Trinity Sunday – 2026
Matthew 28:16-20
Marian Free
In the name of God source of all being, Word of life, Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Icon of the Trinity by Andrei Rublev[1], is perhaps the most commonly used depiction of the Trinity. Created in the early 15th century, the work depicts three figures seated at an outdoor table. They are facing each other and there is a chalice or bowl on the table between them. It is a believed that Rublev was, at least in part, inspired by Genesis 18:1-2 “The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him.” The Lord appeared as three men. Abraham welcomed the men and Sarah provided them with food.
In this somewhat domestic scene, the three are sharing from a common bowl, deep (it would seem) in conversation. The positioning of the figures is such that room is left at the foreground, no one has their back to us and the openness of the figures combined with the gestures of their hands suggests an invitation to the viewer – “do join us”. This sense of invitation is reinforced by what some scholars believe to have been a small mirror inserted into the now empty rectangular hole in the centre front of the table[2]. The mirror would the face of the viewer, making them the fourth person at the table, bringing them into communion with the Trinity.
These speculations coincide with the images of the Trinity that we find in the fourth gospel and the letters of Paul. (Not that the word “Trinity” existed at that time, but that John’s gospel gives us a glimpse of the first Christians’ lived experience of the three-fold God. Rather than struggling to come up with careful academic definitions of the Trinity, the early church appears to have unselfconsciously taken for granted that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, though distinct were also one and that in coming to faith believers were drawn into the relationship between the three.
The eighth chapter of Romans provides a good example of this, Paul uses the language of Christ Jesus, the Spirit and the Father interchangeably. He doesn’t seem to feel any need to explain the connection between the two but expects those to whom he is writing will share his experience of God as Father, Christ and Spirit[3]. Believers are brought into this relationship through “the Spirit of the one (God) who raised Jesus from the dead”. (Romans 8:11)
In John’s gospel too, as we have seen, believers become an integral part of the three-fold God.
Through language such as abiding in, being one with, and seeing, John expresses the unity between Jesus, the Father and the Spirit. Though the three persons of the Trinity are separate, John understands that they are in some way so intertwined that to know one is to know all. Being a part of this intimate relationship is extended to the disciples as Jesus says in his Farewell Discourse: “On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.” (John 14:18).
Throughout the gospel Jesus has emphasised the closeness of his relationship with the Father, so close that to see/know Jesus is to see the Father[4]. Now Jesus introduces the Spirit into this relationship. Through the gift of the Spirit the disciples are included in the divine relationship: “the Spirit abides with you and will be with you.” “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them”(14:23).
As the members of the Trinity make their home with us, so we are drawn into the eternal and inseparable union of the Father, Son and Spirit. As Chelsea Harmon puts it: “Our eternal destiny is to exist among the persons of the Trinity.” As we have seen (Easter 7), for John eternal life begins now. We are united now in an unbreakable bond with the Trinity. Death cannot break the relationship that we have formed in the present, because we are already caught up in the eternity that is the Triune God.
The Trinity, which is the community of Father, Son and Spirit, invites us into the very heart of God, into a relationship with the divine which is immutable and everlasting. It is a mystery which no words can adequately describe, and no theories can possibly explain.
[1] Also known as The Hospitality of Abraham.
[2] There are still traces of glue on the icon
[3] For example, Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.”
[4] Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. (John 14:10)
Swallowsrest 