynamic equivalence, retelling the passage in a language that makes the passage more comprehensible to a modern audience. Fans of The Message, a modern language version of the Bible written by the late Eugene Peterson, already know how dynamic equivalence works—substituting words and phrases that we might use today in order to make the meaning plain.

So, as an example, here is the first verse from our passage: “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.” The first thing that comes to mind is “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth,” but that might be a bit much. Anyway, I think you can see how it works, so let’s try an updated version of our passage:

I could tell you, but I don’t think you could handle it. But the Spirit of truth is coming, and all will be revealed. He won’t speak for himself: instead, he’ll pass on what he hears and what he’s told is coming. The Spirit will be my spokesperson, and honour me through the words spoken. God and I are sympatico—and what I say to the Spirit will be passed on to you.

It’s actually something you can do at home. If you are struggling to make sense of a reading, simply imagine a way to update the language or say it in another way. And it’s particularly helpful for reading John’s Gospel or the letters of St. Paul. So, not exactly earth-shattering as preaching secrets go, but it does help us unlock those words of life.

So what is this information that they couldn’t handle, maybe above their pay grade, to be shared on a strict need-to-know basis? The verses that immediately follow our passage reveal the secret, and don’t seem to require translation, since the emotion is so raw:

16 Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”
17 At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18 They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”

In his response, Jesus repeats “you will see me no more” again, to a total of four times in the passage, a sure signal that we’re at the heart of the matter. Jesus has been trying to prepare them for his death for a number of chapters, and also trying to signal something else: “then after a little while you will see me.”

In other words, you can spare them a bit of sympathy, with the Master pressing them to comprehend the incomprehensible. ‘You will see me no more and then you will see me’ is just another way of saying Easter for us, but to the disciples it clearly made no sense.

So it becomes a secret to be revealed. And the secret will require the Spirit of Truth for revealing, speaking on Jesus behalf, sharing words from God—and generally making comprehensible the incomprehensible. In other words, Pentecost. So, in effect, Jesus is describing Easter, Pentecost and the future of the church of God under the direction of the Spirit, all without saying those exact words.

Jesus is describing the church of God under the direction of the Spirit. If you are just now thinking what I’m thinking, you might be thinking that this sounds a lot like the Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Said another way, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Whatever language you choose, it seems that the other secret Jesus was revealing to his disciples was the relationship between the Sacred Three.

So listen again to our passage, but this time listen with your Trinity hat on, and ponder the way these Three interact:

The Spirit of truth is coming, and all will be revealed. He won’t speak for himself: instead, he’ll pass on what he hears and what he’s told is coming. The Spirit will be my spokesperson, and honour me through the words spoken. God and I are sympatico—and what I say to the Spirit will be passed on to you.

God in Jesus formulates the message and the Spirit speaks. The Spirit will share the words we need to hear, revealing the truth and the truth to come. Jesus will be honoured through the Spirit, and you will get a glimpse of heaven through the words shared. Three persons, each with a role, are each an expression of the same divinity, blessed Trinity.

Speaking of the Trinity, my friend and colleague, the Rev. Connie den Bok, shared a helpful insight some years ago, with a built-in challenge to the church. She said that each major expression of the Christian church—Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal—tends to gravitate to particular Person of the Trinity. In this way it becomes definitional, expressing who we are and how we meet the world.

So, for Roman Catholics, it’s Jesus, particularly his passion, and his place at the table, the centre of their life together. Even the structure of the church highlights the second person of the Trinity: a succession of apostles beginning with Peter, selected by Jesus as the rock on which he builds the church.

For Pentecostals the emphasis is on the Spirit, specifically being baptised by the Holy Spirit of Pentecost. The tradition’s emphasis is in the name: receiving the Spirit, personal conversion, and speaking in tongues. The story of this tradition requires more time, but it’s worth noting that something that started on Azuza Street in Los Angeles in April of 1906 now has over 500 million adherents worldwide.

And what about us, the mainline Protestants of the Methodist and Presbyterian variety? We tend to focus on God, in our prayers and liturgy, in the hymns we sing and the words we share. In the United Church, our Book of Worship is called “Celebrate God’s Presence,” which pretty much sums up the focus of the mainline Protestant church.

I share all this on Trinity Sunday to highlight the need for balance. This was the point Connie’s analysis—that we are not well-served by staying in our lane. We need to “lift high the cross” like our Catholic friends, and celebrate that the cross is the means by which we are redeemed. We need to live under the guidance of the Spirit, the “wind who makes all winds that blow”—the spirit of Pentecost constantly pushing us toward the next expression of church. And we need to celebrate God’s presence, all the while remembering that ‘God in Jesus formulates the message and the Spirit speaks.’

The Spirit of truth is coming, and all will be revealed. We live in the hope that God will renew the church, through the reconciling love of Jesus and in the spirit of Pentecost: breathing new life into all of us, Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 4:49 AM