Redeemer Lutheran Church
1084 W. Bullard Ave.
Fresno, CA   93711
Phone: (559) 439-8500
Fax: (559) 439-8585
office@redeemerfresno.com

The Reverend Clarence Eisberg
Phone: (209) 725-9082
Cell:  (209) 631-3108
pastor@redeemerfresno.com

Worship ~ 8:30 a.m. & 10:00 a.m.
Family Ministries ~ 10:00 a.m.
Holy Communion ~ 2nd & 4th Sundays
Connecting People to Jesus
and to One Another!
www.lcms.org









The Reverend
Clarence Eisberg

June 7, 2009

“The Trinity & H2O”
decided he wanted to go and meet God.  Now this was a wise little boy and he knew that
going to meet God would involve a long trip.  That’s why he had the foresight to pack his
little suitcase with two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and, in case he got thirsty, a
couple of cans of root beer.

The little boy who wanted to meet God began his journey.  He walked four blocks to the
city park.  There in the park he saw an old man sitting on a bench.  The boy sat down next
to the old man.  He was thirsty, so he opened his suitcase and took out a root beer.  He
was about to take a sip when out of the corner of his eye he saw the old man watching
him.

Now, this five year old knew he was not supposed to speak to strangers, so without saying
a word, he took one of his root beers and offered it to the man.  The old man smiled a big
smile, took the root beer, opened it, and drank deeply.  They sat in silence, just drinking
until the boy remembered his sandwiches.  He was hungry; perhaps the old man was
hungry too.  The boy reached into his suitcase and took out the sandwiches – one for
him, one for the old man.

The old man smiled again.  So they sat eating and drinking, without saying a word.  The
boy went home.  It had been a good day, and his mother inquired about her son’s positive
attitude:  “And what has made you so smiley, young man?”  The boy said, “I went to the
park today and I had lunch with God.  And you know what, Mom, God has the biggest
smile I’ve ever seen.”  Even as the boy was telling about his visit with God, the old man
returned to his son’s home.  That’s where he had been living since his wife of 55 years
had died.  The old man walked in, beaming from ear to ear.  His daughter-in-law, noting
the broad smile, asked, “It looks like you had a good day.  What happened?”  And the old
man said, “I went to the park and had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with God.  You
know, God’s much younger than I thought!”

I like that story.  It’s a nice story.  Of course there is a problem with that story – a fairly
major problem.  You see, the old man with the wonderful smile, was not God.  And the boy
with the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches wasn’t God either.

J.I Parker, Evangelical Theologian and author of numerous books, one of which
is “Knowing God” made this comment in 1986.  “I expect over the next few decades we will
see a quest for a synthesis of world religions … an attempt to assimilate Christianity into
other faiths.  We should expect a generation of debate on the Triune nature of God.  How
we see God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit will be at the heart of the debate.”

What we believe about God is the most important thing about us.  The word “God” is one
of the most widely used but vague and undefined terms in our language.  Some people,
such as Albert Einstein, saw God as a “pure mathematical word.”  Others see God as a
divine force. Some say that we each have a part of God within us, we are God.  At the
heart of the Christian view of God is the concept of the Trinity.  Departure from the
Doctrine of the Trinity has been and remains one of the major sources of heresy in the
Christian Church.  (Know What You Believe  - Paul Little)

Today when we ask people, “Do you believe in God?”  The answer will probably be yes …
but you must not assume that by that they mean the Lord God, Immortal, Invisible,
Eternal, The Only Wise God revealed in scripture in the person of Jesus Christ.  Not
everyone accepts a personal, creator God.  More often than not the talk will be about
“God as Divine Force”, the “God within us all.”  And Jesus Christ is looked upon as a
highly evolved human being, deeply in touch with “divine energy.”

The April 27th 1992 Wall Street Journal carried an article:  “The Lord’s Name:  Hallowed
Image of the Creator”, quoted school teacher Karen Miller as having said that while she
still believes in following the teachings of Jesus, “I’m evolving into a sort of neo-pagan.  I
envision the universe as God and all the universe as a part of God.”  Unfortunately, Karen
Miller missed or chose to ignore the words of Jesus when he said, “The Father and I are
one.”  John 10:30.

