The Holy Trinity – What Does This Mean?

Encore Post: Today we enter the second half of the church calendar. We have spent about six months in what is called the Festival Half of the year. We experience from a distance our Lord’s life as we move through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, the Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost. Throughout the festivals, we see the hand of God working out all that was necessary for man to become his own and be what God had intended us to be in time and in eternity.

This morning we celebrate The Holy Trinity. In it, we are not commemorating and remembering some act of God for our salvation. Rather we consider and marvel the great doctrine and truth that our God is a mysterious God: Three distinct Persons in one Divine Essence. This doctrine is at the center of our faith. It is the foundation of Christianity. We do not confess ‘a god’ or ‘one god in multiple modes.’ No, we confess that we ‘believe in God the Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit.’ ‘One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.’

In the Festival Half of the year, we have seen our Triune God at work. The Holy Spirit overshadows the Virgin Mary at the Incarnation of Jesus as the Father sends our Savior into the world. At the Baptism of Jesus, we hear the Father speak as the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus. At the Transfiguration, we again hear the Father when he tells Peter, James, and John that Jesus is his beloved son and to “listen to him.” On the cross, Jesus cries out and hands over the Spirit. And at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes in power to convict those who hear the preached word of God of their sins. And the people who believe are baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit into the forgiveness of sins and so that they, too, would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So today we enter the Non-Festival half of the church year. The half that tells the story of the Church which our Triune God has called to himself. We see the kingdom as the Kingdom of Grace. We hear of his kingdom’s righteousness. We come to know what New Life in the kingdom is like. Finally, we are prepared for the Last Day and entrance into the Heavenly Kingdom.

And then? Then we get to do it again and again. Year after year. Hearing, believing, and rejoicing in what our gracious God has done for us: Redeeming us and making on his own beloved children.

Rev. Brent Keller
Trinity Lutheran Church
Guttenberg, Iowa
and
St. Paul Lutheran Church
McGregor, Iowa