This coming Sunday is Holy Trinity Sunday. The fuller story of the gospel begins at the end of John 2 where we encounter the gospel writer’s closing statement (vv. 23-25). What seems clear is that a lot more than the temple cleansing took place during Jesus’ visit to Jerusalem for this first Passover festival.  There is the one recorded sign at Cana; otherwise the record is silent. Yet, the evangelist, while recording no details, goes on to write “many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing.”  Even though many began to believe in Jesus, “Jesus would not trust himself to them.”

These verses suggest that Jesus did not yet see a clear basis for an enduring relationship of faith with the people.  They were enthralled by the signs, but Jesus knows they will always want one more – there will always be one more thing in the way of commitment.  Only later does Jesus express the bases of that lasting, committed relationship:  “You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father”   (John 15:14–15).

Jesus well understands human nature (2:25) – and that is perhaps the overriding narrative of this section of the Fourth Gospel: the response of human nature in coming face-to-face with the Messiah. The majority of John 3 describes Jesus’ encounter with the Jewish leader Nicodemus – a prestigious man “in the know” forms one response. John 4, the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, points to a different response of human nature.

One way these verses are connected is the double “we know,” uttered by Nicodemus in 3:2 and by Jesus in v. 11. The first person plural, “we,” indicates that both are representing groups – perhaps the distinction between Jewish and Christian leaders, perhaps the subtle difference between thinking that Jesus is just a “teacher who has come from God” or that Jesus is the one who has “descended from heaven,” who will be “lifted up,” and through believing him one has eternal life – the difference between Jesus as a human teacher or the divine savior.

Image credit: Rublev, Trinity icon, 15the century, Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, Moscow, Public Domain

This coming Sunday is Holy Trinity Sunday which is celebrated on the first Sunday following Pentecost in most of the liturgical churches in Western Christianity. It is a solemn celebration of the belief in the revelation of one God, yet three divine persons. It was not uniquely celebrated in the early church, but as with many things the advent of new, sometimes heretical, thinking often gives the Church a moment in which to explain and celebrate its own traditions; things it already believes and holds dear. In the early 4th century when the Arian heresy was spreading, the early church, recognizing the inherent Christological and Trinitarian implications, prepared an Office of Prayer with canticles, responses, a preface, and hymns, to be recited on Sundays to proclaim the Holy Trinity.  Pope John XXII (14th century) instituted the celebration for the entire Church as a feast; the celebration became a solemnity after the liturgical reforms of Vatican II.

In the shadow of Pentecost and the dramatic coming of the Holy Spirit, the following week seems a fitting place to pause, as it were, and place it all in a context of salvation history. Perhaps that is why the second reading was selected and says it so well: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” (2 Cor 13:13). It ties together the first reading and psalm which point to the working of God before the coming of the Christ as well as our gospel reading, a short passage from the John 3:16-18:

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 

John 3:16 is perhaps one of the most promoted of all gospel passages. The University of Florida quarterback, Tim Tebow, wore this gospel passage as part of his eye-black during an NCAA national championship game. The next day “John 3:16” was the most single-day queried passage in internet history.

If one looks at the three readings for the solemnity, it is summary of salvation history with a
“capstone” provided by the gospel passage.

But part of a whole

When one does a commentary on a gospel passage, one of the first tasks is to mark the beginning and end of the cohesive unit that the gospel writer intended. Our gospel reading is but three verses of a much larger unit. The unit begins with John 2:23 “While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover…” marking a shift from the Johannie scene in which Jesus cleanses the Temple of the money changers et. al. and preparing us for John 3, the first of the discourses: Jesus and Nicodemus. This unit stretches from John 3:1 through to 3:21.  Our gospel is intimately connected to the scene of Moses lifting up the serpent in the desert  – “So must the Son of Man be lifted up  so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. (vvv.14-15).  It is the dialog with Nicodemus that gives our gospel its fuller and context.

Note: there is a lot to cover and so some days there will be multiple posts.

Image credit: Rublev, Trinity icon, 15the century, Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, Moscow, Public Domain