Trinity Sunday Year A
2 Corinthians 13:5-14
Matthew 28:16-20
Central Idea: God is the foundation of a perfect community.
THREE-IN-ONE
Bro. Jeremiah Fuentes
Today is known to be the Trinity Sunday in which, we are celebrating the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. In other words, it is in this Sunday that we are commemorating the most essential part of our Christian doctrine – The Doctrine of Trinity. Allow me then to entitle my sermon THREE-IN-ONE. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen!
Our Gospel that we heard while ago is very fitting of what we are celebrating today, because it mainly talks about the great commissioning of the Disciples of Jesus Christ. He commissioned them "to go and make more disciples to all nations and baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (vv. 19-20). Jesus makes used of the authority that He receive from the Father, to commission His disciples in building a perfect community where He Himself is the head. Above all, He commanded the disciples to baptize the people using the Trinitarian formula or what we call (In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) because; He wanted that all people who will become His followers be grounded with the faith, the love and the hope of the Triune God.
What is Triune God by the way? Speaking of Triune God or Holy Trinity it is the doctrine of the Christian Church that speaks about the nature of God were our faith as Christian is being anchored.
This doctrine has been stipulated in the Creed used in the Christian Churches especially our beloved Iglesia Filipina Independiente as we profess and declare our faith. We believe that there are three persons but in one God. This means that we have only one God, who revealed Himself in three distinct natures: Father as the creator, Son as the redeemer and the Holy Spirit as sustainer and giver of life. Let us consider the first revelation of God as Father the creator. The Father is the one who created all things in heaven and earth and of all seen and unseen. In our first reading from the book of Genesis, it is clearly depicted how God created the world, that in the beginning, it was formless and empty and God give life to it. Second, God the Son as redeemer. After the Father created everything, He called the people to be the steward of His creation, yet He saw the wickedness and sinfulness of the people. However, because of His great love to His creation and hoping to maintain the beauty of His creation He incarnated and revealed Himself through Jesus Christ to save the sinfulness of the world through His life, His sufferings, His death, and on His glorious resurrection. Third, God the Holy Spirit, the sustainer of one's life, which means that Holy Spirit is the one who maintain, strengthen, protect and guide our lives. He restores unity of God with His people and promotes new and higher levels of unity between God and the world. This revelation of God creates a perfect relationship of the three persons in the Trinity. Although, it reveals three times in the history, yet, we must understand it as the revelation of the One True God.
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord, from this simple presentation we also glance the mystery of our God who revealed Himself in three persons. This doest not mean that God the Father is more powerful than God the Son and or God the Son is more powerful than Holy Spirit because primarily they are one, who inherits the same power and authority.
Even though, trinity is always remain a mystery, yet we are challenge to live out this doctrine in our very own lives so that we can be truly Christ disciples who work in building a perfect community. Perhaps you will ask me on how to do these? Do you want to know? Please listen to me I will tell you how? Well…for us to be part in fulfilling this perfect community we need to have this three letters "DPP". It does not mean Diocesan Programs and Projects but rather it signifies Dependent, Purity and Perseverance.
Let us take first the word Dependent. We all know that God is the ultimate source of our lives. He can see us in everything we do and He knows our daily needs. He knows everything on us even the number of hairs that we have in our head. These are only vivid manifestations that we can do nothing without Him. Moreover, as creation of God, we are relying to His guidance, to His protection and to His many manifold blessings that we can use in our daily existence. Therefore, we should commend our whole life in Him by serving Him wholeheartedly for the rest of our lives. But the question is, are we ready to commend our whole life to the Lord? Are we ready to serve others especially to those who are needy for the sake of the Lord? It is the time to examine ourselves for us to response this call. Second is Purity, which means the wholesomeness of our life before God and of the eyes of the people because God is expecting much of us to posses this nature or attitude, considering that we are His children by virtue of our baptism. We all know that we are already purified through the blood that flowed out from the body of Jesus Christ when He was crucified and died on the cross. Nevertheless, considering that we are only human beings whom prone to commit sin, we need to pray for His guidance so that we will be directed to come into His fold and allowing Him to reign in our lives amidst of being sinful so that we will be purified again and to live according to His will. This is the idea of the second letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians which says "We are glad whenever we are weak but you are strong our prayer is for your perfection." (2 Cor. 13:9). Besides, this text is reminding us to have sincerity and transparency of all our deeds to make us clean and pure before God. We must keep doing good deeds, because this is the best thing, which please, to the Lord. This very moment, God knocks the door of our hearts to enshrine His message for us to response it positively. Third is Perseverance, which also means upholding our whole life in doing our respective obligation to the Lord so that we will live christianly or the righteous way. God mandated us to become obedient in Him and to believe on His Gospel not only in time that we want to, but in all the time until the end of our life. It is in this way that we can show to the Lord that we are worthy enough to become His disciples who are willing to do what He wants us to do even putting ourselves in danger just for doing God's command. In addition, He wanted us all not to be tired in doing our mission He has given us but rather to do it with love, humility and compassion.
May the Triune God will continue to fill us with the grace of His Holy Spirit in order to guide us and bless us in all the way of our lives so that we will be able to continue in working on His vineyard for the fulfillment of His Kingdom.
Submitted by: Bro. Jeremias A. Fuentes
B.Th. II
Submitted to: Rev. Fr. Christopher N. Ablon
Instructor
Homiletics 222
March 21, 2008
SPTS, La Paz , Iloilo City
GOD BLESS!
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