Sermon by Father Alistair So-Schoos
+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.+
Trinity Sunday has a reputation among preachers. It is often said that this is the Sunday when clergy are most tempted either to explain too much or to explain too little. We know that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity stands at the very heart of the Christian faith. We confess it every time we say the Creed. We invoke it every time we make the sign of the Cross. We baptize in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Yet the moment we try to explain exactly how God can be both Three and One, we quickly discover that we are standing before a mystery.
The Church has wrestled with this mystery from the very beginning. The great creeds of the Church, including the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed, were written to safeguard the truth that Christians had received from the Apostles. They sought to confess faithfully what had been revealed in Holy Scripture: that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, yet there are not three Gods but one God.
The Athanasian Creed in particular is famous for its careful and detailed language. It insists that we worship “one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.” Its language can seem daunting to modern ears, but its purpose was not merely academic. It was written because the Church believed that it mattered who God is.
But perhaps today, instead of beginning with the creeds, we should begin where the Scriptures begin.
Our first lesson opens with some of the most familiar words in all the Bible: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.” Before there was light, before there was land or sea, before there were stars in the heavens or creatures upon the earth, there was God.The creation story does not present us with a fully developed doctrine of the Trinity. Nevertheless, Christians have always returned to these opening verses and found hints of the mystery later revealed in Christ. God creates by his Word. God speaks, and creation comes into being. The Spirit of God moves over the waters. As the early Church Fathers often taught, the Old Testament contains shadows and foreshadowings of truths that are revealed more clearly in the New Testament.
What we learn from Genesis is that God did not need the world in order to be God. Before there was light or land or sea, God already was. Before there were human beings to worship him, God already possessed all fullness and perfection within himself.
Looking back through the lens of the New Testament, we begin to understand something profound: creation was not born out of divine loneliness or necessity. God did not create because he lacked anything. Rather, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit already shared perfect communion. Creation is therefore not the filling of a void, but the overflowing generosity of God’s own life.
This brings us to our Gospel.
The risen Christ gathers his disciples on a mountain in Galilee and gives them what we know as the Great Commission. He tells them: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Notice that Jesus does not say “names,” plural. He says “name,” singular. One Name. One God. Yet within that one divine Name are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
This is one of the clearest Trinitarian passages in all of Scripture. Long before theologians debated terminology, long before councils gathered to formulate creeds, Christians were already baptizing in this threefold Name.
And this tells us something important. The doctrine of the Trinity was not invented by theologians. It arose from the Church’s encounter with the living God. The disciples knew the Father through Jesus Christ. They received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Their worship, their prayer, and their baptism all pointed them toward the mystery that the Church would eventually call the Trinity.
Yet even here we might ask the practical question: What difference does all of this make?
Why should ordinary Christians care about the Trinity?
The answer is that the Trinity tells us who God is and therefore who we are called to be.
If God were merely an isolated individual, then relationship would be secondary. Love would be optional. Community would be an afterthought.
But because God is Trinity, relationship lies at the very heart of reality itself. We are created by a God whose very life is communion. We are made in the image of a God whose life is self-giving love.
This is why Christians are called into fellowship with one another. This is why the Church is not merely a collection of individuals pursuing private spirituality. This is why forgiveness, reconciliation, and charity matter so deeply. We are called to reflect in our own lives something of the love that eternally exists within the life of God.
St. Paul points us in that direction in today’s Epistle. He concludes his letter with words that many of us know by heart:
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”
What a beautiful summary of the Christian life. We are sustained by the grace of Christ. We live within the love of the Father. We share in the communion of the Holy Spirit.
That blessing is not simply a statement about God. It is a prayer for God’s people. Paul is asking that the very life of the Trinity may shape the life of the Church.
And indeed, the life of the Trinity is not merely something we study; it is something we experience.
Every Christian life begins in the Name of the Trinity. At Baptism, we are baptized into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We are adopted by the Father, united to Christ, and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Every Christian prayer is Trinitarian. Whether we realize it or not, we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. The pattern of Christian prayer reflects the very life of God.
Every celebration of the Holy Eucharist is Trinitarian. We offer our worship to the Father. We remember the saving sacrifice of the Son. We invoke the Holy Spirit upon the gifts and upon ourselves. Week by week, the faithful are drawn more deeply into the life of the Holy Trinity through Word and Sacrament.
Even our growth in holiness is Trinitarian. When we repent of our sins and return to God, it is the Father who welcomes us home. It is through the merits of Christ that we receive forgiveness. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that our hearts are renewed and transformed.
In times of suffering, we discover the same truth. The Father does not abandon his children. The Son has entered into our human suffering and knows our sorrows from within. The Holy Spirit strengthens us with gifts and consolations when our own strength fails.
In other words, the Trinity is not an abstract doctrine reserved for theologians. The Trinity is the very atmosphere of the Christian life. We are created by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. To grow in faith is to be drawn ever more deeply into the life and love of the Triune God.
We stand before a mystery greater than our understanding, but not beyond our experience. We know the Father because he has created us and adopted us as his children. We know the Son because he has redeemed us and feeds us with his Body and Blood. We know the Holy Spirit because he dwells within us and conforms us to the likeness of Christ.
The fullness of the Christian faith is nothing less than participation in the life of the Holy Trinity itself. Therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, let us worship the one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; to whom be all honor and glory, now and forever.
Amen.
Trinity Sunday
May 31, 2026