Holy
Trinity Sunday
May
26, 2013
Romans
5:1-5
Today
is Holy Trinity Sunday. It is a day in which we celebrate God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, simultaneously three in one and one in
three. But as the confirmation students
learned this winter, trying to understand how God can be three in one and one
in three is like trying to make muddy water clearer by adding more mud. It’s difficult and there are a lot of pit
falls until we, at last, throw our hands up in the air and proclaim that the
Trinity is one of the Holy mysteries that we need to take on faith.
So
I decided that maybe spending 8 to 12 minutes mudding the waters with the
concept of the Trinity and dabbling with a couple of heresies was not the best
idea.
Instead,
I want to talk about hope. More
specifically, hope that comes from suffering.
On
February 23, 1945, an iconic photograph was taken on the island of Iwo Jima. It captured five United States Marines and a
Navy corpsman raising an American flag on the top of Mount Suribachi after the
mountain was captured at the beginning of the battle of Iwo
Jima during World War II. Despite the raising of the flag being a
symbol of victory, the battle of Iwo Jima
would continue on about another month as part of a greater island hopping
campaign. However, the capture of Mount Suribachi
and the raising of the American flag brought hope to the soldiers whose ranks
had suffered and would continue to suffer significant casualties.
As
we observe Memorial Day this weekend, we do so keeping in mind the sacrifice of
the men and women who have served this country in the military, many having
given life and limb so that we could enjoy the freedoms that we have as
citizens of this nation. For many,
though, this long weekend has become a time for vacation rather than a time of
honoring those who have given their lives for the sake of country.
I’m
almost ashamed to admit that I never knew, until recently, that Memorial Day
was originally a day set aside to decorate the graves of those who served in
the military. We did attend Memorial Day
ceremonies as kids and as a brownie, we marched in the Memorial Day parade, but
that was about the extent of honoring the original intent of the day as we got. We jumped straight from suffering to hope…and
for kids who didn’t get out of school until the middle of June, Memorial Day
became a precursor of what was to come when summer vacation finally arrived two
weeks later.
It’s
the process of getting from suffering to hope that we need to remember,
however, if we are able to properly honor the day…to properly honor the
sacrifice of war veterans, of teachers who stand in the way of gun men and
tornadoes to protect their students, of first responders who come to the aid of
victims of terrorist attacks.
I
wonder, though, how Paul’s words to the Romans sound to us in the days after
EF-5 tornadoes, terrorist attacks, and an increase in the visibility of
intentional and accidental gun violence.
“We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces
endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces
hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”
Now, this sounds like it would be a good verse for an athlete training
for a race or an athletic event. The
training can be painful, but the more you train, the greater the endurance,
which causes a change in character, and from this comes the hope that the
sporting event will be completed without injury or too much soreness. But what about when you’ve just come through
a traumatic event such an EF-5 tornado having lost everything, possibly even a
loved a one? Or in the moments right
after a cancer diagnosis? or when viewing images of a blood soaked street
corner in London? Or hearing the number of
soldiers and civilians dead in war zones?
Do
we even want to hear these words of Paul to the Romans?
It’s
in these moments that it’s most tempting to jump right from suffering to hope,
from pain to full recovery.
But
the reality of life is that it is not pain free. The reality is that wars break out, tornadoes
destroy, cancer develops, accidents happen, pain and mourning and suffering are
a part of our existence. And in the
midst of suffering it can be difficult to see relief that is present on the
other side. It can seem impossible for
rejoicing to happen and for hope to be sensed on the other side.
However,
it was to a suffering community that Paul was writing. The Christians in Rome
were living in a time where the taxes were high, oppression was carried out by
the Roman military, and social pressure to worship the emperor instead of God
was high. Paul wanted to give these
Christians in Rome encouragement in the midst
of their suffering. And that is why it is important that this verse does not
stand on its own.
“Therefore,”
he writes “since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace
in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of
God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing
that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and
character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been
given to us.”
In
the midst of the suffering that we experience at various points in life, we
also have the promise of peace BECAUSE our relationship with God is made right
through our Lord Jesus Christ. And this
is not of our own doing that we are made right with God, rather, it is the gift
which comes from God that gives us hope in sharing the glory of God. Paul tells us that we can boast in this,
though a better translation may be that we can rejoice in this hope we have in
sharing the glory of God. And it is
because of this hope in sharing the glory of God that we can rejoice in the
midst of suffering, because the suffering itself cannot put an end to our
rejoicing.
It
is the spirit of peace and hope that allows us to move from suffering to
endurance to character and finally to hope…a hope which does not disappoint us
because it is a result of the love that God has poured out into us through the
Holy Spirit.
But
the question arises in the moment suffering happens…where is God when bad
things happen? Where was God when the bombs
went off in Boston? Where was God when the
children were killed in Newtown? Where was God when Moore, Oklahoma
was hit by a tornado for the 4th time since 1999 and two elementary
schools were destroyed? Where is God
when war breaks out and claims the lives of soldiers and civilians?
These
questions have been asked for a long time…but they stem from another question,
where was God when Jesus was on the cross?
And
the answer is this: on the cross, where the suffering of God met the suffering
of humans, God was both absent and fully present. It may sound funny, but it’s true. Jesus felt the absence of God as he cried out
from the cross “my God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” and yet, God’s
presence was felt by Jesus when he commended his spirit into God’s hands before
his death.
This
simultaneous absence and presence that Jesus experienced is the same as what is
experienced when tragedy happens. God is
absent from the tornadoes, the bombs, the acts of violence and terrorism, the
cancer. And yet God is fully present in the teachers, the first responders, the
doctors and nurses, all who come to the aid of those in need. And as a community this physical embodiment
of the love of God is what brings us hope in the midst of suffering.
A
group of brothers banded together in the island hopping campaign of World War
II and brought hope to those around them by raising and American flag and
signaling victory in the midst of great casualties. On the cross, a man gave his life for the
world and brought hope to those around him and those who had yet to come by
being victorious over death and suffering, giving us access to the grace of God
and faith in God and bringing us hope to rejoice despite suffering, remembering
that suffering does not have the last word. Hope does.
