“God in Three Persons:  A Mystery Revealed”

Matthew 28:16-20

5/18/08


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    Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, and the subject is the Triune God.  So, where do we possibly begin?  As God is infinite, so is the information about Him.  The Athanasian Creed, as long of a creed as it is, only begins to scratch the surface of what there is to know and confess about God.  Even the Bible itself doesn’t give us all there is to know about God.  Certainly, then, neither will a little 15 minute sermon.  
    This is not, of course, to say that we can’t know anything about God, or that what we do know about Him from His Word isn’t enough.  The Apostle John at the end of his Gospel account writes of Jesus that “many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His Name.”  So with the Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, many things could be written abMatthew 28:16-20
“God in Three Persons:  A Mystery Revealed”
    Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, and the subject is the Triune God.  So, where do we possibly begin?  As God is infinite, so is the information about Him.  The Athanasian Creed, as long of a creed as it is, only begins to scratch the surface of what there is to know and confess about God.  Even the Bible itself doesn’t give us all there is to know about God.  Certainly, then, neither will a little 15 minute sermon. 
    This is not, of course, to say that we can’t know anything about God, or that what we do know about Him from His Word isn’t enough.  The Apostle John at the end of his Gospel account writes of Jesus that “many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His Name.”  So with the Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, many things could be written about Him, but what has been written in the Scriptures has been written for our salvation.
    And this is where I think we can begin to talk about the Holy Trinity today - that God has made Himself known to us in His Word as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in order that we might know Him and have life in His Name.  One of the first things we must say in talking about the Holy Trinity is that this article of the Christian faith is not something that Christians made up, but God has given it to us to confess in His Word.  We didn’t invent the Triune God; the Triune God revealed Himself to us.  We don’t tell God who He is; He tells us who He is.  And He’s done this clearly in the Scriptures, in both the Old and New Testaments, although most clearly through His Son, Jesus Christ in the New.  One example from the O.T. is today’s reading from the book of Genesis.  There God, the Word, and the Spirit are all mentioned in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the making of man He says, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness...”  Other examples in the O.T. include Ps. 110 where David says, “The LORD says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand.’”  In Ps. 45 the psalmist says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.  You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows.”  And in the book of Isaiah, the Messiah speaks, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted...”  But it’s Jesus Christ in the N.T. who most clearly reveals God as triune.  In today’s Gospel text the Lord commands His disciples to baptize in the Name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  In the Gospel according to St. John Jesus says that He was sent by the Father, that He and the Father are one, and that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit.  And St. Paul ends his second epistle to the Corinthian congregation with the words, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  These are just but a few of the references to God as triune which are found in the Scriptures.  And though you won’t find the word “Trinity” in the Bible, it is a word that the Church has used for centuries to confess just what the Bible teaches about God - that He is One God in Three Persons.
    As we confess in the Athanasian Creed, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, yet there are not three Gods, but one God.  And the Persons of the the Triune God are no fractions of God, as if the Father were 1/3 God, Jesus were another third, and the Holy Spirit were still another third.  They are all equally the One God, with no one of them being any less infinite, omnipotent, eternal, or glorious than the others.  Now, when I try to teach this in confirmation I often get confused looks.  The confirmands can’t understand this.  How can this be, that the One God exists as three persons, and yet not be three gods?  But I can’t understand this either!  In fact, no one can.  Many have tried.  There are a number of illustrations that people have come up with over the centuries to try to explain the Trinity.  One is the existence of water in a liquid, gas, and solid form.  Another is the existence of man as body, soul, and spirit.  While still another tries to explain the Trinity by saying that the three Persons can be compared to the Speaker (God the Father), the Word (God the Son), and the Hearer (God the Holy Spirit).  This is actually an illustration which Luther used.  The problem with using illustrations to try to explain and understand the Trinity, however, is not only that the analogy always breaks down at some point, but it also assumes that the Trinity can be explained and understood.  When you teach your child about the Trinity, you might get asked the “How?” and “Why?” questions.  But the Scriptures don’t give us the answers to these questions.  They never ask us to explain or understand God; they simply tell us to believe and confess what God says of Himself.  Our fallen, sinful minds cannot grasp many of the things thaMatthew 28:16-20
“God in Three Persons:  A Mystery Revealed”
    Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, and the subject is the Triune God.  So, where do we possibly begin?  As God is infinite, so is the information about Him.  The Athanasian Creed, as long of a creed as it is, only begins to scratch the surface of what there is to know and confess about God.  Even the Bible itself doesn’t give us all there is to know about God.  Certainly, then, neither will a little 15 minute sermon. 
