Last Sunday, we celebrated “Pentecost Sunday,” the birthday of the Church of Christ. All around the world, many sermons were delivered emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit during that glorious day when everyone heard the good news in their own language. Indeed, it was a day of redemption. The confusion of languages at the Babel Tower was redeemed during Pentecost with a purpose. To spread the good news of Jesus and become active participants of God’s mission – God’s redemption of all people.
This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is an invitation to remember that Jesus came to this world with God’s mission. Since it is God’s mission, not the Church’s mission, God is the one who sends the believers to do the mission, not the Church. The Church can do mission only through the power of the Holy Spirit -that is why Pentecost is crucial. David J. Bosch, in his book Transforming Mission, says, “The Spirit is the risen Christ who is active in the world. On the day of Pentecost, Christ, through the Spirit, throws open the doors and thrust the disciples out into the world”. The Holy Spirit sends and empowers the believers to do their mission. As Christians, we are included in the Trinity’s mission – the sending of the Son by the Father and of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son, and the sending of the believers by the Son, Father, and Holy Spirit.
Not forgetting that we are Spirit-Filled People sent by our Trinitarian God to the world with a mission of redemption for all people is more crucial than ever. Lately, we have heard many stories about violence. Church violence. School violence. Hospital violence. Graduation parties violence. Grocery stores violence. These stories have a commonality – guns were involved. These stories of violence should make us pause and reflect on our role as Spirit-Filled People sent to the world to redeem people’s stories with Jesus’ message of peace and forgiveness. God is asking us to not ignore the signs of the time. We are called to be instruments of redemption in these stories of violence. We are called to be instruments of redemption by preventing more stories such as these from continuing to happen.
Let us pray the Trinitarian prayer found in Romans 5:1-5:
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Amen.
