2 Corinthians 13:14 Trinity Sunday A
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—Tucson, AZ
June 4, 2023
BENEDICTION BLESSINGS 1. The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ 2. The Love of God 3. The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit Pastor Kassulke is pastor. Pastor Patoka is pastor. Pastor Koehler is pastor. Yet they are not three pastors but one pastor. That sounds ridiculous. That’s because it is ridiculous. We’re not even remotely close if we try to use something like that to explain how the Triune God can be three-in-one. You obviously can’t just take any three things and declare that they are one. How about “I am one person, but I am a husband, a father, and a pastor”? Nope. God is not one being that plays three different roles. Maybe this is better: A shamrock has three leaves, but it is one shamrock. Three-inone—just like the Triune God. St. Patrick came up with that one as he did mission work in Ireland. Still no. You can remove a leaf of a shamrock because it is an independent piece of the whole. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons, but inseparable. We try to understand, don’t we? We try to get it straight in our heads. We try to take what we believe and make it understandable to someone for whom this is new or confusing. We try. But every time we try with an illustration, we fail. We might feel like we are close with some of them, but none of them work perfectly. They can’t. They can’t because the Trinity is unlike anything else. The triune God surpasses human understanding. What we can do is listen to what God tells us about himself. We can believe what God tells us about himself. We can view God with wonder and awe. We can be thankful that the triune God, who is beyond our understanding, comes to bless us. These words allow us to do those things today: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. If you’ve been around church for any length of time, you know what a benediction is, but it’s pretty much just a church word. There aren’t many other places that it is used. It means something like well-wishing or speaking something good. Worship services very often end with a benediction. Our service today will. If you want to look at page 16 to see that, you can do that now. You can call it a benediction. You can also call it a “blessing,” which we do. Today, we are using the Aaronic blessing, named for Moses’ brother Aaron, the priest whom God told to say this blessing before his people. Don’t linger on that page though, I don’t want you to miss this other benediction!