Trinity Sunday

Exhilaration and Awe
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29

I think I’ve shared with you before a comment I remember one of my professors at seminary made: If you think you understand or can explain the Trinity, your understanding is almost certainly heresy. False doctrine. If you are thinking to your self right now… “I’ve always thought about the Trinity this way…” Your idea is almost certainly heresy. On the other hand, if you’re thinking… “The Trinity is beyond my feeble brain to comprehend; I’ll just put the whole idea aside…” That’s probably apostacy. The deliberate abandonment of religion. Our God is a Triune God. To put aside the Trinity is to put aside God.

If your thoughts about the Trinity are along the lines of… “It’s a wondrous, dynamic mystery, and I fall down in worship…” That’s a good place to start.

The collect for Trinity Sunday encourages us to hold faith in the glory of the Trinity and worship the unity.

Worship. We are definitely called to worship the God who is one-in-three and three-in-one. As I’ve been thinking about worship the last few days, I’m carrying this description of worship: an experience of exhilarated awe. It’s something we do, but it’s also something we experience. And that experience is full of exhilaration and awe.

There is, of course, a general definition of the word worship, and it can be used in all sorts of settings. The dictionary definition is worship is “the act of ascribing value.” We worship those things that we see as having value in our lives. To ascribe value is to worship. Thus it is that the Bears, or nature, or materials goods. We worship the things that have value for us. Some of those things are more worthy of our worship than others.

One of my theology textbooks defines religious worship as: “The conscious turning of the attention towards God in an attitude of praise and thanksgiving.” It is also something we do to restore right relationship with God.

Both of the Old Testament readings appointed for Trinity Sunday—the reading from Isaiah and the Psalm—talk about worship.

I love the reading from Isaiah. It paints such a lively, dynamic picture. Imagine the prophet standing at the door of the temple and peaking in. And seeing, not a kind and welcoming vision of Christ like he would see here (although that’s a good thing, of course), but seeing the awesome mystery of God.

His vision is almost beyond imagination and description. But it is also located in a real time and a real place. In the temple in Jerusalem. In the year that King Uzziah died. God is present within the time and space of our human lives.

It was an awesome vision. The hem of God’s robe filled the temple. Seraphs sang and danced and flew and worshiped. The building shook and filled with smoke.

At least in my imagination, this would have been an exhilarating experience—to witness the power and majesty of God. And a humbling experience, too, restoring a right relationship of humility before God.

And then there’s the psalm. The psalmist uses that word ascribe a lot. Probably not a word we use often in everyday speech. It means acknowledge… grant to God. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength… Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his Name. Acknowledge the Lord’s glory and strength in your own life.

And then the psalmist describes the Lord’s power. Certainly a power beyond our control.

The God of glory thunders.
The voice of the Lord is powerful and full of splendor.
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees.
He makes Lebanon skip like a calf and Mount Hermon like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord splits the flames of fire.
The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness.
The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees write and strips the forests bare.

 I’m reminded of something Annie Dillard says somewhere. Instead of wearing our Sunday best to church, we should wear hard hats and flack jackets. Keep this images of God’s power in mind and come to worship with eyes wide, mouth gaping, heart racing before the glory and power of the Lord.

The power of God, the psalmist reminds us, is beyond our control. (Annie Dillard—hardhats to worship). Keep these images in mind. Stand with eyes wide, mouth gaping, heart racing.

Worship is an experience of exhilarating awe.

Isaiah reminds us of one more very important aspect of worship. The prophet is changed by his encounter with the glory of God. He is given his prophetic voice.

Everyone who participates in worship should expect to be touched and changed.