When Jesus spoke those words he was standing in the courtyard of the temple in
Jerusalem.  The Jewish religious leaders were present.  They heard his words.  They
understood his claim.  John writes:  “The Jews picked up stones to stone “Jesus” but
Jesus said to them.  “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father .  For which
of these do you stone me?”  They responded.  “We are not stoning you for any of the
miracles but for blasphemy, for you, a mere man, claim to be God.”  To know and
understand God the Father, you must see his grace, unmerited kindness.  The Apostle
Paul wrote:  “God was pleased to have the fullness of his deity dwell in Jesus.  Jesus is
the visible presence of the invisible God.”

The doctrine of the Trinity was settled more than 1700 years ago at the Council of Nicea
in 326 A.D.  More than 318 Bishops across the Roman Empire convened to resolve a
raging theological debate between Arius and Athanasius over the nature and person-
hood of Jesus.  Arius taught that Jesus was indeed the Son of God, but was not equal in
power, majesty, substance with God the Father.  Times have not changed…. there are
still those who built their theologies about God and Jesus, but deny this biblical truth that
Jesus is equal to God the Father.

What’s interesting when you look at different religions. Buddha is not essential to the
teaching of Buddhism, nor is Mohammed essential to Islam but everything about
Christianity is determined by the person and work of Jesus, his teachings, his life, death,
and resurrection.

The Apostle John wrote:  “The word became flesh – a real human baby.  The message of
Christmas is the message of the incarnation.  The staggering Christian message does not
begin with the  Good Friday message of  broken commandments nailed to the cross of
Jesus, not the Easter message of resurrection, but the message that Jesus of Nazareth
was the visible presence of the invisible God born in Bethlehem. He took upon himself
humanity without the loss of deity.  He was fully human and fully divine and walked the
streets of Nazareth to Jerusalem.  

The Christmas message rests on the staggering fact that the child in Bethlehem’s manger
was … God.  He was no less God than before, but He had begun to be a human being.

It is not easy to understand the biblical truth of the doctrine of the Trinity.  “One God, yet
three persons, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal, so the Father is God, the Son is
God, the Holy Spirit is God yet not three Gods but one God.

In your bulletin this morning I placed a diagram that might help our minds grasp the
doctrine of the Trinity, God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, yet one.  You
see the normal equilateral triangle – one whole with 3 equal sides.  The next symbol has
been very helpful.

There is a chemical compound known as H2O. We call it  water.  Our body can not survive
without water.  The earth would be a barren waste land without water.  Plants, trees,
animals and human beings need H2O.  The chemical formula H2O = two hydrogen atoms
and 1 oxygen atom.  Water is colorless and an odorless liquid – essential to life.  The
human body is between 55% and 75% water.  We need 7 liters of water a day to avoid
dehydration.  The most familiar form of H2O is liquid.  We swim in it.  We bath in it.  We
drink it.  Another familiar form of H20 is a frozen solid. We call it “ice.”  The North Pole and
Antarctica is simply frozen H2O.  Snow flakes, frost are frozen water droplets.  Water
covers 71% of the earth.  When we boil our water the H2O takes the form of steam and is
vaporized H2O.  Clouds and fog are forms of H2O that have not become liquid.  To me it
is a great description of the Trinity.  

Have you ever watched an orchestra in concert?  It is amazing to see and hear music with
all the variety of instruments.  There is the string section – violins, cello’s, bass, harp,
guitar.  There is the woodwind section – oboe, saxophone, bassoon, clarinet.  Brass
instruments, trombone, trumpet, French horn, and tuba… and drums of all kinds.  When
all play in harmony the music is beautiful.

God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit always work in harmony with each other
to accomplish God’s purpose for his beloved creation.  “For God so loved the world that
he sent his one and only son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have
eternal life.

