Trinity Sunday
The doctrine of the Trinity (one God eternally existing in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each Person fully God, and yet distinct from the others) is not mere theological minutiae - in fact,it is the foundation of all Christian teaching.
The liturgical seasons and holy days of the Church Calendar move in a sweeping arc. Advent anticipates the coming of Christ. Christmas celebrates his birth. Lent calls us to repentance. Good Friday and Easter tell the story of Christ’s death and resurrection. Ascension acknowledges his enthronement over the heavens and the earth, Pentecost remembers the coming of the Holy Spirit, and then Trinity Sunday arrives to inaugurate the long season of Ordinary Time. Trinity Sunday is unique in that it does something no other day in the church year does. It asks the question, Who is this God whose story we have told all year long?
While every other major holy day of the Church Calendar commemorates an event in redemptive history, Trinity focuses on the truth of the one God who exists as three Persons.
What is Trinity Sunday?
Trinity Sunday is the immediate Sunday after Pentecost and marks the beginning of Ordinary Time, the long season that runs through the remainder of the church year until it concludes with Christ the King Sunday in late November, immediately before Advent. But before the Church settles into the long season of Ordinary Time, it pauses to confess and celebrate the doctrine that makes Christianity unique among every religion.
“Doctrine is not the enemy of worship, it is the foundation of it.”
The doctrine of the Trinity (one God eternally existing in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each Person fully God, and yet distinct from the others) is not mere theological minutiae - in fact,it is the foundation of all Christian teaching. The entire arc of the Church Calendar only makes sense when we rightly understand the Trinity. The Father sends the Son into the world (Advent and Christmas), the Son accomplishes redemption in his life, death, and resurrection (Lent, Good Friday, Easter), the Son ascends to the Father and sends the Holy Spirit (Ascension and Pentecost), and the Holy Spirit indwells and empowers the Church as it awaits the Son’s return (Ordinary Time). If we do not rightly understand the Trinity, that whole story falls apart. Trinity Sunday is the moment that the Church names what it has been confessing all year long.
Origins of Trinity Sunday
While Trinity Sunday was formally established in the Western Church during the medieval period, the doctrine of the Trinity is as old as the Church itself. The doctrine of the Trinity was one of the most hotly discussed doctrines in the early Church (alongside the humanity/divinity of Christ), and it was formalized at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) and the Council of Constantinople (AD 381). These church councils gave the Church its Trinitarian formulas, and these understandings of the Trinity have been confessed by all true Christians ever since. Trinity Sunday celebrates the hard-fought and Holy Spirit-given clarity about the God that we worship.
The Church has always understood that right worship depends on a right knowledge of God. Doctrine is not the enemy of worship, it is the foundation of it. Trinity Sunday is the Church’s annual act of ensuring that its worship is anchored in the truth. Having journeyed through the full story arc of redemptive history over the course of the year, from Advent’s longing to Pentecost’s outpouring, the Church arrives at Trinity Sunday and says: this is the God who accomplished our great redemption. This is the God we worship. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God. World without end. Amen.
What does Trinity Sunday look like at Christ Church Bellingham?
At our church, the liturgical fabric draped across the cross at the front of the sanctuary returns to white for this important Sunday before turning green for Ordinary Time. White is the color of the purity and glory of God, which is why it marks the high holy days and seasons of the year. On Trinity Sunday we conclude our three-Sunday arc of Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday, where we have recited the Athanasian Creed in three parts. This ancient creed, composed in the late fifth or early sixth century, is named after Athanasius, the great fourth-century bishop who defended Trinitarian orthodoxy against the Arian heresy. It is the most precise and detailed of the ecumenical creeds, lengthier than the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds for its careful defining of the relationship between God in three Persons and the unity of the one God.
Our worship on Trinity Sunday is oriented toward an intentional reflection on the Triunity of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The hymns we sing, the prayers we pray, and our profession of faith are acts of adoration to the holy Trinity who is the source of and end of all things.
When we set aside this one Sunday each year to celebrate the triune God, we remember and confess our belief in the foundation of Christianity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The one God who made us, redeemed us, and dwells within us. May we come and worship him, now and forever.
