Reflection on the readings for the 31st May, Trinity Sunday
- Jun 1
- 6 min read
Readings: Isaiah 40:12-17,27-end; Matthew 28:16-end
Today’s reflection is by the Vicar, the Revd Canon Jonathan Cain.
Trinity in five words
I want us to begin this morning with the questions the prophet Isaiah poses in that first reading — questions that are as unsettling as they are beautiful:
“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?”
“Who has used his hand to mark off the heavens?”
“Who knows the exact weight of the mountains?”
Or, as Eugene Peterson paraphrases it in The Message:
“Who has scooped up the ocean in his two hands?
Who has measured the sky between his thumb and little finger?”
These are not gentle questions. They are not designed to soothe. They are meant to shake us awake.
So before we rush to explain them, I want to ask you — quietly, honestly — what happens inside you when you hear words like this?
Do you feel confusion?
Do you feel incredulity — a sense that this is obviously ridiculous?
Do you feel faith rising?
Do you feel doubt tightening?
Do you feel awe, or maybe even a little resistance?
Because these questions from Isaiah are not simply statements about God. They are invitations to notice our own response.
Do we take these words seriously?
Do we let them stretch us?
Or do we quietly file them away as poetic exaggeration?
Isaiah’s questions bring us to the edge of ourselves — to that place where our language runs out and our imagination falters. And that is exactly where the doctrine of the Trinity begins. Not with certainty. Not with neat diagrams. But with the sense that we are standing before a reality too vast to grasp and too beautiful to ignore.
And so today, on Trinity Sunday, we begin not with answers but with awareness.
Awareness of our own reactions.
Awareness of our own limits.
Awareness that God is not a puzzle to be solved but a life to be entered.
From this place — this honest, human place — I want to suggest five things we can say with confidence and joy about the Trinity: mystery, love, overflow, invitation, and sending.
Mystery. This is the word that people of faith turn to when they can’t explain something, but Isaiah’s questions remind us that God is not small enough to fit into our categories. The Trinity is not a riddle to decode but a depth to enter.
Mystery is not a failure of understanding; it is the atmosphere of faith.
When we make a scientific discovery, we realise there is still more to know.
When we love someone, we discover there is always more to discover.
When we climb one mountain, we find ourselves in the foothills of the next range.
This is not disappointing. It is exhilarating. The mystery of God does not diminish our experience — it is our experience. It keeps us humble, curious, open, and alive to grace.
So, we begin with mystery — not confusion, but wonder. God is larger, deeper, and more beautiful than our explanations, and that is good news.
Love. When we step into this mystery, we find that it is not cold or distant. It is love. Think about the Christian story and notice these moments…
Love visits Mary.
Love comes down at Christmas.
Love walks to the cross.
Love bursts open the tomb.
Love ascends to the Father.
Love pours out the Spirit at Pentecost.
This is the love that enfolds us from birth to death and beyond. It is not a love we earn. It is not a love we can exhaust. It is simply who God is.
And when we open ourselves — body, mind, spirit, longings, complaints, griefs, wounds — we are met not with judgement but with welcome. Not with shame but with healing. Not with distance but with intimacy.
So, to think about the Trinity is to enter a mystery that is shaped by love — love that creates, redeems, restores, and never lets us go.
Overflow. In the reading from Isaiah the prophet tells us that God “does not faint or grow weary.” Divine love is not a reservoir that runs dry; it is a spring that keeps flowing.
In his brief but dense introduction to Christian belief, Tokens of Trust, Rowan Williams describes the life of the Trinity as a movement of giving and receiving between Father and Son — a reciprocity that never collapses into competition or scarcity. Jesus receives everything from the Father — his identity, his mission, his authority — and he returns everything to the Father in obedience, trust, and self offering. There is no grasping, no rivalry, no fear of loss. Only the freedom of shared life, shared purpose, shared love.
We see this patter mirrored in creation. Matter is not destroyed; it is transformed. Ecosystems thrive through cycles of giving and receiving. Even our economy only works when there is flow, not hoarding.
For us to join in with God’s purposes, we too must live in this rhythm.
We must give as we are able to give.
We must receive as we are able to receive.
We must offer help — and accept help.
We must share resources — and allow others to share with us.
This is not weakness. It is participation in the divine life.
To think about the Trinity then, is to enter a mystery that is shaped by love that overflows. It moves. It circulates. And we are called to live in that same holy flow of giving and receiving.
Invites. Rublev’s icon of the Hospitality of Abraham shows three figures seated at a table — Father, Son, and Spirit — arranged in a gentle circle of harmony. The colours of the three figures speak of their unity and their distinction. Their heads incline toward one another in mutual love. And the table is laid with food — a sign of welcome, nourishment, communion.
But the most striking feature is this: there is a space left open at the front of the table. A place for the viewer. A place for us. The Trinity is not a closed circle. It is a table with room. A life that welcomes. A relationship that draws us in.
And this invitation requires a response, which might look something like this:
To be persistent in prayer, even when we feel nothing.
To worship, even when our hearts are heavy.
To receive the sacraments, even when our faith feels small.
To keep showing up — because God keeps showing up.
The overflowing love of God the Trinity does not stay at a distance. It invites us to the table — and calls us to respond with prayer, worship, sacrament and presence.
Commissions. The fifth and final thing to say is that the Trinity who welcomes us also sends us. Jesus commissions his disciples:
Go.
Make disciples.
Baptise.
Teach.
And then he promises, “I am with you always.”
We are held by the Trinity even as we are sent by the Trinity. We are renewed by the God who “gives power to the faint” and “strengthens the powerless.” We go not in our own strength but in the strength of the One who never wearies.
To be sent is not to be pushed out alone. It is to be carried by the flow of divine love into the world God loves. It is to bring compassion where there is loneliness, justice where there is oppression, truth where there is confusion, and hope where there is despair.
The Trinity gathers us in love and then sends us in love — held, renewed, and accompanied every step of the way.
We began this morning with Isaiah’s questions — vast, unsettling, awe filled questions that stretch our imagination and expose our limits.
And perhaps that is the gift of Trinity Sunday: not that we understand God fully, but that we allow ourselves to be drawn into God’s life more deeply.
So as we go:
May the mystery of God keep us humble and open.
May the love of God hold us and heal us.
May the overflowing life of God teach us to give and receive.
May the invitation of God draw us to the table again and again.
And may the sending of God strengthen us for the week ahead.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit —
the God who is beyond us,
the God who is with us,
the God who is within us —
goes with us now.
Amen.