    This is not, of course, to say that we can’t know anything about God, or that what we do know about Him from His Word isn’t enough.  The Apostle John at the end of his Gospel account writes of Jesus that “many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His Name.”  So with the Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, many things could be written about Him, but what has been written in the Scriptures has been written for our salvation.
    And this is where I think we can begin to talk about the Holy Trinity today - that God has made Himself known to us in His Word as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in order that we might know Him and have life in His Name.  One of the first things we must say in talking about the Holy Trinity is that this article of the Christian faith is not something that Christians made up, but God has given it to us to confess in His Word.  We didn’t invent the Triune God; the Triune God revealed Himself to us.  We don’t tell God who He is; He tells us who He is.  And He’s done this clearly in the Scriptures, in both the Old and New Testaments, although most clearly through His Son, Jesus Christ in the New.  One example from the O.T. is today’s reading from the book of Genesis.  There God, the Word, and the Spirit are all mentioned in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the making of man He says, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness...”  Other examples in the O.T. include Ps. 110 where David says, “The LORD says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand.’”  In Ps. 45 the psalmist says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.  You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows.”  And in the book of Isaiah, the Messiah speaks, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted...”  But it’s Jesus Christ in the N.T. who most clearly reveals God as triune.  In today’s Gospel text the Lord commands His disciples to baptize in the Name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  In the Gospel according to St. John Jesus says that He was sent by the Father, that He and the Father are one, and that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit.  And St. Paul ends his second epistle to the Corinthian congregation with the words, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  These are just but a few of the references to God as triune which are found in the Scriptures.  And though you won’t find the word “Trinity” in the Bible, it is a word that the Church has used for centuries to confess just what the Bible teaches about God - that He is One God in Three Persons.
    As we confess in the Athanasian Creed, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, yet there are not three Gods, but one God.  And the Persons of the the Triune God are no fractions of God, as if the Father were 1/3 God, Jesus were another third, and the Holy Spirit were still another third.  They are all equally the One God, with no one of them being any less infinite, omnipotent, eternal, or glorious than the others.  Now, when I try to teach this in confirmation I often get confused looks.  The confirmands can’t understand this.  How can this be, that the One God exists as three persons, and yet not be three gods?  But I can’t understand this either!  In fact, no one can.  Many have tried.  There are a number of illustrations that people have come up with over the centuries to try to explain the Trinity.  One is the existence of water in a liquid, gas, and solid form.  Another is the existence of man as body, soul, and spirit.  While still another tries to explain the Trinity by saying that the three Persons can be compared to the Speaker (God the Father), the Word (God the Son), and the Hearer (God the Holy Spirit).  This is actually an illustration which Luther used.  The problem with using illustrations to try to explain and understand the Trinity, however, is not only that the analogy always breaks down at some point, but it also assumes that the Trinity can be explained and understood.  When you teach your child about the Trinity, you might get asked the “How?” and “Why?” questions.  But the Scriptures don’t give us the answers to these questions.  They never ask us to explain or understand God; they simply tell us to believe and confess what God says of Himself.  Our fallen, sinful minds cannot grasp many of the things that God tells us in His Word, things like the fact that God became Man, or the fact that the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper are Christ’s true body and blood, or the fact that water with God’s Word attached to it washes away our sins and gives us a new birth.  How these things can be we are not told.  That they are are due to God’s almighty power and His Word, which does what it says.  So, when God tells us that He is One God and yet exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we must lay aside our reason, which says this is impossible, and simply confess, “I don’t know how this can be, but your Word, Lord, is true.”  Perhaps in glory we will understand these mysteries a little bit better, but even then we’ll never get to the point where we’ll be able to say, “I now know everything there is to know about God.”
