This Sunday is Trinity Sunday!  All are welcome to join us for service at 10 am.  There is no Sunday School until September.  There is coffee time, so please join us after the service.

Here are Rev. Marlene’s thoughts on Trinity Sunday.

Marlene’s Rev. Notes:

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (NRSV)

This week’s reading, Romans 5:1-5, explores the work of each of the three persons of the Trinity.  In the case of God the Son, Romans notes that it is through the work of Jesus Christ that “we have peace with God.”  This peace, as Paul notes in his closing words to the Church at Philippi, surpasses all our understanding. It displaces the reasons for worry that tend to arise in our minds and hearts and replaces it with peace.  Moreover, Jesus, as the Son of God, gains for us access to the grace of God the Father.  This free gift of access to the Father is the basis by which, even now, we hope to enjoy an eternity in God’s glory.  As followers of Christ, we can look forward to our resurrection and the joy of eternal companionship with God in heaven.  Due to our share in God’s peace and life, Paul says that our sufferings become a means for our sanctification by building up in us endurance, character and, ultimately, hope. It builds from justification → peace with God → suffering → endurance → character → hope. Emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit, which is especially meaningful for Trinity Sunday; and centers on God’s love, not just as a distant idea, but as something active within us.

In this passage, Paul demonstrates that as Jesus continues to work in our lives, the blessings of God the Father progressively grow within us.  As we abide in the joy of sharing in the peace of God and as our access to God grows deeper through Christ, our hope also matures.  This mature Christian hope is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit, who first places the love of God in our hearts. This passage is a powerful summary of the Christian life: even in suffering, we are sustained by a hope rooted in divine love — not earned or imagined but poured out by the Spirit.