“What’s So Special About Jesus?”
John 5:19-29

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Trinity Sunday and “Grand Reopening”—June 7, 2020

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

About ten years ago at the church I served previously a man stopped by my study at the church one day for a visit.  He was a Hindu from India, here for a few months on temporary assignment, living in an apartment complex next door to the church.  His particular branch of Hinduism focuses on abstract speculation about philosophical questions, and he wanted to discuss Christianity with me from a philosophical point of view.

After several hours of conversation, it all boiled down to this: He expected me to agree that Christianity is just one of many sources of spiritual enlightenment, one of many paths to God.  And Jesus of Nazareth is just one of many great gurus throughout history.  Because of his wisdom, Jesus can be recognized as a god, but he is just one of the many subsidiary gods and lords in Hinduism.

I recall reading two passages for him, which are in today’s Epistle and Gospel Readings.  The Apostle Paul writes in 1st Corinthians: “For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”  And Jesus himself declares: “All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.”

The sad and shocking thing was, he did not think I was in the mainstream of Christianity with this view, but some far-out kook, with a weird teaching he had never heard before.  For, he said that he traveled a great deal with his work, and had engaged in dozens, even hundreds of such conversations with Christian ministers and laypeople.  According to him, every Christian he encountered except me was always willing to admit in the end that Jesus is really just one among many gods.

The idea that we all really worship the same God is heavily promoted in our culture.  It is “politically incorrect” to say that only one faith is the true path to the one true God, and other religions and gods are false.  Christians are allowed to keep Jesus — as long as we relegate him to the subordinate status of just one among many gods.

That’s what Trinity Sunday is all about.  The dominant Greek and Roman culture of the ancient world was decidedly polytheistic, with dozens of different major god, and hundreds of minor ones.   So, already back then, orthodox Christianity was an oddball religion.  Paul explains it this way in 1st Timothy: “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men.” This is not an abstract philosophical question, but the very essence of the Christian faith.

Something unprecedented has happened the past several months.  For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, events have necessitated that almost all Christian churches, across our country and around the world, suspend gathering together for worship services.  We are very thankful for innovations such as the ability to livestream services and the drive-in worship that’s worked well here at Trinity.  That helped a lot, but it doesn’t feel quite the same.

Across the country and around the world Christians have been aching with a longing and desire to get back to church, to resume the familiar rhythm of weekly worship. Of course, many are not yet able, because of their circumstances, to be back in the sanctuary, and they continue to join in worship online or in the parking lot. 

But, as we begin today the process of getting back to gathering for worship in our sanctuary, it’s a good time to ask: What’s it all about?  Why are we worshipping?  What’s so special about Jesus? “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men.” 

We are all sinners, deserving of damnation.  But, God sent his own Son into the world to be our mediator, to give himself as a ransom to earn you forgiveness.  Peter says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.”  Your sins are all forgiven and you will have eternal life because he “gave himself as a ransom” for you.

As Paul says in Romans: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”  Peter puts it this way in Acts: “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. . .  Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men.”  Because of the polytheistic worldview in ancient times, that was an audacious, politically incorrect thing for the first Christians to claim.  So, some Christians decided to go along and get along.  They gave in to the pressure, and began to compromise on this doctrine.  In the first few hundred years of Christianity, various heresies arose which all made the same concession: Jesus isn’t really God.  Perhaps he was a great man, who became like God.  But, at most, he is a lesser, subordinate god.

The Church first responded to these heresies with the Nicene Creed, which declares that Jesus is, “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.”  Later, the doctrine of the Trinity as revealed in Scripture was expressed in the Athanasian Creed, which we recited this morning: “The Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one: the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. . .  And in this Trinity none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another.”

Like denominations today that have sadly wandered from the truth of the Bible, at one time in the early Church the heresies making Christ a subordinate god were actually dominant. It looked as if the true, Trinitarian faith might die out.  But, through the teachings expressed in the Athanasian Creed, there came about the first great Reformation of the Church.  Just as the 16th century Reformation brought back the Scriptural teaching of salvation not by works but as a gift of God’s grace, in the 4th and 5th centuries the true teaching of Scripture about the Trinity and Christ’s true divinity came to light again.  And just as we observe Reformation Day on October 31st to commemorate the 16th century Reformation, the First Sunday after Pentecost was eventually designated by the Church as Trinity Sunday, to commemorate the first great Reformation, the triumph over the heresies by the Scriptural teaching of the Trinity and Christ’s true divinity.

The Apostle John says of Jesus, “He is the true God and eternal life.”  We are again in an age of aggressive polytheism, where Christians are pressured to deny this fundamental truth of the faith.  As Paul warns in 2nd Timothy, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. . .  In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted . . .  But as for you, continue in what you have learned and been assured of. . .  Hold to the standard of sound teaching.” 

“What’s So Special About Jesus?”  “For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”  “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men.”  “All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.”

Amen.