First Sunday in Trinity

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Clive Staples Lewis … C.S. Lewis … I am a fan. He has written so many things that capture the Christian imagination. His writings on inspiring biblical concepts have led millions to aspire to the hope of the Kingdom of GOD in Christ in a deeper, sincere, and faithful way. Here are a few quotes from some of the things he has written, like, “All that is not eternal, is eternally out of date”, “We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with”, “When we set out for the London zoo, I did not believe that JESUS is the Son of GOD; when we reached the zoo I did”. My favorite is: “Awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters”. The last quote is from a story in the series The Chronicles of Narnia. That installment is called The Magicians Nephew, and in this saga, we are presented with a scene of the creation of Narnia; a recollection of the beginning of it all. After Aslan, the Great Lion, created the landscape and all of Narnia’s creatures through His beautiful song, Aslan gives to some of the animals and other elements of that world traditional instincts, seasonal habits, and natural, orderly traits. To others, Aslan made them in His likeness and image, causing them to awake to a different sort of existence where, like Aslan, they were commissioned to think, speak, and love. 

One wonders if Lewis had been reading from the first Epistle of St. John, just before he gave rise in his mind to this scene. In St. John, we read similar words of inspiration, wherein GOD, the forerunner to Lewis, gave His creatures, (you and me), capacities like unto Himself: He gave us a conscious mind to think, an ability to articulate and understand speech, and He gave us hearts, minds, and souls that we might love. In fact, in St. John’s first Epistle, exercising these gifts given to us by GOD, we learn that we also are commissioned to use them, being commanded to do so, to reveal that we love GOD, that we are truly human, and that we are not just a bunch of animals with no ability to think, speak, or love in the Divine Way.  

To help us understand if a person is a hormone-driven brute, or a regenerate, new creation of GOD in Christ, St. John says: “Anyone who does not love does not know GOD, because GOD is love … if we love one another, GOD abides in us and his love is perfected in us … GOD is love, and whoever abides in love abides in GOD, and GOD abides in him … And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves GOD must also love his brother” (1 John 4.8, 12, 16, 21 – ESV). 

Before we go any further, we should explain what St. John and the Bible mean when they say ‘love’ and apply it to GOD. On its surface, love is the fountainhead that leads to the knowledge of GOD. And godly love, nurtured, and perfected in the greenhouse of our hearts, minds, and souls by GOD’s Spirit, produces in us aspects of GOD the Father’, which then allow us to love one another. St. John says that these godly attributes which define the Christian, are the attributes that define Him first – like thinking, speaking, and loving.      

In his Gospel and First Epistle, St. John describes how GOD is three things (at least) in nature, essence, and character: He is Spirit, Light, and Love. (cf. St. Jhn 4.2, 1 Jhn 1.5, & 4.8) For now, we wish only to talk about GOD’s nature and essence in terms of the love that defines Him. There are three aspects for us to behold of this quality of GOD. First, in chapter three of his epistle, the one who JESUS loved, St. John writes, “What manner of love The Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of GOD!” (St. John 3.1). Notice John did not say, ‘What manner of love we have bestowed on The Father’, but ‘What manner of love The Father has bestowed upon us.’  

If GOD is love, He is the most loveable person in the cosmos. Who would not love Him? All can love Him, and all should love Him. People are looking for love everywhere; they even attempt to buy love, especially since they are so lonely and needy. As C.S. Lewis said, ‘We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with,’ and yet, He who is love, has chosen to love us, who are most unlovable. As St. Paul writes “But GOD commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, (and very hard to live with), Christ died for us” (Romans 5.8). Dear brothers and sisters, ponder this reality!  “Isn’t it so wonderful the condescending love of the eternal Father, as we should be made and called his sons and daughters – we who by nature are heirs of sin and guilt, and the curse of GOD – we who by habitual and natural practice are children of corruption, disobedience, and ingratitude! Strange, that The Holy GOD is not ashamed to be called our Father, and to call us, His sons!”¹ Truly, GOD is love, and this is the first aspect of His nature and essence for us to discuss. 

The second aspect of GOD’s love is His penchant (viz. strong inclination), to manifest His love by sending that He might save. GOD does this by sending His only begotten Son from Heaven to earth. Again, St. John writes in His epistle, “In this, the love of GOD was manifested toward us, that GOD has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4.9). There is an old proverb: “Come live with me, and you will know me.”² Thus, GOD reveals His love, and He reveals Himself by sending His only begotten Son into the world to live with us, as one of us, that we might know GOD and be saved through Him. And seeing GOD in the Person of JESUS, we are invited to accept His love and be saved from the world, the flesh, the devil, and even ourselves, through His Son. 

To underscore this point, JESUS told a parable about a landowner who planted a vineyard, built a hedge around it, built lodgings for his overseers the vinedressers, and then went off to a far country until the time of the vintage. At that time, JESUS said that the landowner sent servants to collect His portion of the vintage from the vinedressers, but they rejected them, even beat them, and sent them away. Had they forgotten who the landowner was and what kind of man he was? Graciously he had hired them, giving them such a noble opportunity to represent him and care for his vineyard – participating in a large portion of its produce. They must have, as exhibited by their behavior toward the landowner’s servants. Thus, to represent himself, harboring no ill will to his vinedressers, the landowner sent his very dear and favorite son to speak with them, reason with them, and remind them of their covenant to be in an abiding relationship of respect and faithfulness with one another. ‘Surely’, the landowner reasoned, ‘they will respect my son’ and give unto him our agreed upon portion of the vintage of wine. Instead, JESUS said, “When the vinedressers saw the landowner’s son, they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.’ So, they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him” (St. Luke 20.14-15). 

