05/31/2026
Trinity Sunday, 5/31/2026
St. Raphael’s, FMB
Michael Rowe
In the Name . . .
The people of first-century Judea and Galilee found Jesus to be a very remarkable person.
At first, they thought that he was an inspired prophet and healer, like Elijah and Elisha and others in their history – someone especially chosen by God and strengthened by the Holy Spirit to speak for God and to do astonishing wonders in his name.
And then partly because of what they heard him say and partly because of what they saw him do, they began to hope against hope, that Jesus might be not just any prophet but THE PROPHET, the one who like Moses would rescue the people from slavery into freedom, the one who would be anointed as the king like David who would govern God’s people in freedom and justice. That is, they began to hope and suspect that this Jesus of Nazareth might just be the chosen Messiah, the anointed one of God, the one we have been waiting for to deliver us from oppression and to bring in God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Remember when in Caesarea Philippi Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do people say that am I?” They answered, “Well, some say you’re John the Baptist or Elijah or one of the prophets.”
Then he asks, “What about you? Who do you say that I am?” And Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
Jesus said, “Simon, you didn’t figure this out for yourself; God revealed it to you. So you are the rock on which I will build my church.”
Now when Peter exclaimed, “You are the Son of the Living God,” he really didn’t know what he was saying. He probably meant, “You are God’s chosen, adopted son,” the kind of thing that people said about kings in those days.
But more and more the disciples experienced Jesus speaking and acting not just as God’s messenger or agent or even as his anointed Messiah, but as if he were himself divine.
When he said to the paralytic man in Mark chapter 2, “Your sins are forgiven,” his Pharisaic opponents knew exactly what he was doing. They demanded, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said long ago ‘you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not swear falsely.’”
Who said those things long ago? They are from the 10 commandments, which were spoken and given by God himself.
Jesus says, “Now I say to you . . .” Not, “Now God is saying . . .” or “This is what God means . . .” but rather “God said then; I say now.”
He says, “I and the Father are one.” “The one who sees me has seen the Father” and so much more.
And, of course he did astonishing things, from healing the sick to raising the dead to stilling storms, reenacting the creative acts of God that we heard about in our first reading today.
If Jesus had only done astonishing things, his Jewish friends and followers would not have regarded him as divine. They were really clear that only God is God. If he had just talked about himself and his heavenly Father, people then as now would have said, “Yeah? Prove it.”
But take the talk and the action together and people started to ask, “Who is this that even forgives sins?” “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
All of Jesus’ pretensions seemed to be shattered on the cross, devastating his followers. That is why the resurrection, not a resuscitation to this life, but a resurrection to eternal life – that is why the resurrection is so astonishing, wonderful and decisive. It is God the Father putting his seal of approval on the life and work and words of this Jesus of Nazareth who seems also to be – what? Who?
What does Thomas say? “My Lord and my God!”
And does Jesus say, “I’m pretty great but let’s not be ridiculous?” No, he says, “You get it now because you see me? Blessed are those who get it, who believe, even without physically seeing me.”
On the mountaintop, the disciples gather and worship the risen Christ, but some doubted, as we heard in today’s Gospel. Doubted what? That he was risen? That was obvious. Some doubted whether they should worship him, because worship belongs to God alone.
In the Book of Revelation, when John the Divine falls down and worships his angelic messenger, the messenger immediately corrects him. “Don’t do that! I am a creature just like you. Worship God alone.”
Jesus definitely does not respond that way. He accepts the worship and commissions his disciples to their worldwide mission. And he promises them that he will be with them everywhere always. Just like God, right?
Throughout the whole rest of the New Testament, from the earliest material we have to the latest, we see the first century Christians relating to Jesus in this way – praying to him, calling on him for help, worshiping him and inviting everyone to trust him and engage with him. They did this not as an extended metaphor but as the most real reality that they had ever known.
Now all these people are Jews. They know that God is one and that we worship only him. Yet they find themselves worshiping Jesus as his Son. They also know that their life in Christ is real because Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, to be in and with them. They experience the Spirit of God praying and working within them and among them.
This isn’t something they sat down and figured out. This is what is most completely real, important and life-giving in their whole lives; that they belong to God the Father through his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. They treat each one as only God can be treated yet find that there is no division or contradiction or separation among them. They are distinct, in perfect unity.
How do you explain that and guard against misinterpretations that would either deny the divine reality of Jesus or the Holy Spirit or would deny the real distinctions among them or would deny their fundamental oneness?
That is how the doctrine of the Holy Trinity developed, as the Church put words to her reality and began to speak in terms of the three divine persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – in perfect unity of divine being as one God. This is the faith we will confess in the Nicene Creed in a few moments.
This Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, however, celebrates not the doctrine, important as it is, but the Divine reality that the doctrine describes and protects: that we know and worship not a solitary god or a bunch of gods but the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And knowing and worshiping him we share his divine life. AMEN