    The Trinity is a mystery.  “The well is deep, and we have nothing with which to draw.”  And yet, what we need to know of this mystery is revealed to us in God’s Word, because according to God it’s important for us to believe and confess for our salvation, even though we don’t understand it and can’t explain it.  To deny the Trinity is to deny God and to call Him a liar; to confess the Trinity is to give God glory and to acknowledge that His Word is true.  But the fact of the Trinity is something that even the devil can assent to.  Even he knows that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Triune God does not reveal Himself to us, in order to give us some interesting information about Himself.  He doesn’t give us His Name, so that we might put Him under a microscope, so to speak, and run scientific experiments on Him.  The Triune God is not simply an object of study nor is He an abstract idea.  He is a personal Being.  He’s the Maker of all things, both visible and invisible, and He’s the One who created us in His image.  And tragically, He’s the One we’ve rebelled against with our sin.  We have offended this Triune God in our thoughts, words, and deeds, both by what we’ve done and by what we’ve left undone.  We have not feared, loved, or trusted Him above all things, and as a result we have broken every one of His commandments.  And for this rebellion of ours this Triune God threatens to punish us.  This Triune God has the power to cast us into hell, and we can do nothing to save ourselves from His judgment.  I Samuel 2:25 reads, “If one man sins against another, God will mediate for him; but if a man sins against the LORD, who can intercede for him?”  The answer to that question is God Himself.
    In Jesus Christ, God as Man intercedes for men before God.  The Triune God is not only our Maker, but He is also our Redeemer.  With the blood of His Son shed on the cross, the Father has purchased and won us from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, so that we might be His own, live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.  In Jesus, God has saved us from God.  Jesus took on God’s wrath on account of our sins upon Himself on the cross, where He made full payment for our redemption.  Only Jesus could do this, because He’s God in the flesh.  Sinless as He was, He was able to perfectly obey God’s commandments for you.  As the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, His blood was able to perfectly atone for your sins.  Sprinkled upon you now at your Baptism, it cleanses you from all sin, so that through Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, you can come into the presence of God the Father and not perish. 
    The Holy Spirit’s work today is to give you Jesus and His gifts through the Word and the Sacraments, so that you can come to the Father, clothed in the righteousness of Christ.  The Triune God is not only our Maker and Redeemer, but He is also our Sanctifier.  As His Name implies, the Holy Spirit makes you holy by delivering the holiness of Jesus to you.  As was mentioned in last week’s sermon, the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ; He speaks of Jesus, crucified for our salvation, so that we might call on His Name and be saved.  Apart from the Holy Spirit we cannot even accept the Scriptures as the Word of God.  We cannot trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, call Him our Lord, or come to Him, apart from the Holy Spirit.  It is through His work that you have come to know the Triune God, or even better, have come to be known by Him, as you have been drawn by the Word to Jesus Christ who reconciled you to the Father with His blood.
    Today, then, we give thanks to God that He has mercifully revealed Himself to us as the Triune God that He is - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We give thanks that He has revealed this Name to us in His Word (both the Word written and the Word enfleshed), that He has revealed this Name to us in His works, especially His work of salvation through His Son, and that it is into this Name that He has baptized us, so that we might know Him as our Maker, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, and that knowing Him we might have eternal life in His Name.  Amen.
t God tells us in His Word, things like the fact that God became Man, or the fact that the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper are Christ’s true body and blood, or the fact that water with God’s Word attached to it washes away our sins and gives us a new birth.  How these things can be we are not told.  That they are are due to God’s almighty power and His Word, which does what it says.  So, when God tells us that He is One God and yet exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we must lay aside our reason, which says this is impossible, and simply confess, “I don’t know how this can be, but your Word, Lord, is true.”  Perhaps in glory we will understand these mysteries a little bit better, but even then we’ll never get to the point where we’ll be able to say, “I now know everything there is to know about God.”
    The Trinity is a mystery.  “The well is deep, and we have nothing with which to draw.”  And yet, what we need to know of this mystery is revealed to us in God’s Word, because according to God it’s important for us to believe and confess for our salvation, even though we don’t understand it and can’t explain it.  To deny the Trinity is to deny God and to call Him a liar; to confess the Trinity is to give God glory and to acknowledge that His Word is true.  But the fact of the Trinity is something that even the devil can assent to.  Even he knows that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Triune God does not reveal Himself to us, in order to give us some interesting information about Himself.  He doesn’t give us His Name, so that we might put Him under a microscope, so to speak, and run scientific experiments on Him.  The Triune God is not simply an object of study nor is He an abstract idea.  He is a personal Being.  He’s the Maker of all things, both visible and invisible, and He’s the One who created us in His image.  And tragically, He’s the One we’ve rebelled against with our sin.  We have offended this Triune God in our thoughts, words, and deeds, both by what we’ve done and by what we’ve left undone.  We have not feared, loved, or trusted Him above all things, and as a result we have broken every one of His commandments.  And for this rebellion of ours this Triune God threatens to punish us.  This Triune God has the power to cast us into hell, and we can do nothing to save ourselves from His judgment.  I Samuel 2:25 reads, “If one man sins against another, God will mediate for him; but if a man sins against the LORD, who can intercede for him?”  The answer to that question is God Himself.
