Trinity Sunday

by Rev Jacky Quarmby 4 June 2023

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, the day we focus on the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Holy Trinity is the three faces or three persons of God.

The word Trinity does not appear explicitly in the Bible, but there are places, like the reading above, where the three persons of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are mentioned.

First there is God the Father, who created the world and made people in his own image. Then there is God the Son, the man Jesus who reveals the nature of God to us.  Jesus says in John 14: 9, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”  So if we want to know what God the Father is like, we just need to look at Jesus. And thirdly there is God the Holy Spirit, the Counsellor, the Spirit of truth, the one sent by the Father to live within us, to transform us and to remind us of all that Jesus has taught us.
One God, three different persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit

The idea of the Holy Trinity is quite hard to understand, so we often try to explain it using pictures. Christopher Columbus, on his third journey to America noticed three islands sticking out of the sea, but as he got closer to them, he realised that they were joined beneath the waves.  The three islands that looked so different were actually one and the same.  Columbus said that that was a good picture of the Trinity. From a distance the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, look very different, but as we get to know God more and more, we realise that they are one and the same and that it is impossible to separate them.  Columbus called that island Trinidad – the Spanish word for Trinity.

This lovely song about prayer called “Holy Ground” by Mal Pope is Trinitarian and talks about Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Prayer is a special way in which the whole of the Trinity is involved. We pray to God the Father. We pray in the name of Jesus, because it is through him that we are welcomed into God’s presence. And it is the Holy Spirit who gives us the words to say.  So let us pray …

Father God,
Teach us to live always in your presence
Living Jesus
Be our companion and friend along the way
In peace and danger, in promise and in pain.
Holy Spirit
Guide us into all truth and
Strengthen us through your grace and power.
For we ask these prayers in Jesus’ name.
Amen