Acts 2:14, 22-36

            {Prayer}

            Each and everyone one of us gathered here is in a relationship with someone else. I’ll even go so far to say that each of us are in multiple relationships. I know, that may sound a bit risqué … but it’s true right?

            If you go on my Facebook page, you will see that my relationship status is “married.” Now what it doesn’t say is how awesome my wife is, how lucky I am, and that we are happily married. And no, I’m not trying to get out any sort of trouble.

            Going back to my Facebook page, it states I’m married, it states how many friends I have. But what doesn’t say is what kind of a relationship I have with my kids, my parents, my brother and step-sisters, my in-laws, my friends, my doctor, other pastors, people I know from high school, college, seminary, or even each of you. All these people are listed as simply “friends.” Now obviously, my relationship status with each of these people is very different, especially if you would compare them to my relationship with my wife. Whatever the status, I’m obviously in relationships with many different people … and so are you.

            And really, that is the way God intends it to be. God is all about relationships. As has been mentioned, today is Trinity Sunday. We worship and praise God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We don’t worship them separately but together as they are in relation to each other. One pastor many years ago said, “God is relationship – One God, three persons, each relating to and loving one another … and loving us.”

            We see this in the creation account of Genesis 1 and 2. God made all of creation to be in a relationship together. Everything God created in the heavens, on earth, and under the earth, all co-exist with one another. They live and grow with one another. Same with man. After God made Adam, He said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18). From Adam’s rib, God made woman. Together they walked side by side. Adam and Eve were made to be in a relationship with each other, with the creation they tended to, and with God who created them. And at the end of it all, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

            Creation, life, all things living in perfect harmony with one another. That is how it is supposed to be. That is how it supposed to be with you and me as well. You and I are made to be in a relationship with others, with creation, and with God. We were not created to live in isolation or to rule over or dominate the creation.

            It’s because of Adam and Eve’s sin of wanting to be God which led them to eat the forbidden fruit. Because of this sin of wanting to be God, man’s relationship with each other, with creation, and with God became severely tainted. Instead of helping and supporting one another in all our physical and mental needs, we exploit, ridicule, and take advantage of others. Our relationship with creation is tainted as we now deal with thorns and thistles. The creation constantly is groaning as in the pains of child birth through different natural disasters. Our relationship with God has also been severely infected as we easily put Him in a box up on a shelf, only to bring Him down and open up to Him when we think we need Him.

            It is from these flawed relationships in which King David writes Psalm 16. We don’t know what it was which shook the foundation of David’s trust in God, but whatever it was, it was bad enough for him to write this psalm. In it you can hear David’s plea to God to not forsake him. “Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge” (Psalm 16:1). David goes on to say, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing” (16:2). Apart from God, David has nothing. David is a man who is blessed with wealth and fortune, with fame and a strong army, and yet … if he doesn’t have a relationship with the Lord, he has nothing. Even with all the physical blessings he has, they mean nothing because they are just things and he doesn’t have a relationship with them.

            King David realizes, and we should realize too, that when we are going through a hard time, going through the valley of the shadow of death, the valley of deep darkness … that of all the things of the world … none of them matter. David says in Psalm 23 that they don’t matter because “you are with me.”

            David confesses at the end of Psalm 16, “I have set the LORD always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand” (16:8-11). The most important relationship to David … it’s the one he has with God. And because he realizes this … David prays this psalm asking God for safekeeping, for protection of himself from the threat of death, and so that he can be like the other saints who are in the land serving one another.

            Peter in our second reading, he catches on to this idea of relationships in his Pentecost sermon. Peter preaches that Jesus came teaching the people God’s Word. Jesus came helping those in need and forgiving those who sought forgiveness. Throughout out Jesus’ life, He was trying to restore the broken relationships which man had with each other. But more importantly … Jesus came to restore the broken relationship which man has with God.  And what did the people do? “You, with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.” (Acts 2:23). They crucified Him! They didn’t just kill Him silently where no one would notice. No! They marched His beaten and bloodied body right up to the top of a hill where everyone would see Him. They strung up His whipped body and nailed it high upon the cross as if He was the most heinous criminal to ever live. Hanging there on the cross, breathing His last breathes, Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of Trinity, was cut off from all relationships as He was forsaken by His own people and even by His Father in Heaven.

            And why? … To heal your broken relationships. To heal the broken relationships you have with each other, to heal your relationship with God’s creation, and most importantly … to heal the battered relationship you and I have with our Triune God.

            Your relationship with our Triune God has been restored, not by what you and I do, but as Peter says, “God raised {Jesus} from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death” (Acts 2:24). And then Peter says about Jesus the same words David wrote in Psalm 16. “I saw the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, because You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence” (2:25-28).

            David died. Peter died. You and I will one day die. Jesus died because of the sinfully flawed and broken relationships of man. But the difference is this … where David’s, Peter’s, and yours and my bodies will see decay, Christ’s body will not. Christ, the Holy One, did not see decay as He rose from the dead to claim victory over sin, death, and Satan so that your relationship with Him will be restored.

            Your relationship with God isn’t the only thing which Christ restores. When He comes again and calls you by name, your decaying body will rise up from its grave, be restored to perfection and you will live in the new creation, the new heavens and earth to come. The creation in which we live will be restored, it will be made perfect. In this new creation, all those whose relationship which have been restored with God will dwell in perfect harmony with the new creation, with each other, and with our loving God.

            Our loving Triune God is all about relationships. It’s evident when we think about one God, three persons, each relating to and loving one another. But thankfully our Triune God isn’t arrogant and stuck on Himself. If He was, then God wouldn’t have called you to be in a relationship with Him. It is through the gift of the Holy Spirit given to you, through the words which God the Father created for you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, and through the body and blood shed for you by the Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, which we will partake of here in a little while, through these, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you have the full assurance that you are God’s. God is totally committed to you. There is nothing which can separate you from the love of God. So with confidence, live your life to the glory and honor of God as you serve Him, tend to His creation, and love and take care of each other. Amen.

            May God the Father, who created your body; may God the Son, who by His blood redeemed your body; may God the Holy Spirit, who by Holy Baptism cleanses your body to be His temple, keep you to the day of the resurrection of all flesh. Amen.