 St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Thursday, June 9, 2022 Preparing for Trinity Sunday  Trinity Sunday (from The Rev. Gerald Skillicorn, author of Revisiting Pentecost and our Dance with Grace) The celebration of God as a Holy Trinity is a pivotal day on the Church calendar.For six months we celebrate God’s self-disclosure about…who God is, what God does, and why God does what God does, knowing God as – eternally uncreated love (Father) as eternally uncreated love self-expressive in Jesus Christ (Son),and eternally uncreated love self-responsive through the Holy Spirit, as revealed in the first six months is worth celebrating. Now we have six months to contemplate and put into action the life of God as revealed in the first six months. We need to answer these questions. How do I welcome the love of the Father? How do I share that love as I see it shared in the actions of Jesus Christ? How do I partner with the Holy Spirit in returning the love through my love of others? Trinity Sunday The Trinity is easy to mis-characterize. It’s easy to devolve into tri-theism. It’s easy for others to accuse of of believing in three gods; in practice, some us probaby do! That’s why it took so long to try to put it into words. Even though God had been experienced as Father, Law-giver, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, Strengthener, and even in Jesus of Nazareth, there was tremendous reluctance to define how God was present, and to “define” God, God’s self. The word, “trinity” isn’t even in the Bible. But the reality of God being known in different ways is. Christians have not always found it necessary to describe God as Trinity, either. And some have found it impossible. They simply find it easier to let God be God, without definition. But the Church, in both the east and west, came to understand and to articulate the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit by the time of the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Hymn 362 Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee: Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,God in three Persons, blessed Trinity |
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