    In Jesus Christ, God as Man intercedes for men before God.  The Triune God is not only our Maker, but He is also our Redeemer.  With the blood of His Son shed on the cross, the Father has purchased and won us from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, so that we might be His own, live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.  In Jesus, God has saved us from God.  Jesus took on God’s wrath on account of our sins upon Himself on the cross, where He made full payment for our redemption.  Only Jesus could do this, because He’s God in the flesh.  Sinless as He was, He was able to perfectly obey God’s commandments for you.  As the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, His blood was able to perfectly atone for your sins.  Sprinkled upon you now at your Baptism, it cleanses you from all sin, so that through Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, you can come into the presence of God the Father and not perish. 
    The Holy Spirit’s work today is to give you Jesus and His gifts through the Word and the Sacraments, so that you can come to the Father, clothed in the righteousness of Christ.  The Triune God is not only our Maker and Redeemer, but He is also our Sanctifier.  As His Name implies, the Holy Spirit makes you holy by delivering the holiness of Jesus to you.  As was mentioned in last week’s sermon, the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ; He speaks of Jesus, crucified for our salvation, so that we might call on His Name and be saved.  Apart from the Holy Spirit we cannot even accept the Scriptures as the Word of God.  We cannot trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, call Him our Lord, or come to Him, apart from the Holy Spirit.  It is through His work that you have come to know the Triune God, or even better, have come to be known by Him, as you have been drawn by the Word to Jesus Christ who reconciled you to the Father with His blood.
    Today, then, we give thanks to God that He has mercifully revealed Himself to us as the Triune God that He is - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We give thanks that He has revealed this Name to us in His Word (both the Word written and the Word enfleshed), that He has revealed this Name to us in His works, especially His work of salvation through His Son, and that it is into this Name that He has baptized us, so that we might know Him as our Maker, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, and that knowing Him we might have eternal life in His Name.  Amen.
out Him, but what has been written in the Scriptures has been written for our salvation.
    And this is where I think we can begin to talk about the Holy Trinity today - that God has made Himself known to us in His Word as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in order that we might know Him and have life in His Name.  One of the first things we must say in talking about the Holy Trinity is that this article of the Christian faith is not something that Christians made up, but God has given it to us to confess in His Word.  We didn’t invent the Triune God; the Triune God revealed Himself to us.  We don’t tell God who He is; He tells us who He is.  And He’s done this clearly in the Scriptures, in both the Old and New Testaments, although most clearly through His Son, Jesus Christ in the New.  One example from the O.T. is today’s reading from the book of Genesis.  There God, the Word, and the Spirit are all mentioned in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the making of man He says, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness...”  Other examples in the O.T. include Ps. 110 where David says, “The LORD says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand.’”  In Ps. 45 the psalmist says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.  You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows.”  And in the book of Isaiah, the Messiah speaks, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted...”  But it’s Jesus Christ in the N.T. who most clearly reveals God as triune.  In today’s Gospel text the Lord commands His disciples to baptize in the Name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  In the Gospel according to St. John Jesus says that He was sent by the Father, that He and the Father are one, and that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit.  And St. Paul ends his second epistle to the Corinthian congregation with the words, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  These are just but a few of the references to God as triune which are found in the Scriptures.  And though you won’t find the word “Trinity” in the Bible, it is a word that the Church has used for centuries to confess just what the Bible teaches about God - that He is One God in Three Persons.
