The Cry of the Deer

Your exams are finished. Mine is about to begin.  Today is Trinity Sunday, and some would say that explaining God as Holy Trinity is the hardest thing a preacher can do, the most unfathomable doctrine, the most mysterious theology.  And so I turn over my paper.  I have fifteen minutes for the exam.  But I have help, as you will hear, from St John, St Paul and particularly St Patrick because of a hymn exploring the work of the Trinity.

The Trinity is the particular way that Christians understand who God is. Being Trinitarian is the hallmark of orthodox Christianity, and yet it is not a term found in the Bible.  It was a neologism, a term invented to explain how the divine, while one, is also three; while three, is also one.  Yet the early church believed that the doctrine emerged from scripture, since there are a number of passages which refer to God in three ways.  One example is the passage from John’s Gospel we heard earlier (3:1-17).  In verse 16, we hear that:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

This suggests that God can be found as Son and the giver of the Son, commonly understood as Father. And earlier in the same passage in v. 5, we read:

No-one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.

This and other passages led the early church to conceive of God not only as Father and Son but as Spirit.

In other words, it is as if there are clues scattered throughout the Bible, like a code which only makes sense if the grid of the Trinity is placed over; a door which only gives if the key of the Trinity is placed in the lock.

But it was not reflection on the Bible alone which led to the Christian formulation of the Trinity, but Christians’ lives. They saw, heard and felt creation, and gave thanks for God as Creator.  They knew the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and sensed God the Redeemer forgiving them.  They prayed, lived and struggled, and felt God the Comforter with them.  One God in three ways.

By the time of St Patrick, this was orthodox understanding, and St Augustine’s great work, On the Trinity, probably published in 417, was setting it forth.  Patrick, born somewhere in Britain, was a slave in Ireland from the age of 16 for six years.  He escaped home, but in a dream was called to return to Ireland, as he later wrote, “to come again and walk among us.”  It was a call to mission.

In 432 he arrived. It is said that soon after arriving he composed the hymn I bind unto myself today, which we will sing later.  (It’s at hymn 639 and you may want to have it open.)  Written in Irish, it is sometimes known as a lorica, or a breastplate.  A lorica was a sort of magical coat which was worn as a charm against disease or danger.  The term then became used for a poem which acted in the same way, as an invocation against powers of darkness – invoking the Trinity and angels, naming the parts of the body to be protected, and asking for immunity against various dangers.

It is said that Patrick lit a fire to celebrate Easter one night near Tara in present-day Co. Meath, which angered the High King of Ireland King Laoghaire, who was holding a pagan festival 10 miles away. He sent soldiers to destroy the Christians’ fire, but as they approached they heard Patrick and his people singing this lorica, I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity.  And apparently the King’s soldiers mistook the Christians for deer in the darkness by their fire, and so the hymn has become known as The Cry of the Deer.

For all that it was allegedly sung against the pagans, there is more than a hint of pagan ideas within it. It feels like a spell, a magical incantation, invoking not only the Trinity to protect us, but also nature –

the stable earth, the deep salt sea
around the old eternal rocks.

It reminds me a bit of a journey I once made on Bali, in Indonesia. I was in a public minibus travelling at breakneck speed on narrow roads, overtaking on corners, just missing pedestrians and other traffic.  Suddenly we screeched to a stop, and the driver leapt out to place an offering in a roadside shrine dedicated to safety for travel, before jumping back in and stepping on the gas again.  An invocation for protection.

But what does the Cry of the Deer envisage we need God’s protection from?
Here a verse not printed in our hymn-book is instructive. It says:

Against all satan’s spells and wiles,
Against the false words of heresy…
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death-wound and the burning…

In other words, the hymn’s setting is spiritual warfare, and believes that our lives are beset by the actions of the devil, demons and their human servants. Patrick may feel distant from us as the modern people we are, but closer perhaps to scripture.

For the verses from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we heard earlier could be called the original lorica. v. 14 says:

Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.

And indeed there is a whole armour of God – as well as belt of truth and breastplate of righteousness, there are shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit. War-like garb for the spiritual life.  Why?  Who is the enemy?

