Dear Friends,
This coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday. It is a subject when some preachers try to avoid, as it is a challenge to many. How to sum up the Godhead?
Each year the Church tells the story of God in the lectionary readings in a three-year cycle. The first year concentrates on Matthew, the second on Mark, and the third on Luke. John’s gospel is interspersed through all the cycles. Each year begins with Advent, the story of how God comes to us in Christ Jesus in the incarnation. God becoming like us, sharing what it is to be human. Through the early weeks of the year we hear of the life and ministry of Jesus. The season of Lent prepares us for Holy Week and Easter and then we celebrate Pentecost and the release of the Spirit of God.
Then we have Trinity Sunday. The culmination of God’s story and being and purpose in creation. A celebration of who God is, how God is and where God is.
The rest of the year is called Ordinary Time. The time when we celebrate in our lives and ministries the reality of God working in us and through us and in spite of us. That is the way of God, that is ordinary for God but it seems extra ordinary to us.
So for a lot of the year our everyday living is a poor reflection of God’s purposes and promises. It is as if on Trinity Sunday, God says to his people: ‘You have now heard all about me in creation, in the life death and resurrection of Jesus, in the release of the Spirit, now, go and get on with living lives of grace. Go, and be faithful followers and disciples, don’t confine what you know of me and my ways to within the church, go beyond. Tell the stories you know of me, but most importantly, tell your story of me in your life.
Happy Trinity Sunday.
Peace
Tim