Dr. Ozzie Smith on "The Threefold Nature of God"
Dr. Ozzie Smith provides a reflection on this week's Day1 sermon by the Rev. Dr. Fred R. Anderson, "The Threefold Nature of God":
Amen, Rev. Anderson! Admittedly, I have not attempted to address the Trinity in sermonic form, but do remember the theological dissections from seminary. Rev. Anderson has done the tedious work of making the complex simple--he reforms the Triune God without sounding like he's lecturing us or doing it--it seems to happen as he speaks. I appreciate his timely use of "wireless."
This sermon invites me to turn aside to see and re-hear Isaiah's experience. Rev. Anderson is right!--what the Bible gives us as One, we have compartmentalized, framed, and made difficult through emphasis of one at the expense of the others. I believe Isaiah's "Woe is me!" helps us to notice the richness and depth of a true God experience. God does the calling and the qualifying!
Rev. Anderson does not attempt to explain the unexplainable, but allows it to speak for itself. As one songwriter put it, "God Is!" Perhaps we sometimes tend to believe we are "telling the people" something about God that only we are privy to, but God's isness is beyond our words--regardless of volume.
Thanks, Rev. Anderson, for allowing Isaiah's encounter to speak for itself! Thanks for helping us to see afresh that trying to nail the Trinitarian issue down is akin to nailing Jello to a wall. GOD IS FAITHFUL!!!
Thanks Day1 for the lift!
--Ozzie Smith
UPDATE from Dr. Billy Cox:
Sitting in a parking lot on a rainy, overcast morning, waiting for my wife to complete her shopping, all the while reading Dr. Fred Anderson's sermon on my Blackberry, one cannot help but be aware of a Divine Presence. A Holy God set the rain in motion. A man called Jesus captivated the young sales person who sold me this new gadget. A warm and caring Spirit revealed itself through an e-mail from my church; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The thought of these Three made my morning.
--Billy Cox, Louisville, KY