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Sermon Illustrations for Trinity Sunday (2022)

Illustration
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Early African theologian Caius Marius Victorinus offers an intriguing image for understanding the relation between the Father and wisdom (the logos). Victorinus claims that the logos is the exterior knowing of God (what divine knowledge is revealed to us). The Father is then understood as the interior knowledge of God, what God himself only knows. Thus, Father and Son are identical in substance. As we distinguish between what a person is and what he does (yet know they are the same thing), so it is with Father and Son. The logos is just the activating of God’s creative power (The Fathers of the Church, Vol.69, pp. 266-267, 315). Or as Victorinus puts it in a hymn, the Father is the giver, the logos is the minister, and the Son is the d istributor (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 69, p. 324). Another helpful image for understanding the Trinity is offered in a paraphrase of St. Augustine:

In eternity, the Son loves the Father and the Father loves Son. The Holy Ghost is the love who makes them one. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3, p.100)

As two become one in a Christian marriage, so God loves himself into one.
Mark E.               

* * *

Psalm 8
We can never know God in full. John Calvin made that clear one time when commenting on this psalm. He wrote:

David implies that when all the faculties of the human mind are exerted to the utmost in meditation on this subject, they yet come far short of it. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. IV/2, p. 94)

Though God is great, he is still mindful of human beings. Indeed, he fills us and saturates us with his goodness. Augustine speaks of our being drunk on his glory, so inebriated that we have forgotten our sinful ways:

Through the multiplication of mercy then he is mindful of man, as of beasts; for that multiplied mercy reacheth even to them that are afar off... He extendeth mercy, and in his light giveth light, and maketh him drink of his pleasures, and inebraiteth him with the richness of his house, to forget the sorrows and the wanderings of his former conversation. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8, p. 30)
Mark E.

* * *

Romans 5:1-5
We sometimes think of character as something we’re born with, that’s ingrained. You either have it or you don’t. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the New Testament is that there is an assumption we can change, in contrast to many ancient philosophies (and modern misinterpretations of genetics) that we cannot. We don’t have to go out looking for trouble in order to suffer in this world, but suffering happens. And here the apostle Paul makes this astounding assertion that suffering leads to character and hope! Suffering creates character. Now there is an intermediate stage – endurance. Anyone who sets out to lose weight, or to exercise, or to read through the Bible in a year, or to go back to school, knows that these are hard things. They involve suffering at some level – but once we discover that we can make it walking ten minutes on the treadmill, it becomes easier to do it again because we develop our powers of endurance. And once we know we can endure, we will endure. And that in turn creates a different person, one with character, and how at last we hope is not some vain wish, but a way of living not only in the present, but with the future in mind, because we know from past experience we’ll make it through the next time of trial. It is in this condition of hope that we are changed, especially because now we are better able to recognize and receive the gift of God’s love which the Holy Spirit has given to us.

Step by step. Step by step.
Frank R.

* * *

Romans 5:1-5
Vernon Grounds, in a Christianity Today article “Radical Commitment,” wrote of the Trinity, “Explain the Trinity? We can’t even begin. We can only accept it—a mystery, disclosed in scripture. It should be no surprise that the Triune Being of God baffles our finite minds. We should be surprised, rather, if we could understand the nature of our Creator. He would be a two-bit deity, not the fathomless source of all reality.”

It is hard to capture the essence of the three persons of God. Many of our best illustrations fall short and lapse into modalism (the example of water), or venture into Arianism (the example of the egg). The fact is, as I see it, that it is simply hard to explain, but infinitely true. We see the Trinity in this passage. We have peace with God through Jesus Christ and note that God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Each of the distinct persons of God, fully God themselves, work in our hearts and lives to make us what we need to be. The line from Reginald Heber’s hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy” resonates today. “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”
Bill T.

* * *

John 16:12-15
Commenting on this text, Martin Luther spoke of the Trinity in terms of an internal conversation in God with the Father as speaking, the Son as the word, and the Spirit as the listener (Luther’s Works, Vol. 24, pp. 364-365). This talkative God is wonderfully compassionate. Father and Son are said to be bound so closely together in Luther’s view that “we should learn to think of God only as Christ.” In fact, the Triune God is said to be so loving that we can cuddle like children in his lap, as if we were in our mother’s arms (Luther’s Works, Vol. 24, p. 64). The meaning of the Trinity is a comforting word, as Luther puts it:

This teaching produces hearts that are stout, courageous in affliction and the temptation to sin, confident and fearless hearts. (Complete Sermons, Vol. 6, pp.101-102)
Mark E.
UPCOMING WEEKS
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Plus thousands of non-lectionary, scripture based resources...

New & Featured This Week

The Immediate Word

Katy Stenta
Mary Austin
Dean Feldmeyer
George Reed
Tom Willadsen
For April 20, 2025:

CSSPlus

John Jamison
Object: A bowl and a towel.

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent

Have you ever gotten in trouble for not doing what you were supposed to do? (Let them respond.) Maybe it was something you were supposed to do at home, or maybe it was something you were supposed to do for someone else. Well, our story today is about the time Jesus’ friends didn’t do what Jesus told them they were supposed to do.
John Jamison
Activity: The Easter Game. See the note. 
John Jamison
Object: A box of Kleenex?

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent!

