Rev Chris update for 30th May

Dear all,
I hope your week has gone well and it looks as though we have a spell of good weather on our hands for the Bank Holiday weekend. Is that the smell of BBQ’s that I detect wafting across Allington? Any excuse!

This coming Sunday completes a trio of festivals in the church calendar. We started with ASENCION a couple of weeks ago, last week was PENTECOST, and this week is TRINITY.
Trinity is a time when we remember that we worship one God who is three persons, FATHER, SON & HOLY SPIRIT. How can that be? Good question, but no easy answer I’m afraid. Essentially the church developed this doctrine back in the 4th & 5th centuries – it took a long time, a lot of arguing, a bit of face slapping, and some high-powered council meetings (Council of Nicea, Council of Constantinople and Council of Chalcedon) to nail it down.
Various pieces of scripture got things going, not least the most notable from right at the end of Matthews gospel when Jesus says to the disciples “Therefore go make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
The doctrine of the Trinity sets out the stall that God is one God but three coeternal and consubstantial persons – but you knew that!! The three persons are distinct, but are also one essence, or nature. Easy really.
Think of it this way;
THE FATHER – the creator of all things, holding everything together.
THE SON (Jesus Christ) – the redeemer, the person of God who brings all things back to God.
THE HOLY SPIRIT – the sustainer, the person of God who inhabits us and inspires us to worship God.
No words or images truly do justice to the Trinity but this is probably a reasonable stab at it;

Although, personally, I like the wall panel depictions in St Nicholas Church, but then I would say that.

The left-hand panel has the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet – Alpha and Omega (Revelation 22:13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end”) to represent the Father. The middle panel introduces the cross, to represent the Son, and the right panel has flames and a dove emerging to represent the Holy Spirit. The artwork merges across the three panels to give that sense of the ‘oneness’ of God. These panels are bespoke and were hand made by a firm in Shropshire specifically for St Nicholas Church.

Blessings – in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Rev Chris