Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
May 31, 2026
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Trinity Sunday
Glory Be To The Father And To The Son And To The Holy Spirit

Then Jesus came and spoke to them saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, “Go, therefore, and teach all nations baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold I am with you always even to the end of the age.”
(Mt 28:19-20)

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In Scripture God reveals himself to humanity as the Holy Trinity: as God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; and that is what Christians believe. We do not claim to understand the Trinity but to believe it nonetheless. We believe further that this Blessed Holy Trinity is the one, true God: all others distractions.

We will not engage in an explanation of the Mystery today: for that we recommend a careful study of the Athanasian Creed. A creed that gives us functional language by which we can think about and, speak about our God with confidence. Understanding at this time is neither possible, nor desirable because human hearts and minds need Mystery to nourish them.

In today’s gospel Jesus reveals God as the Father Son and Holy Spirit. Three Persons, yet One God. But this is nothing new. We find the same to be the case on page one of the Bible.

In Genesis 1:1 God creates the heavens and the earth, and in Matthew’s gospel we learn that Jesus holds all power and authority in the heavens and the earth: which makes a wonderful equation.

What we heard in today’s Old Testament lesson is blessed calm for the pure in heart, but a challenge to those who love the darkness, more than the light. The opening words of Scripture explode onto the scene with the phrase, “In the Beginning God.”

Note! It does not say, “in the beginning ME.” Nor is there a blank space where each person can insert his own name. But in the beginning: God.

At the sound of these words a person must either close the Sacred Scripture and strike out on his own which always ends in disaster. Or he must fall face to the ground in wonder, love and praise to the Almighty. The Most High.

As for the Trinity, in Genesis Chapter One we find God the Father, the First Person of the Trinity as the Creator the heaven and the earth.”

Next we find “the Spirit of God” hovering over the formless void. Here we must disabuse ourselves of any pretty thoughts such as the Spirit gently hovering as a mother does her chicks, or quietly passing the time!

No! But what is said and means in the original Hebrew is that the Almighty Spirit of God was unleashing and exuding unimaginable energy.

If you could gather all the physicists of the world into one room and ask them to give their best estimate as to how much energy is stored in all the planets and star and galaxies: their biggest number would be laughable in comparison to the raw, blue energy that the Spirit of God exuded over the dark, formless void – made that way presumably by Lucifer the former angel of light. The one who hates God’s orderly Creation with a perfect hatred.

Why did the Spirit of God do this? Because He loves his whole creation, and because, “God is not a God of disorder but of peace.” (1 Cor. 14:33)

Last but not least Genesis introduces God the Son. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Our Savior Jesus; when the Father said, “Let there be light!”

But the Light spoken of here is not measured in lumens, but is the Very Son of God, our own Lord, Jesus Christ the crucified and risen Savior whose blood sets us free to be people of God.

But do not make the mistake of thinking that the Son of God was a created being or a “lesser god.” Because he was “neither created nor made but begotten” of the Father alone.

He is the Eternal Word of the Father. Without beginning or end. But when the Father says, “Let there be light,” he introduces or “injects,” we might say this Eternal, penetrating Light into every nook and cranny of Creation; and thereby reverses the darkness perpetrated by the “Prince of Darkness.” The “god” of this world.

And so a world that demonizes or defenestrates Jesus is a world that loves its darkness, pain and sorrow more than The Light that gives Life.

The case is exactly as Saint John states in John 1:4, “In Him was Life and the Life was the Light of men.” And as Jesus himself asserts, “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the Light of Life.” (John 8:12)

You want this Light. You need this Light! And you have come to the right place, the only place where it can be had “without money and without cost.”

Now again in our First Reading from Genesis Chapter One we find God creating “the heavens and the earth.” And in today’s gospel we hear our Lord Jesus Christ saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Think of that. That the Father hands over to the Son “all authority in both heaven above, and on earth below.”

As the Eternal God, Jesus always had the power and authority, but at his Ascension into heaven it is formally handed over to this Man, whom Saint Paul calls “Man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Learn that verse to learn WHO our Savior is. He is MAN/CHRIST JESUS. “Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven.”

What does this mean? It means that Jesus is all in all. That he is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the King who is above all kings, the Lord who is above all lords.

And so if you want to rise from the dead and live on unto the ages of ages, you must seek life in him, by him, and through him. That is the great Benefit that God’s Lamb earned for us on the cross; when he purged us of our sins.

But let us be clear that entrance into this Life is via Trinitarian Baptism. Baptism into “the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” No one can find life if he bypasses the Son of God, or scorns the golden Sacrament of Baptism which gives us a good conscience before God. (1 Peter 3:21)

To think you can dodge Jesus is a perilous deception. There are many people who sincerely want to find hope in the Most High God. But no one can reach the Father except by the Son, and the “washing of regeneration” that he established at his Ascension as we have it here in St. Matthew 28.

But our Lord does not stand idly by and wait for the world to come to him. Instead the commands his disciples to: go and teach all nations, all the things that Jesus commanded them! And to give them New Birth into the One Family, through the baptismal birth canal of Mother Church.

They did exactly as Jesus directed.

But be warned, because there is a little “protestant” that lives in each of us who gets this wrong every time.

The gospel that has reached the shores of America, originally by the Vikings ca. 1000 AD, and found its way to Cleveland Ohio … that Gospel is not established by: “spontaneous campus movements, shifts in demographics, or “digital discipleship.” These are but “click bait,” O Thinking Christian. Nothing to see here.

No doubt that young people do suffer fatigue due to the vacuous inanities of modern culture; so do old people and all people. How could they not?

But what they hunger for cannot be had by mass baptisms in the Pacific ocean with news crews documenting every splash. But on the other hand our deepest longings ARE FULLY SATISFIED by baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, administered in the church, by the church.

It is only here that the Lord’s command will be carried out. And only here that his promise “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age,” factually occurs in Divine Service. This is the place where we commune with Jesus, until we do so face to face in heaven. Amen