The Trinity: Hardwiring Creation
June 15, 2025 Trinity Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
John 1:1-5 and Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
“The Trinity: Hardwiring Creation”
Douglas T. King
I come home at the end of a long day and head to my study, settling in behind my desk. There might be a small sigh of relief that the frustrations and adventures of the day are over. I turn on the computer to check my email, do a little writing, and catch up on the news. After I punch in the password, I click on the icon to go online. But, guess what? There is no access to the internet. The wifi is down. At this point there is likely a second sigh accompanied by a few words that are better left unsaid from the pulpit. I am out of my chair and stalking to the modem to unplug everything, let it sit for a minute or two and then plug it in again. With a prayer and some crossed fingers, I hope this will do the trick and the reboot will return the wifi. While I am waiting to see if my efforts will be fruitful, I wistfully remember the days when my computer was hardwired to the internet. Back then you did not have to worry about the magical fairies of wifi correctly beaming information through the air to your computer. It was one less element of uncertainty and worry in a world where there is more than enough uncertainty and worry.
When we speak of God it would be a mistake of grand hubris to believe anything we say can be said with an all-encompassing certainty of the one who is beyond all boundaries and categories. But that does not mean we cannot speak with certainty about what scripture has to teach us about elements of who God is. This is the third sermon in our series on the Trinity as we seek to explore what insights the Trinity brings us regarding the nature of God.
Our two scripture texts this morning speak to the identity of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. They reveal an interesting dimension that may challenge our assumptions about how God has been at work, explicitly in the act of creation.
In these texts we hear how the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ are present in the midst of creation. When we think about the Trinity we often compartmentalize the role each member plays. God, the first person, created everything that is. Jesus Christ comes along and by loving us beyond all boundaries offers us grace and reconciliation with God. And the Holy Spirit, arrives to be present among us, following Jesus’ ascension, that we may be sustained and supported throughout our lives. The neat categories allow us to name some of what we believe are the distinct elements of who the divine is.
But our texts this morning present us with a more nuanced and complex understanding of how God functions in trinitarian ways. We hear of Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, present beside God the Creator, assisting with creation and delighting in every moment of it. And we hear of Jesus Christ present at the creation as well. In fact, we are told that in the beginning, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
Every member of the trinity played a role in the creation of existence. At first this may not seem all that important. It could merely be a metaphysical detail. But it actually illuminates something quite important about our relationship to God and to existence itself. The fact that everything that has ever or will ever be created has been done so through Jesus Christ provides us with the ultimate certainty, the ultimate hardwiring of our destiny in relationship to the divine.
The theologian, Robert Farrar Capon, expresses it like this, “In him, creation and redemption are one act; both have always been going on full force in everything. True enough, it took time for Scripture to reveal that gracious gift. But when it’s all set down in black and white, grace is the ultimate point. It proclaims that the Word who makes the world is identical with the Word who saves the world, and it says he’s been doing both jobs. Now matter how lost the world may get, it’s always been found in the mystery of its Maker.” (Capon, pp. 11-12)
So what does this mean for us? We run the risk of thinking of God’s grace given to us through Jesus Christ as akin to wifi. We worry that it might not be there for us; that somehow the connection could be lost. We believe there is something we could do or not do that would eliminate the connection that allows us to receive God’s grace. When we learn that all of creation was fashioned through Jesus Christ, we discover that God’s grace and forgiveness is hardwired into all of creation. It surrounds and imbues every nook and cranny of existence. By our actions we may choose to ignore God’s grace but God’s grace is ever-present and ever available to us.It dwells within every atom of creation. We cannot escape the presence of grace.
In our reading from Proverbs we learn that Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, is present during the act of creation. We are told she was a “master worker” as existence itself was brought into form. But the effort is far from workmanlike. We hear how God the Creator delights in the Spirit, the Spirit rejoices in God’s presence, and they both rejoice and delight in the world and in humanity. The literary scholar, Robert Alter, translates the word “rejoice” as “play.” He describes their shared effort of creation as “I was His delight day after day, playing before him at all times, playing in the world…” The account we receive in Genesis acknowledges that God deems creation good but it can be heard as sedate satisfaction. We can picture God leaning back from the divine workbench, head nodding at a job well done. With all of the rejoicing and delighting and playing we hear in this account of creation in Proverbs, we can picture God and the Spirit and Jesus Christ dancing around one another with glee in the midst of creation.
Standing before all of the imperfections and brokenness we find in our world and ourselves, it would be easy to wonder if God might lose heart with the entire endeavor. But when we learn of how much rejoicing, delighting, and playing went into setting the world, and each of us, in motion, even with all our frailties, we can be confident that God’s delight in us exists in our DNA from the very beginning.
These scripture texts teach us that all of the Trinity was indeed present in the act of creation and imbuing creation with whom they are. God’s loving grace in Jesus Christ is hardwired into the entire creation, “All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being.” And God’s delight was sewn directly into the very fabric of existence. We hear of God’s “rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” These are foundational realities in which we can trust. At times we may choose to ignore these realities. But there is nothing we can ever do that will distance us from these remarkable gifts in our midst.
The interplay of the members of the Trinity shows us that there is no part of God that is not creating, redeeming, and joyfully sustaining us. There is no place we can go or nothing we can do to ultimately escape this remarkable reality. It is hardwired for us and for all of existence. We are bathed in grace and have been the divine’s delight since before time began.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Alter, Robert, The Wisdom Books, W. W. Norton & Company,
New York, 2010.
Capon, Robert Farrar, The Fingerprints of God, William B.
Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2000.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
John 1:1-5 and Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
“The Trinity: Hardwiring Creation”
Douglas T. King
I come home at the end of a long day and head to my study, settling in behind my desk. There might be a small sigh of relief that the frustrations and adventures of the day are over. I turn on the computer to check my email, do a little writing, and catch up on the news. After I punch in the password, I click on the icon to go online. But, guess what? There is no access to the internet. The wifi is down. At this point there is likely a second sigh accompanied by a few words that are better left unsaid from the pulpit. I am out of my chair and stalking to the modem to unplug everything, let it sit for a minute or two and then plug it in again. With a prayer and some crossed fingers, I hope this will do the trick and the reboot will return the wifi. While I am waiting to see if my efforts will be fruitful, I wistfully remember the days when my computer was hardwired to the internet. Back then you did not have to worry about the magical fairies of wifi correctly beaming information through the air to your computer. It was one less element of uncertainty and worry in a world where there is more than enough uncertainty and worry.
When we speak of God it would be a mistake of grand hubris to believe anything we say can be said with an all-encompassing certainty of the one who is beyond all boundaries and categories. But that does not mean we cannot speak with certainty about what scripture has to teach us about elements of who God is. This is the third sermon in our series on the Trinity as we seek to explore what insights the Trinity brings us regarding the nature of God.
Our two scripture texts this morning speak to the identity of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. They reveal an interesting dimension that may challenge our assumptions about how God has been at work, explicitly in the act of creation.
In these texts we hear how the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ are present in the midst of creation. When we think about the Trinity we often compartmentalize the role each member plays. God, the first person, created everything that is. Jesus Christ comes along and by loving us beyond all boundaries offers us grace and reconciliation with God. And the Holy Spirit, arrives to be present among us, following Jesus’ ascension, that we may be sustained and supported throughout our lives. The neat categories allow us to name some of what we believe are the distinct elements of who the divine is.
But our texts this morning present us with a more nuanced and complex understanding of how God functions in trinitarian ways. We hear of Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, present beside God the Creator, assisting with creation and delighting in every moment of it. And we hear of Jesus Christ present at the creation as well. In fact, we are told that in the beginning, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
Every member of the trinity played a role in the creation of existence. At first this may not seem all that important. It could merely be a metaphysical detail. But it actually illuminates something quite important about our relationship to God and to existence itself. The fact that everything that has ever or will ever be created has been done so through Jesus Christ provides us with the ultimate certainty, the ultimate hardwiring of our destiny in relationship to the divine.
The theologian, Robert Farrar Capon, expresses it like this, “In him, creation and redemption are one act; both have always been going on full force in everything. True enough, it took time for Scripture to reveal that gracious gift. But when it’s all set down in black and white, grace is the ultimate point. It proclaims that the Word who makes the world is identical with the Word who saves the world, and it says he’s been doing both jobs. Now matter how lost the world may get, it’s always been found in the mystery of its Maker.” (Capon, pp. 11-12)
So what does this mean for us? We run the risk of thinking of God’s grace given to us through Jesus Christ as akin to wifi. We worry that it might not be there for us; that somehow the connection could be lost. We believe there is something we could do or not do that would eliminate the connection that allows us to receive God’s grace. When we learn that all of creation was fashioned through Jesus Christ, we discover that God’s grace and forgiveness is hardwired into all of creation. It surrounds and imbues every nook and cranny of existence. By our actions we may choose to ignore God’s grace but God’s grace is ever-present and ever available to us.It dwells within every atom of creation. We cannot escape the presence of grace.
In our reading from Proverbs we learn that Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, is present during the act of creation. We are told she was a “master worker” as existence itself was brought into form. But the effort is far from workmanlike. We hear how God the Creator delights in the Spirit, the Spirit rejoices in God’s presence, and they both rejoice and delight in the world and in humanity. The literary scholar, Robert Alter, translates the word “rejoice” as “play.” He describes their shared effort of creation as “I was His delight day after day, playing before him at all times, playing in the world…” The account we receive in Genesis acknowledges that God deems creation good but it can be heard as sedate satisfaction. We can picture God leaning back from the divine workbench, head nodding at a job well done. With all of the rejoicing and delighting and playing we hear in this account of creation in Proverbs, we can picture God and the Spirit and Jesus Christ dancing around one another with glee in the midst of creation.
Standing before all of the imperfections and brokenness we find in our world and ourselves, it would be easy to wonder if God might lose heart with the entire endeavor. But when we learn of how much rejoicing, delighting, and playing went into setting the world, and each of us, in motion, even with all our frailties, we can be confident that God’s delight in us exists in our DNA from the very beginning.
These scripture texts teach us that all of the Trinity was indeed present in the act of creation and imbuing creation with whom they are. God’s loving grace in Jesus Christ is hardwired into the entire creation, “All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being.” And God’s delight was sewn directly into the very fabric of existence. We hear of God’s “rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” These are foundational realities in which we can trust. At times we may choose to ignore these realities. But there is nothing we can ever do that will distance us from these remarkable gifts in our midst.
The interplay of the members of the Trinity shows us that there is no part of God that is not creating, redeeming, and joyfully sustaining us. There is no place we can go or nothing we can do to ultimately escape this remarkable reality. It is hardwired for us and for all of existence. We are bathed in grace and have been the divine’s delight since before time began.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Alter, Robert, The Wisdom Books, W. W. Norton & Company,
New York, 2010.
Capon, Robert Farrar, The Fingerprints of God, William B.
Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2000.
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