God the Father created the world. In the opening pages of the Bible we read:  “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth, darkness was over the surface of the
deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  The Hebrew word for God is
“Elohim”.  Elohim is plural, but never translated gods without “s”.  In our English language
if we want to make something plural we add an “s”.  In Hebrew, the word “Elohim” is used
through out the book of Genesis and simply is “plural” for God.    On the sixth day of
creation after all birds, fish, and animals were created we read “Elohim” said, “Let us
make mankind in our image.”   Again the Hebrew text is using the plural.  “Let us”.

Recently the Hubble telescope was repaired by our astronauts.  The telescope completes
one journey around the earth every 96 minutes, 360 miles above earth’s surface.  Images
from deep space can speak of the immensity of a Creator whose creation is far greater
than the blue and white marble on which we live.  The Hubble telescope and the tiniest
microscope we have been given shows beautiful pictures of His creation.  Indeed the
heavens declare the glory of God.

When you study the DNA strand within every human cell of your body you may stand in
awe of your own genetic make-up and realize you are not an accident of evolution but a
special creation.  You may get an inkling of God’s power in the beating of your own heart,
72 times a minute, continuing without thought on your part, day in and day out.

He created you and me.  “He chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and
blameless in his sight.”  It is not fate, change, nor luck that you are breathing at this very
moment.  You were created by God.  He deliberately chose your hair color, your race,
your every feature.  It doesn’t matter if your parents were good, bad or indifferent.  God
knew those individuals possessed exactly the right genetic make-up to create a “custom”
you.  They had the DNA God wanted to make you.

God created you and me so that He could love us and we could love him in return.  The
ultimate goal of the universe is to show the glory of God.  

God’s glory is best seen in Jesus Christ.  He is the light of the world.  Because of Jesus we
are no longer in the dark about what God is really like.  (Rick Warren)  At the Baptism of
Jesus, God the Father spoke:  “This is my beloved son.”  The disciples heard the same
voice of God on the Mt. of Transfiguration.  John wrote these words  about Jesus:  “The
Word became flesh and lived among us.  We saw his glory  - a glory full of grace and
truth.”

Unfortunately we have all “fallen short of the glory of God.”  All have sinned.  We are self-
centered and have not loved God with our whole heart.  “Yes we were created and made
by God.  We were made in the image of God but we are now “disqualified from living with
God.”  We have broken his commandments.  God’s greatest commandments are that we
love Him with all our being and secondly we love our neighbor as ourselves.  Sin reverses
the order.  The result is guilt.

God’s love, God’s plan was to give us forgiveness,  in Jesus we have redemption through
his bloodshed on the cross.  In Jesus we can stand before a holy and righteous God,
without blemish from accusation.

It was during the presidency of Jimmy Carter an attempt was made to reinstate the draft.  I
especially recall a picture that was featured in many newspapers across the country.  It
showed a young student who was attending Princeton University.  He was not especially
conspicuous except for the sign he was carrying.  The placard simply read, “Nothing is
worth dying for.”  From the looks of the crowd, many agreed with him.  As a Christian  I am
most thankful that God did not share that student’s personal philosophy.  Jesus followed
the plan set in motion for the Father, came to earth and died on the cross because you
and I were loved by the Father and through the sacrificial death of Jesus human beings
can have eternal life.  When this story is told, the Holy Spirit convicts our hearts and pulls
us into God’s eternal family.  (Read Eph 1:13-14)

The members of the Trinity, like a musical sympathy work together in complete unity,
totally dependent yet interdependent.  God the Father, Creator of the Universe sets life in
motion.  He creates each of us.  He knows Satan and selfish human nature keeps us away
separate from his love.  God the Son comes to redeem the lost in human time.  Jesus
completed God’s plan.  He defeats death.

The sympathy continues as  the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead,
brings us to faith.  The Holy Spirit provides spiritual gifts to every Christian so that the
church can be effective in ministry.  It is the Holy Spirit that enables every Christian to
experience the “forgiveness” which Jesus purchased at the cross.  The Spirit makes
“forgiveness” real in our hearts.  The Spirit gives peace to our hearts.  And it is the Holy
Spirit that gives us a resurrected glorified body at the return of Jesus.          We Christians
can not surrender the uniqueness of the Trinity.  “The Godhead of the Father, of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.”