May 31, 2026 | Word Out!
Download the Bulletin from May 31, 2026
READINGS
First Reading: Genesis 1:1—2:4a
1 When God began to create the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
27 So God created humans in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all their multitude. 2 On the sixth day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
4a These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
[Paul writes:] 11 Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Be restored; listen to my appeal; agree with one another; live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.
13 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
SERMON—Pastor Dan Peterson
“Why the Trinity?”
Grace to you, and peace, this Holy Trinity Sunday, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Quick poll: How many of you can easily or simply explain the Holy Trinity, apart from identifying it as “one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”? Raise your hand.
Okay, I see a couple. That’s very bold, very bold. Wasn’t expecting that. We’ll come back to you.
Next question: How many of you would like a simple explanation of the Holy Trinity, true to the Bible as well as subsequent Christian tradition? Raise your hands.
That’s wonderful. You’re not getting that today, but that’s wonderful.
I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Okay: How many of you would like a simple explanation of the Holy Trinity, true to the Bible as well as subsequent Christian tradition, in 15 minutes or less? Raise your hand.
Overwhelming, overwhelming.
That’s also not going to happen. I have an hour of prepared remarks. 😊
Well, for those who raised your hands today, this is indeed your lucky one. In the message that follows, I’m going to offer a simple explanation of the Holy Trinity, true to the Bible as well as the subsequent Christian creeds. Along the way, I’m going to talk about not only what it is, but why it came into being, what truths about God it affirms—and here’s the good news. Here’s the great news. For those who didn’t raise their hands at all, you still get a sermon in 15 minutes or less; so everybody wins, right?
Okay, the clock starts now.
The Holy Trinity, 101. Let’s begin with the definition of the Trinity taken from our gathering hymn: “Holy, holy, holy.” Notice the use of the word “holy” three times. This language, as well as the imagery of that hymn, comes from the book of Revelation.
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.”
According to the first and fourth verses of this hymn, the blessed Trinity is one God in three persons. Let me restate that; the preposition here is crucial. The Holy Trinity, or the Blessed Trinity, is one God in three persons, one God in three persons.
Again, notice the language here: one God in three persons, or, one God with three centers of personal distinction.
This formula exists at a midpoint between two extremes the early church wanted to avoid. On the one extreme, we have one God who simply appears to be three persons, that’s called “modalism.” This is where God is a simple unity who appears differently in three successive modes, or wears three different masks. First is Creator or Father, second as Redeemer or Christ, and third as Sustainer or Holy Spirit. So what we’re talking about here is one God who appears in three successive modes: Father, Son, and Spirit.
Now, the problem with this view is that the revelation of God in the course of salvation history doesn’t actually correspond to the nature of God, which means we’re being misled, and so modalism became a huge problem for the early church.
The revelation of God in the course of salvation history didn’t correspond with who or what God actually is. That’s one extreme.
The other extreme is to treat the Holy Spirit as three separate gods: Father, Son, and Spirit, or as I like to put it, “Rub a dub dub, three gods in a tub.”
So, on the one hand, and this is called “tritheism,” and it’s problematic because none of these gods is ultimate. Thus, while the first extreme we have simple monotheism, the belief in one God who appears in three ways that don’t correspond to God’s actual nature. Then you have the second extreme, which is polytheism, or belief in three different gods.
The doctrine of the Trinity—and doctrine just means “established church teaching”—the doctrine of the Trinity resides in the middle. It’s a complex unity.
It’s three persons in God, as our opening hymn says, who nevertheless share a common nature. That’s called “Trinitarian monotheism.” Neither simple monotheism nor tritheism, but Trinitarian monotheism.
Now you’re probably thinking to yourself, Pastor Dan, you promised a simple explanation of the Holy Spirit, true to the Bible, as well as subsequent Christian tradition in 15 minutes or less. This is not a simple definition, and your time is running out.
Besides, some of you are probably wondering more basically, how can something be three and one simultaneously?
Okay, let’s take a brief detour here. Let me offer you a few examples or analogies that confirm how something can be three and one at the same time. Let’s start with light.
Imagine you’re in a room with three lit lamps.
How many different lights are there?
