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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.               

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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
In addition to the lectionary resources there are thousands of non-lectionary, scripture based resources...
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John Jamison
Object: A Jesus shirt. A sweatshirt with “I Follow Jesus” printed on the front in big letters.

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

The Immediate Word

Mary Austin
Dean Feldmeyer
Christopher Keating
Thomas Willadsen
George Reed
Katy Stenta
For March 2, 2025:

StoryShare

John E. Sumwalt
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Sometimes we experience God’s presence in ordinary, everyday events like the laughter of a child or an awe-inspiring sunset. And sometimes God is experienced in unexpected life-altering events. Richard (Rick) Allison of rural Baraboo, Wisconsin, experienced God’s active presence in two powerful life-changing events.

Emphasis Preaching Journal

Mark Ellingsen

Exodus 34:29-35
Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Bonnie Bates
Exodus 34:29-35
In August of 2017, much of the North American continent experienced a total solar eclipse when the moon came directly between earth and the sun. Writing before the eclipse, NASA  explained, “This path, where the moon will completely cover the sun and the sun’s tenuous atmosphere—the corona—can be seen, will stretch from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina.”

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
Call to worship:

With Peter, let us also say to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here", and ask that we too might see the transfigured Christ.

Invitation to confession:

Jesus, may we see your glory and the glory of all who stand with you.

Lord, have mercy.



Jesus, deepen our prayer life so that we are ready to receive your radiance.

Christ, have mercy.



Jesus, take away the scales from our eyes so that we may truly gaze upon you.

SermonStudio

James Evans
(See The Transfiguration Of Our Lord/Last Sunday After The Epiphany, Cycle A, for an alternative approach.)

One of the greatest of all Christian hymns is Reginald Heber's powerful and beautiful "Holy, Holy, Holy." The hymn is based on Revelation 4:8-11, which depicts heavenly creatures singing praises day and night, celebrating God's holiness and glory.

Psalm 99 also offers a triple "holy, holy, holy." "Holy is he" (vv. 3-5) and "Holy is the Lord our God" (v. 9). The key to this psalm, obviously, is understanding the meaning of the word, "holy."

Elizabeth Achtemeier
Perhaps some of you have seen Michelangelo's great marble statue of Moses. Or if you have just seen a picture of that statue, you know that it depicts Moses sitting, holding the tablets of the law. And strangely enough, on Moses' head are two tiny horns. That depiction furnishes us with a good lesson in the history of Old Testament manuscripts. The verb "shone" in verse 29 of our text can also be translated as "horned," and that apparently was the rendering that the Exodus manuscript available to Michelangelo used.
Harold C. Warlick, Jr.
Today is the end of the season of Epiphany, which began the first Sunday in January. Throughout the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany seasons we have been celebrating ways in which God's glory has been manifested in the life of Jesus. If these ways were easy to understand by early Christians, Paul would not have had to write all those letters.

This is Transfiguration Sunday and, once again, we are presented with another experience in the life of Jesus that appears to be outside our frame of reference.
William G. Carter
I wonder what they were thinking as they started up the mountain.

Peter, James, and John were tagging along. I'm sure Jesus was a few steps ahead. After all, he was the only one who knew where they were going. Those three disciples had put in a lot of miles. Every one of those miles was spent following wherever he went.

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