Author: CCW

“How can these things be?”

“How can these things be?” asks Nicodemus, not “what’s in it for me.” Therein lies all the difference, the difference between idolatry and true religion. Trinity Sunday is the great counter to all our idolatries, our idolatries of experience, of the practical and of our minds and imaginations.

There is really something quite wonderful about Nicodemus’ question. “How can these things be?” he asks. It is a real question, not unlike Mary’s question, “how shall this be seeing I know not a man?” A question about the Incarnation, Nicodemus’ question belongs to the Trinity. The two are inseparable; they go together, as John’s marvellous gospel reading makes clear.

What is wonderful about Nicodemus’s question is that he is open to the wonder and the marvel of the revelation of God. He is a learned rabbi in Israel. He comes, not openly, but secretly, by night to Jesus to ask him about the meaning of what he has heard and seen about Jesus. What can it possibly mean to be born again, he wonders? Can a man who is old be born again, literally as it were, from his mother’s womb. His initial perplexity has all of the characteristics of a kind of literalism. Jesus response is really quite wonderful. It is about opening out to him the meaning of the spiritual reality of the living God. Such, we might say, is precisely the mystery of the Trinity.

God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the holy and blessed Trinity. It is the central and most fundamental teaching of the Christian faith. Not just one doctrine among many, it is the central doctrine which gives coherence and credence to all of the other doctrines of the faith, expressed in the Creed.

What makes Nicodemus’s question so powerful is that it is not a subjective question primarily. He is open to the objective reality of Jesus Christ and to the living God who confronts him in Jesus Christ. It is precisely in this way that Trinity Sunday in the classical readings for this day confronts our modern idolatries of experience, of the practical and of the intellectual.

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“There came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind …
and cloven tongues, like as of fire…”

Pentecost. What does it mean? The fiftieth day after Passover, after Easter. What does it signify? In the Christian understanding, it signifies the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples to give birth to the Church.

What? Was there no Church before Pentecost? Yes and no. The Church is present yet hidden in the history of Israel as “the People of God,” a people defined by the Law, the Old Testament or Covenant. The Church is present, too, in the Incarnate Christ of the New Testament. But now, at Pentecost, the Church is present and empowered in a new way. How? By the Descent of the Holy Ghost or Spirit, sent from the Father by the Son, sent by the Father in Jesus’ name. A powerful pedigree and a moving and powerful scene. No Trinity. No Church.

Luke tells us about the event of Pentecost. At once exhilarating and strange, we all catch, I think, something of the ecstatic and experiential wonder of the event. “A sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind,” and “cloven tongues, like as of fire,” lighting and resting upon each of the disciples, inspiring them, it seems, for “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues,” the Spirit giving “them utterance,” it seems. A curious, yet awe-inspiring event. Everyone speaking in other tongues – other languages – but all singing from the same song-sheet, all singing “the wonderful works of God.” Somehow the confused babble of the nations has been converted into a unity of praise. That surely is a marvel. But what, really, are we to make of it? At the time, some thought they were drunk!

Peter, in the passage which immediately follows this morning’s lesson, is quick to respond. “These men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day;” it‘s a long time before happy hour, after all! Yet, it is a curious scene. It seems, well, rather unsettling, and, yet, John tells us in the Gospel that this unsettling Spirit is God the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. Is this what we should expect will happen to us at Pentecost? What does it all mean? What kind of birthday of the Church is this?

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