The landowner had shown great restraint at each successive reproach of the vinedressers against his person, his property, and the covenant agreement they had made with one another. He gave them many opportunities to show the fruits of repentance, but they refused. So, in one last heroic act of kindness in love, the landowner sent his son to treaty with the vinedressers, that he might save their relationship. The cornerstone of the foundations of the personal and abiding love of GOD, (the covenantal love of GOD), is always laid first by Him who “sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4.9). This parable represents well the second aspect of GOD’s character in love: to reveal His love by sending so that He might save, especially in the sending of His Son. Thus, JESUS says, “For GOD did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (St. John 3.17).  

The third aspect of GOD’s character in love is revealed in His willingness to lay down His life for us. St. John writes in his first epistle, “In this is love, not that we loved GOD, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4.10). “Propitiation” is a word we hear every week in our liturgy, and I hope its familiarity does not breed passivity in your heart of its soaring meaning. It means ‘atonement,’ and atonement in GOD’s economy means ‘sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty’. Dear people of St. Mark’s, this is the hardest aspect of GOD’s love to comprehend. GOD’s love requires Him to sacrifice Himself in our place, that He might atone for/pay for/be the satisfaction for the guilt of our wrongdoings we have done against Him. To do anything, otherwise, would not be in GOD’s nature. GOD first loved; therefore, He gave His life to save the hopeless. 

GOD in Christ, when He came into the world, took on flesh, and dwelt among us, assuming the role of prophet, priest, and victim out of love. He tells us that we will be His children if we obey His commands; He administrates the covenant of propitiation telling us of the good news that the Father desires to save us; and then He lovingly pays the very price in His blood to purchase the whole promissory transaction that will assure our renewed relationship with the Father. As C. S. Lewis has put it, “[He has been] the propitiation for our sins; dying for us; dying under the law – under the curse of His personal regulatory statutes; bearing our sins in His body; being crucified; wounded in His soul; pierced in His side; and dead and buried for us.”³ Did you hear that dear Church? GOD, out of His character in love did all this for you and me – He loved first, He loved last, and He will love to the end. O what love is here!  

Now what? Good question. John does not hesitate in answering the question, with the following comment: “Beloved, if GOD so loved us [in these ways], shouldn’t we also love one another?” (1 John 4.11). Well, shouldn’t we? Now we know why the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is appointed for today. This story is hard-hitting and inspiring, but it’s also sad and unfortunate that JESUS must tell a tale of a man rejecting Love and rejecting his brother to make this point: ‘If GOD so loved us, shouldn’t we also love one another?’ The saddest part of the story is that the Rich Man had Moses and the Law ever before him, yet he ignored what was written therein: “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself – I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19.18). And ‘The wicked and deceitful man does not remember to show mercy but persecutes the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.’ (cf. Psalm 109.16). We note in the story, that the Rich Man never disputes where he finds himself and why. 

Yet, we should not be surprised that JESUS had to tell this story to make this truth accessible to humans who do not love. It was a necessary story, because fear casteth out all love, and “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty” (Proverbs 18.12). The Scriptures are clear, and human history is undeniably suggestive: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16.18). Like the animals in Narnia that did not receive Aslan’s nature, some people, even though one were to rise from the dead, will still not repent and respond to GOD’s beautiful love for them, that they might think, speak, and love like Him.  

Concerning love, C.S. Lewis knew what he was talking about. He knew the absence of it due to stubborn selfishness as an agnostic and an atheist. He knew the joy of it in its eternal stream of salvation, when the joy of Love filled his heart, and he heard GOD calling him to be a Christian. And he knew it for its depths revealed through pain, loss, and separation, when his own Joy, his wife, was taken from him by cancer. Lewis never minced words about Love. Teaching about GOD’s love, Lewis said: “As so often, Our LORD’s own words are both far fiercer and far more tolerable than those of any theologian, preacher, or teacher. JESUS says nothing about guarding against earthly loves, for fear we might be hurt. Yet, He does say something that cracks like a whip about trampling them all underfoot the moment they hold us back from following Him. ‘If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife, and children, brothers, and sisters, yes even his own life also, he cannot be my disciple”⁴ (Luke 14.26). GOD’s love gives all; even the Son. GOD’s love desires all; even our hearts, minds, and souls. 

Dear church of St. Mark the Evangelist, before your day of departure, who do you aspire to be more like Lazarus or the Rich Man? Do you know GOD’s love? If so, do you love Him in return? There is only one way to tell. “Anyone who does not love does not know GOD, because GOD is love … if we love one another, GOD abides in us and his love is perfected in us … GOD is love, and whoever abides in love abides in GOD, and GOD abides in him … And this commandment we have directly from Him: whoever loves GOD must also love his brother.” Amen. 

1 Henry, Matthew. BlueLetterBible.org.  “Commentary of 1 John 3:1”. Accessed 17 June 2025. Commentary on 1 John 3 by Matthew Henry. 

2 Lewis, C.S., The Four Loves, (London, G. Bles, 1960), 55. 

3 Henry, Matthew. BlueLetterBible.org.  “Commentary of 1 John 4:10”. Accessed 19 June 2025. https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/1Jo/1Jo_004.cfm?a=1163001  

4 Lewis, 140.