Good News - Week of 5/20/2018

PRAYER OF THE WEEK
God of glory and majesty, I honor you and praise your glory. Amen.

The Holy Trinity

NOTES ON THE SCRIPTURES

Isaiah 6:1-8: Isaiah receives a vision of God in God’s glory in the Temple, and he hears the seraphim singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Then, after he has confessed and been cleansed, he hears God asking for someone whom God can send, and he volunteers.

Psalm 29: A psalm in praise of God’s glory, the power and majesty of God’s voice, and acknowledging God as the eternal ruler over creation, the heavenly beings and all people.

Romans 8:12-17: By the power of God’s Spirit, we are heirs with Christ of God’s glory, we are adopted as children of God, and we are able to live according to the Spirit’s leading, not following our sinful nature.

John 3:1-17: Jesus teaches Nicodemus that, in order to see God’s Reign, he must be born of the Spirit. For whoever believes in Jesus, sent by God into the world to save the world, receives God’s eternal life.
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Reflections
The obvious focus of the readings this week is the celebration of the Trinity. The uniquely doctrinal nature of this theme can make it a tough week to prepare for, but the specific focus of the readings for Year B offers some helpful practical possibilities. Isaiah’s vision, with the triple “holy” of the seraphs, reveals how powerfully transforming a true encounter with the triune God can be. The psalm supports this with its celebration of God as king over all, including the heavenly beings. In the letter to the Romans, Paul reveals how the triune God works in our hearts and lives to make us, both in identity and action, true Spirit-led children of God. Finally, in John’s Gospel, Jesus makes the same point in his call for seekers of God to be born again – transformed, by God’s Spirit, into believers in, and practitioners, of the values and purposes of God’s Reign, that was revealed, taught and demonstrated by Jesus. God is revealed, then, as the King and Creator, who seeks an intimate relationship, as of parent and child, with human beings, and all of creation. Then, God is also revealed in Christ as the one who shows the true nature of God’s kingship, and who invites us to be participants in God’s work in the world, by giving us an example, and by opening doors to God’s life through his death and resurrection. Finally, the empowerment we need to enter this relationship with God, and live as kingdom people, is God’s Spirit who is given to us and through whom we are born from above. The key for this week, then, is how God encounters us, in God’s Triune nature, and transforms us into Christ-like, kingdom living, children of God. The Trinitarian celebration is not just a fascinating theological exercise, but a moment of opening ourselves, in worship, to this transforming encounter with our majestic and mysterious God.
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