“The Empowering God“, by Rev. Mike Holly
According to pastor and theologian James Howell, the mystery of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) has always befuddled the church. Even early on in the church, to believe that the One God was in fact expressed in three ways did not sit well with some. In order to make sense of the Trinity, several thinkers tried to come up with their own ideas. One theologian named Sabellius “taught there was a single God, first wearing the mask of the Father, then intruding into the human realm in the person of the Son, then continuing in the Church as Spirit.” While this might seem to make sense logically, it does not answer how God can be in these different expressions at the same time as it occurs in Scripture.
Dr. Howell explains that Saint Augustine defined the Trinity quite well: “God is a community, loving together so profusely that we are the overflow of their passion, that we find ourselves drawn into their fellowship.” God is some kind of three-in-one community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and each and everyone of us are asked, invited and encouraged to put our very lives in the midst of them. In our Scripture passage for today, we find Isaiah himself caught up in a holy vision, experiencing a calling to act for and speak for God in the world. This radical vocation can only make sense if God walks alongside us. In a way, the Trinity is the most logical expression of how God can at once be “up in heaven,” while also right here among us even in the midst of our hearts.
~Mike Holly
The Word
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
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