Well, there’s one, really; they share in the same light, three in one. That’s an analogy for the Trinity that was used by early Christian mystics.
Or take this example, drawn from hopefully your experience over the coming summer: let’s say you have three different scoops of ice cream, but they’re all different colors; three colors, one ice cream. Or let’s say you’re one, as we are now in the body of Christ, but with different members; it’s still collectively one body. As you can see, even in everyday life we have complex or differentiated unities that exist all around us that we often take for granted.
But I think there is an even easier way to explain the Trinity, one that goes all the way back to the Bible itself, and this is what you’re waiting for.
Question: What is God? According to the New Testament: love. “God is love,” according to First John 4:16 also chapter 4:8. “God is love, and those who abide—that is to say, those who dwell—in love abide (or dwell) in God, and God abides in them.”
So here’s an easy explanation we have of the Holy Trinity, and why it became subsequent Christian doctrine. Again: established teaching. Listen closely: the Trinity is simply the Christian way of saying “God is Love.” Full stop.
Let me repeat that. The Trinity is simply the Christian way of saying “God is Love.” Full stop.
Why the Trinity?
Because love, in order to exist, requires relationship.
Perhaps you’ve heard the great theologian Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock. “It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes three to make it out of sight.”
(Okay, the Gen Xers are laughing. Everybody else is wondering what I’m talking about. I shouldn’t have put that in there. I did that one time before. I’m not supposed to rap from the pulpit, and I’m not supposed to make further Star Wars references, so I’m really trying to rein it in. Let’s go back…)
Why the Trinity? Because love, in order to exist, requires relationship.
God is not a being who loves the world. God is Love, First John says, a matrix of relationship out of which the world, the universe, the cosmos came and comes into being.
God is Love, and out of that relationship comes a world.
Now let me invite you to step back in time for a second. Before the beginning of the world, about which we heard in the first reading, before time, as it were, the triune, or threefold God, existed as a rehearsal of love, a rehearsal of love. We might think of it as a kind of spiral, a virtual spiral, a rehearsal of love.
That love, as you just heard, generated the universe and everything in it, and that love, that relationship, continues to exist at the heart of all things. So, the Trinity is our way of saying that at the core and ground of reality, everything is relationship. Reality, in other words, is fundamentally relational, which is exactly what quantum physics has been saying for over 100 years.
How many of you have heard of quantum entanglement? A few.
According to Caltech Science Exchange, “quantum entanglement” refers to the strange connection between subatomic particles. When particles become entangled, their properties become perfectly linked. If you change or measure the state of one part, the other part instantly reflects that change or assumes the opposite state, no matter how far apart they are. So, two particles, existing at opposite ends of the universe; one changed, the other is affected. There’s no time that exists between them. They are in relationship even before time. You might say, again, quantum physics has been saying, that reality at its most basic level is relational.
But here’s the kicker: you ready for this?
Christianity, in its doctrine of the Trinity, has been saying that for over 1500 years, that at the core of reality is relationship, and out of that relationship of Love springs the world, and with it, life and all being.
Now, here’s what’s most important, and I’m going out on a limb.
Only the Christian faith can affirm that God’s love is eternal.
Only the Christian faith can affirm that God’s love is eternal; that love existed before God brought the world and the being, into being. Let me give you an example, or explain.
Remember that, for love to exist, you need two or more persons.
If God, as a singular entity, exists alone before the world comes into being, then God cannot be love.
Such love comes into existence only when God creates a world, something other than God to exist, but if God is loving relationship with two or three centers of personal distinction, then God is Love, with or without something other than God to love.
In other words, God is Love even before the universe springs out of God. God is Love, and out of that love came our world, which God also loves. As Jesus says in Matthew 6, “Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?”
God is Love, and Jesus is saying here, God loves you.
That’s the gospel of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity is Love.
Out of such love, the world spun into being, and God loves every component of the world that God made, for God is Love. From it you came, in it you dwell, and to it you return.
That is why we affirm the doctrine of the Trinity in the simplest terms, and hopefully here I explained it in less than 15 minutes. The Trinity is simply the Christian way of saying “God is Love.”
And all God’s people said, “Amen.”