Trinity Sunday

Pictured is an early trinitarian design, called a triquetra, with its three equal arcs representing equality and its continuous line expressing eternity.  The interweaving represents indivisibility.  While symbols are helpful to our understanding of the Trinity, they fail in expressing the personal nature of God, who from the beginning had us in mind.

 

 

 

June 19, 2011 will be a special Sunday for two reasons.  It is Father's Day, and more importantly, Trinity Sunday.  It is thought that Father's Day began with a memorial service held for a large group of men, many of them fathers, who were killed in a mining accident in Monongah, West Virginia, in 1907.  Americans are accustomed to Father's Day as an opportunity to honor fathers and grandfathers with cards, gifts and sentiments of appreciation.

In 2011, June 19 is also Trinity Sunday for Christians.  Trinity Sunday can be traced back to the fourth century.  It is a day for rejoicing in the mystery that God is triune (three-in-one)--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The fact that the Lord is one God in three distinct persons is totally beyond human comprehension.  It is only by the power of God the Holy Spirit that Christians accept this incomprehensible mystery as an essential article of faith in the True God.

This 2011 opportunity to observe Trinity Sunday and Father's Day on the same day is a marvelous opportunity to recognize that God is the Creator Father who is distinct from Jesus, His only Son, the Savior of humanity, and the Holy Spirit, who engenders faith while also being in union as One God.  The True God cherishes relationship with people as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  June 19 will be a magnificent day to honor God the Father with prayer, praise and thanksgiving, while also appreciating our earthly fathers and grandfathers.

God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are due our greatest gratitude on Father's Day because of God's most precious work in our families.  God our Father, who is perfect in every way, loves us so much that He provides mercy and forgiveness through His Son Jesus, so we may be led by the Holy Spirit to lavish love on one another in our imperfect families with forgiving gratitude for one another.

 

 

Taken from the Nebraska Lutheran Reporter, June 2011, by Rev. Russ Sommerfeld