Paul, like Patrick, saw the wiles of the devil at work in earthly affairs.

  1. 12: For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

The shield of faith would protect against all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Paul, as did Patrick some 400 years later, saw the material creation as the arena for invisible powers to do their worst, evil spirits capable of hampering and damaging lives, with illness, doubt or temptation to sin.  But our world was also a place of angels, helping, guiding and blessing.  And through all these battles, God is active, at work against the devil and his demons.  For God came in material flesh, in Jesus Christ, and is still in creation by his Spirit, and ultimately is greater in power than any devil.

This is why the Trinity matters so much to Patrick, and to Christians. God is not merely the creator who dwells in heaven, but God who came in human flesh, encountered the worst that evil could do, died and was buried, but was raised by the power of God, bursting from the spicèd tomb, and lives by the Spirit.  God being Trinity means that God has encountered evil, as we do and has overcome it.  That’s why Patrick’s breastplate finishes:

Praise to the Lord of my salvation:
salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Today is the final Sunday of the Candlemas semester. Many in Chapel today are going away – for the summer vacation, home, to a job or internship, on holiday or volunteering, climbing Kilimanjaro or climbing the mountain of a Masters dissertation.  And some are leaving for good, final exam done, studies finished and body soaked.  If that is you, you may be feeling relief, excitement and anticipation of what is to come.

But you may also, deep in your heart, be longing for protection. And that may be true of all of us in one way or another.  It may be spiritual battles.  Sometimes I feel that the presence of evil in our world, or such troubles that come unbidden to us, suggest that Paul and Patrick are right to see flaming arrows from the evil one assailing us.

Paul, as did Patrick some 400 years later, saw the material creation as the arena for invisible powers to do their worst, evil spirits capable of hampering and damaging lives, with illness, doubt or temptation to sin. But our world was also a place of angels, helping, guiding and blessing.  And through all these battles, God is active, at work against the devil and his demons.  For God came in material flesh, in Jesus Christ, and is still in creation by his Spirit, and ultimately is greater in power than any devil.

This is why the Trinity matters so much to Patrick, and to Christians. God is not merely the creator who dwells in heaven, but God who came in human flesh, encountered the worst that evil could do, died and was buried, but was raised by the power of God, bursting from the spicèd tomb, and lives by the Spirit.  God being Trinity means that God has encountered evil, as we do and has overcome it.  That’s why Patrick’s breastplate finishes:

Praise to the Lord of my salvation:
salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Today is the final Sunday of the Candlemas semester. Many in Chapel today are going away – for the summer vacation, home, to a job or internship, on holiday or volunteering, climbing Kilimanjaro or climbing the mountain of a Masters dissertation.  And some are leaving for good, final exam done, studies finished and body soaked.  If that is you, you may be feeling relief, excitement and anticipation of what is to come.

 

But you may also, deep in your heart, be longing for protection. And that may be true of all of us in one way or another.  It may be spiritual battles.  Sometimes I feel that the presence of evil in our world, or such troubles that come unbidden to us, suggest that Paul and Patrick are right to see flaming arrows from the evil one assailing us.

 

But there may be different names for the enemies we fear. Fear of the future, or finding work, of getting funding, of paying off debt; fear as to whether a relationship will survive the transition; fear for our health, physical or mental, in unfamiliar territory; fear about life away from our friends; fear for life seemingly without purpose.

 

If so, then let the Cry of the Deer be our prayer for protection, for God to be with us as Three in One, and One in Three. Of course, the world has been given freedom by God, and Christians do not believe in magic.  Although it may feel like an incantation, the lorica is not a spell which can control forces beyond us.  But it is a prayer which we trust God will hear, and respond to, with the Trinity’s power, grace and inspiration.

So let us bind unto ourselves today
the strong name of the Trinity –
to hold us and lead us,
to hearken to our need,
to guide, to ward,
to give us speech,
to be our guard.

With your exams over, and now mine too, may God bless us as we say farewell to this year, this Chapel and University, this town of St Andrews, and to each other.

END