Sermon
The Mystery of the Trinity
Theme
Trinity Sunday
Object
A mystery novel; a hard-boiled egg.
Scripture
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you." John 16:13-15 (NIV)
Activities + Resources
Do you like mystery stories? When I was young, I loved to read mystery books. My favorites were the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. Recently, I saw a good mystery book, "What Really Happened to Humpty?: From the Files of a Hard-Boiled Detective." We all know that Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, but in this book Humpty's brother Joe Dumpty who is a detective, investigates to try to find out what really happened. Did Humpty fall, or was he pushed off that wall? If he was pushed, who did it? Was it Little Miss Muffet, Goldilocks, Old Mother Hubbard, or the evil Big Bad Wolf? I won't spoil the mystery by telling you the ending. You will just have to read it for yourself.
Today we are going to learn about a different kind of mystery. Today is a special day in the church called Trinity Sunday. Do you know what Trinity means? The first thing I want to ask you is, how many Gods are there? Right, there is only one God. The Bible says there is "One God and Father of all," but God is made up of three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is what we call the Trinity. Perhaps you have noticed that when someone is baptized the pastor says, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." Have you ever heard this before? Good! Now you will know when you hear those words – Father, Son and Holy Spirit — we are talking about the Trinity ─ one God in three persons.
As simple as that sounds, the Trinity is hard to understand. It is a mystery to us - something we can think about and wonder about. People have used many, many different things to try and help explain what the trinity is. Since we started out today talking about Humpty Dumpty, I think I'll use an egg! (Hold up a hard-boiled egg.) How many eggs do you see? That's right! I have one egg. As you probably know, the egg is made up of three parts. The first part is the shell. (Crack the egg and peel the shell.) The next part you see is the egg white. Next, I am going to cut the egg in half. Now what do you see? Right! You see the yellow yolk. The egg has three parts — the shell, the white, and the yolk — but only ONE egg. In the same way, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons but only ONE God! Mystery solved!
Let’s pray, God, we thank you for being all-powerful and all-knowing and for loving us. We thank you for the things in life that we don’t completely understand and for giving us the faith to believe them anyway. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit, Amen.