    As we confess in the Athanasian Creed, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, yet there are not three Gods, but one God.  And the Persons of the the Triune God are no fractions of God, as if the Father were 1/3 God, Jesus were another third, and the Holy Spirit were still another third.  They are all equally the One God, with no one of them being any less infinite, omnipotent, eternal, or glorious than the others.  Now, when I try to teach this in confirmation I often get confused looks.  The confirmands can’t understand this.  How can this be, that the One God exists as three persons, and yet not be three gods?  But I can’t understand this either!  In fact, no one can.  Many have tried.  There are a number of illustrations that people have come up with over the centuries to try to explain the Trinity.  One is the existence of water in a liquid, gas, and solid form.  Another is the existence of man as body, soul, and spirit.  While still another tries to explain the Trinity by saying that the three Persons can be compared to the Speaker (God the Father), the Word (God the Son), and the Hearer (God the Holy Spirit).  This is actually an illustration which Luther used.  The problem with using illustrations to try to explain and understand the Trinity, however, is not only that the analogy always breaks down at some point, but it also assumes that the Trinity can be explained and understood.  When you teach your child about the Trinity, you might get asked the “How?” and “Why?” questions.  But the Scriptures don’t give us the answers to these questions.  They never ask us to explain or understand God; they simply tell us to believe and confess what God says of Himself.  Our fallen, sinful minds cannot grasp many of the things that God tells us in His Word, things like the fact that God became Man, or the fact that the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper are Christ’s true body and blood, or the fact that water with God’s Word attached to it washes away our sins and gives us a new birth.  How these things can be we are not told.  That they are are due to God’s almighty power and His Word, which does what it says.  So, when God tells us that He is One God and yet exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we must lay aside our reason, which says this is impossible, and simply confess, “I don’t know how this can be, but your Word, Lord, is true.”  Perhaps in glory we will understand these mysteries a little bit better, but even then we’ll never get to the point where we’ll be able to say, “I now know everything there is to know about God.”
    The Trinity is a mystery.  “The well is deep, and we have nothing with which to draw.”  And yet, what we need to know of this mystery is revealed to us in God’s Word, because according to God it’s important for us to believe and confess for our salvation, even though we don’t understand it and can’t explain it.  To deny the Trinity is to deny God and to call Him a liar; to confess the Trinity is to give God glory and to acknowledge that His Word is true.  But the fact of the Trinity is something that even the devil can assent to.  Even he knows that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Triune God does not reveal Himself to us, in order to give us some interesting information about Himself.  He doesn’t give us His Name, so that we might put Him under a microscope, so to speak, and run scientific experiments on Him.  The Triune God is not simply an object of study nor is He an abstract idea.  He is a personal Being.  He’s the Maker of all things, both visible and invisible, and He’s the One who created us in His image.  And tragically, He’s the One we’ve rebelled against with our sin.  We have offended this Triune God in our thoughts, words, and deeds, both by what we’ve done and by what we’ve left undone.  We have not feared, loved, or trusted Him above all things, and as a result we have broken every one of His commandments.  And for this rebellion of ours this Triune God threatens to punish us.  This Triune God has the power to cast us into hell, and we can do nothing to save ourselves from His judgment.  I Samuel 2:25 reads, “If one man sins against another, God will mediate for him; but if a man sins against the LORD, who can intercede for him?”  The answer to that question is God Himself.
    In Jesus Christ, God as Man intercedes for men before God.  The Triune God is not only our Maker, but He is also our Redeemer.  With the blood of His Son shed on the cross, the Father has purchased and won us from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, so that we might be His own, live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.  In Jesus, God has saved us from God.  Jesus took on God’s wrath on account of our sins upon Himself on the cross, where He made full payment for our redemption.  Only Jesus could do this, because He’s God in the flesh.  Sinless as He was, He was able to perfectly obey God’s commandments for you.  As the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, His blood was able to perfectly atone for your sins.  Sprinkled upon you now at your Baptism, it cleanses you from all sin, so that through Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, you can come into the presence of God the Father and not perish.  
    The Holy Spirit’s work today is to give you Jesus and His gifts through the Word and the Sacraments, so that you can come to the Father, clothed in the righteousness of Christ.  The Triune God is not only our Maker and Redeemer, but He is also our Sanctifier.  As His Name implies, the Holy Spirit makes you holy by delivering the holiness of Jesus to you.  As was mentioned in last week’s sermon, the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ; He speaks of Jesus, crucified for our salvation, so that we might call on His Name and be saved.  Apart from the Holy Spirit we cannot even accept the Scriptures as the Word of God.  We cannot trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, call Him our Lord, or come to Him, apart from the Holy Spirit.  It is through His work that you have come to know the Triune God, or even better, have come to be known by Him, as you have been drawn by the Word to Jesus Christ who reconciled you to the Father with His blood.
    Today, then, we give thanks to God that He has mercifully revealed Himself to us as the Triune God that He is - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We give thanks that He has revealed this Name to us in His Word (both the Word written and the Word enfleshed), that He has revealed this Name to us in His works, especially His work of salvation through His Son, and that it is into this Name that He has baptized us, so that we might know Him as our Maker, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, and that knowing Him we might have eternal life in His Name.  Amen.

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