Today is the day we call Good Friday, and it is the day that Jesus died. What happened on Good Friday is the story I want to tell you about. It is a short story, but it is also a very sad story. (Show the Kleenex.) It is so sad that I brought a box of Kleenex with me in case we need it. Let’s hear our story together.

Emphasis Preaching Journal

Mark Ellingsen
Acts 10:34-43
Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Bonnie Bates
Isaiah 65:17-25
The vision of Isaiah, the new heaven and new earth, a world we cannot begin to imagine, moves us from the sorrow of Good Friday and the waiting of Saturday, into the joy of the resurrection. Isaiah proclaims from God, “no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress.” What a moment, what a time that will be. What hope there is in this prophecy? God’s promises are laid out before us. God’s promises are proclaimed to us.
Frank Ramirez
Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
Bonnie Bates
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
It’s unclear whether the original prophet is speaking about his own sufferings as a prophet bringing an unwanted word to people who want to believe all is well (and which could have led to severe physical punishment on the part of the authorities), or to the nation as the suffering servant who have suffered under the lash of a foreign oppressor, much as God’s people suffered under the Egyptians. These are legitimate interpretations, and perhaps there’s a bit of truth in all viewpoints.
Wayne Brouwer
When Canadian missionaries Don and Carol Richardson entered the world of the Sawi people in Irian Jaya in 1962, they were aware that culture shock awaited them. But the full impact of the tensions they faced didn’t become apparent until one challenging day.
David Kalas
What do you do on the night before God saves you? 

The children of Israel had been languishing in hopeless bondage for centuries. How many of them had lived and died under the taskmaster’s whip? How many of them had cried out to the Lord for help without seeing their prayers answered?  And so, as surely as their bodies were weighed down under the weight of their physical burdens, their spirits must also have been weighed down under years of bondage and despair.
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Mark Ellingsen
Bonnie Bates
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
It is perhaps not widely known, but the Community Blood Center has a website that contains stories of blood recipients.  I spent some time on that website as I thought about this passage. One of the stories that struck me was Kristen’s. Kristen’s time of need came during the birth of her first child. After a smooth pregnancy, she experienced serious problems during delivery, which led to a massive hemorrhage. She needed transfusions immediately, and ended up receiving 28 units of platelets, plasma, and whole blood.

StoryShare

John E. Sumwalt
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. (v. 14)

Mary weeps as she comes to the tomb that first Easter morning. She weeps because her dearest friend is dead. When this friend comes up behind her she turns around and sees him, but she doesn't really see him. Do you know what I mean?

Mary thought Jesus was the gardener. She implores him, "Sir, if you have taken him away tell me where you have laid him…"  She sees him but she doesn't see him.
Peter Andrew Smith
I’m sorry but I have some bad news. John heard the words of the doctor again as he sat in the pew waiting for the service to start on Good Friday. He was at church because he was a regular and he hoped, he prayed that he could escape the rising fear and dread that had come from the medical appointment yesterday. The doctor had been sure there was no problem when John had told him the symptoms he was experiencing a couple of weeks ago. The doctor even told him to just ignore them as they were a sign of getting older.
John E. Sumwalt
In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ (v. 25)

I was seven years old, the same age as my grandson, Leonard, when I asked the big communion question in the barn while helping Dad, the first Leonard Sumwalt, milk cows in 1958.

SermonStudio

Bonnie Bates
All my life I have struggled with the concept of calling this day of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion as “good.” What could possibly be good about Jesus being arrested, tried, convicted, and crucified? How can we call this feast day “good”?
Wayne Brouwer
When I was a pastor in rural southern Alberta, we held our Easter Sunrise worship services in a cemetery. It was difficult to gather in the dark, since neither mountains nor forests hid the spring-time sun, and the high desert plains lay open to almost ceaselessly unclouded skies. Still, we mumbled in hushed whispers as we acknowledged one another, and saved our booming tones for the final rousing chorus of “Up from the grave he arose…!” We did not shake the earth as much as we hoped.
Dennis Koch
Gospel Theme:

Different paces and paths to resurrection faith

Gospel Note:
John here obviously mingles at least two Easter morning traditions, the one featuring Mary Magdalene and the other starring Peter and the beloved disciple. The overall effect, however, is to show three different paths and paces to resurrection faith: the unnamed disciple rushes to the empty tomb and comes to faith simply upon viewing it; Mary slowly but finally recognizes the risen Christ and believes; Peter, however, simply goes home, perhaps to await further evidence.
Pamela Urfer
Cast: Two Roman soldiers, FLAVIUS and LUCIUS, and an ANGEL

Length:
15 minutes

FLAVIUS and LUCIUS are seated on their stools, center stage.

FLAVIUS: (Complaining) What was all the hurry about for this burial? I don't understand why we had to rush.

LUCIUS:
(Distracted but agreeable) Hmmmm.

FLAVIUS: I don't know why I even ask. It's so typical of the military: Hurry up and wait.

LUCIUS:
True.

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
The liturgy can start with a procession in which a child carries the Easter candle from the West end of the church to the altar at the East end, stopping at intervals to raise the candle high and cry, "Christ our Light". The people respond with "Alleluia!" All the candles in church are then lit from the Easter candle.

Call to worship:

The Lord is risen, he is risen indeed! Let us rejoice and be glad in him!

Invitation to confession:

Jesus, we turn to you.

Lord, have mercy.

Special Occasion

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