Trinity III

Trinity III
July 6, 2025
 
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God,
that he may exalt you in due time: 7
casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
(1 Peter v. 6,7)
 
         The first half of the Christian Year ends with our vision of God the Holy Trinity. The second half begins from the same vision and encourages our moral effort and responsibility. In Trinity Tide, you and I are encouraged to translate our vision of God into virtue. What this means is that our God intends not only to be known but to be loved, as we desire to acclimate our hearts to His nature. And God intends to be loved not for His own need but for ours, for with His love alive in our souls, we hope to reach His Kingdom. On Trinity I and II, we contemplated the love of God that moved our Maker to send His son to save us. Our first two Sundays after Trinity involved remembering that we love God because He first loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. (1 John iv, 10, 19) If we love God, we keep His commandments and love one another (1 John iii. 23, 24). Then, the principles of God’s love are alive in our hearts. Next, starting today, we gain a deeper sense of God’s love as the Grace that seeks us out, finds us, and makes us right with God. Today, we are encouraged to contemplate God’s Grace as the fire of His love, which touches us to inspire not only our adoration but also that humility which will ensure its effectual operation in our souls.
        
Beginning with today’s Gospel, we read, then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. (St. Luke xv. 1) The love of God as Grace is most appreciated by those who need it most. The publicans and sinners, like you and I, are those who have a natural aversion to the religious elites in every age, the scribes and pharisees in Jesus’ time, and pompous clerics in our own. We flee them mostly because we do not detect that they carry the love of God to our sorry and sinful condition. Like today’s publicans and sinners, let us listen to Jesus. For while the self-righteous and envious clergy fear what Christ may do for us and murmur against Him, we must seek His help.
        
Jesus gives us two parables. In the first, He compares Himself to any good shepherd. What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? (St. Luke xv. 4) Like any good shepherd, Christ loves us so much that He is willing to leave His pious flock to find you and me as individual sinners. Note, our sin is never so great that He does not seek us out to find us in the wilderness of our sin. Each and every one of us is so loved by Jesus Christ, that we must never consider ourselves as outcasts to His Grace. And far from expecting us to find Him, first He sets out to find us, knowing that by reason of our sins, we are weak, confused, lost in darkness, and on the precipice of despair. The Church too often tries to limit God’s Grace, those whom Christ is always in search of for salvation. But the parable gives us hope because in it Jesus reminds us that He is forever searching for each one of us. When He finds us, He layeth us on His shoulders, rejoicing. (ibid, 5) Next, He returns home to the Father and the Spirit, enjoining them to share in His joy. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. (ibid, 7) When He finds us, He intends that we should repent because He has found us in our sin and rescued us from it. We need not only His love as Grace, but we need repentance, or to confess our sins and sorrow over them. Our true need is to be found by Jesus Christ. We don’t deserve His Grace, but we desperately need it for the repair and redemption of our lives.
        
Next, Jesus tells another parable, that of the lost coin. He compares Himself to the woman who has ten pieces of silver and loses one. (ibid, 8) Christ is comparing us to something of great worth and value to Him. We are so precious to Him that, like the woman, He will light a candle, and sweep the house of the world, and seek diligently till He finds us. (ibid, 9) In the illuminating light of the Father, through the Spirit, Christ will labor persistently until He finds us. The light is needed to shine in the dark world of sin, where we are lost. His determination to find us reveals the love of His Grace. God’s Grace is not limited by time but reveals His ongoing tenacity. The light of the Father is Christ as God’s Word and Wisdom. The labor of His love sweeps away the dust of sin until He finds us. With the woman, there is rejoicing at having found her lost coin. With Christ, in Heaven, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. (ibid, 10) God’s joy is always shared by the good angels, our fellow creatures. God’s joy is personal, because, as Canon Scott reminds us, it is not we sheep who are lost, but it is God who has lost us. The loss is His, and the joy is His. (M. Scott, Harmony of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels) Through these parables, we must see the perfect love of God in Christ, who ceaselessly searches for us to save us from our sin. Similarly, we are bidden to rejoice with Christ, to find our joy in His love for us.
        
But there is more. Having been found by Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, and the conscientious woman, we must make good with His Grace. St. Peter reminds us this morning that because of what Christ has done for us we must be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud and giveth Grace unto the humble. (1 St. Peter v. 5) We can only be exalted if we are humbled. And we are humbled if we recognize that God’s love as His Grace has found us to habituate us to His nature for the salvation of our lives. As He has cared for us in finding us, so He continues to care for us in giving us His Spirit, the Spirit of rejuvenation, repair, and redemption. We are not once saved, always saved, as some proudly imagine. Rather, we are works in progress, slowly but surely learning to surrender to God in Jesus Christ by heartily praying (Collect Trinity III) for His Grace each and every day of our lives. St. Peter also reminds us that we shall be tempted to sin and distracted by the Devil.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. (ibid, 8,9)
 
Humility demands moral effort on our part. We must be prepared to resist the Devil with our steadfast and determined faith. As Christ persisted in finding us, so we must persist in His Grace, ever determined to allow His goodness to mold and shape the new lives that He has won for us with the Father. And lest we become proud and self-pitying, we do well to remember that temptation as affliction is common to all men, and especially to the Saints, whom the Devil detests.
        
In summary, St. Peter reminds us that the God of all Grace…hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. (ibid, 10) In Christ, we are justified and made right with God the Father. But our justification needs sanctification. Our being made right with God requires us to say yes to the Spirit, who intends to make us better and better, having suffered a while, making us perfect, stablishing us, strengthen us, and settling us. (idem) Without moral effort and cooperation, our having been found will be to no effect.
        
And so today, we pray that by God’s mighty aid, we might be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities. (idem) Because we have been saved by Jesus Christ does not mean that we must cease to heartily desire to pray and supplicate Christ. A hearty desire to pray is the habit of life that must characterize our spiritual lives. It will seal us until the great and dreadful day of Judgment. It will reveal that, truly, we are always in need of being found by Christ and given ever-increasing value that will move from us to others, who will, we pray, find their need for Him also.

Amen.
©wjsmartin

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