May 30, 2021
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16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. – 1 John 4:16
I have some good news for you this morning, and it is that you are loved by God. You are accepted through the grace of risen Lord, who has the authority to forgive wrongdoings, and who can make something new out of who you are. You are offered the gift of the Holy Spirit to give you strength for today, and hope for tomorrow, and you can rest assure, that even if you fail, God is faithful to forgive.
I feel like we need to hear these words of encouragement this day. This life gets difficult at times, and it seems as though all we hear is bad news, troubling news, and often news that makes us just want to be done with this wretched world. But the beauty of the gospel is that we have a hope for a better world, one called the kingdom of God, and it is not only found after this life, but it is found here and now. And this is how we know.
Today, in the church calendar year is the day called Trinity Sunday, where we acknowledge the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the divine understanding of God as three parts, yet one. In the theology of the Holy Trinity we understand that Father is fully God, that the Son (Jesus) is fully God, and that the Holy Spirit is fully God. This great mystery of communion invites us to live in communion with one another, in love and sharing: certain that wherever love is found, there we find God, or where we see God, there will be expressions of love.
Within each one of these expressions of God is the fullness of God, and here is the good news that was shared after the day of Pentecost, when you receive the Holy Spirit, you receive the fullness of God into yourself; you receive that which Jesus describes in John 4, God is Spirit, and those who worship, worship in Spirit and Truth. Or that John defines in his first epistle, the verse above, God is love.
You have the fullness of love in you, surrounding you, and pouring into you as you open yourself up to receive it. Yet, at the same time we are called to give it away as we commune with one another and love one another as Christ first loved us. The greater beauty of God’s love is that as we give it away, we find we are still being filled, no matter how much we pour out, God is pouring into us. This is the divine gift that we know we are loved by loving others, and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are continually blessing us along our life’s journey.
May you be abundantly blessed today and always.
Grace & Peace,
Sam