Bible Study Guide for Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2021

• Isaiah 6:1-8
• Romans 8:12-17
• John 3:1-17
• Psalm 29
•  Canticle 13 (or Canticle 2)

Although it’s the name day of many churches around the world, this Sunday dedicated to the Trinity is a day some preachers regard with alarm. The doctrine of the Trinity has historically been a source of much contention and even heresy. There isn’t much in the way of quick, concise Bible verses that we can point to to conveniently define it for us; instead, what we have is many verses across the Old and New Testaments that paint a picture of who and what the Trinity is.

Isaiah provides a striking mystical vision of the Trinity in glory in Heaven. With angels flying and crying out, billowing smoke, and the full majesty of God on display, the prophet is overwhelmed by his own smallness. God provides reassurance that He has chosen Isaiah for His purposes, and with this reassurance, Isaiah readies himself to be sent out to do God’s work in the world.

Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus under the cover of night paints another side of the Trinity. In last week’s Gospel for Pentecost, Jesus wove together his relationship with the coming of the Holy Spirit as part of his “Farewell Discourse” to his disciples before his crucifixion. Here, much earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus’s words show his intimate interconnectedness with both the Spirit and God, the other two members of the Trinity.

In this Gospel passage we hear the well-known and comforting promise of John 3:16, in which Jesus draws the connection between the Trinity and us humans. The same God who was so huge and overwhelming to Isaiah comes down to earth as Jesus, with the promise of eternal life in the Spirit, simply because of His love for us. As C.S. Lewis describes it in his book Mere Christianity, we as humans are drawn into the three-person dance of the Trinity.

• Some people, and some religious traditions, feel a particular draw or affection for one member of the Trinity. Where do you see the Trinity in your own faith life?
• Others find the whole notion of the Trinity to be rather confusing or not helpful. Maybe that’s you. What images or concepts of God do you feel more connection to?

Author: Lindy Noecker