(Adults, begin by reading the Gospel aloud to the child, unless the child is a very fluent reader.)
For fifty days, we celebrated the great feast of Easter--Jesus rising from the dead never to die again--and the everlasting gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Now, after so much celebrating, the feast is over. But almost as if the church does not want to stop celebrating, we arrive at another feast. We call this the Feast of the Holy Trinity. After marvelling at all that our God does, we pause to wonder more deeply. Who is our God? What is God's plan? In the Gospel for this Sunday, the disciples wonder about this, too. It is the moment just before Jesus returns to God in heaven.
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him but some doubted.
They worship because they know that Jesus is God. Worship means they show that they love God. Perhaps they kneel. Perhaps they bow their heads. Their hearts are full.
Some of them doubt. Doubt means that they are not sure. Jesus is human, they know that. Can he be God, too? They are not sure. Can they worship and doubt at the same? Yes. They can love even when they do not know. They can kneel, they can bow their heads. Their hearts are full.
Jesus tells the disciples,
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Now we are getting a sense of the plan. All nations--all people--are to become disciples. Like sheep who follow the shepherd, disciples are people who follow God. How will all the people become disciples? By being baptized. And Jesus gives them the words to say:
In the name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit
Why these words at Baptism? What do we we know?
What do we know about the Father?
We know that when Jesus is baptized in the Jordan river, the voice of God is heard. "This is my Son," God says. We know this means that God is Jesus' parent. Jesus calls him Father.
What do we know about the Son?
At Jesus' baptism, God says, "This is my Son, the Beloved." God is Loving Jesus, so Jesus is beloved. Jesus is Loved. We could say that God loves Jesus right into the world.
What does Jesus do with all this love? He loves God right back. He offers his whole life to God. We could say Jesus loves God right onto the cross; he loves God right into the tomb.
What do we know about the Holy Spirit?
When God loves Jesus into the world, the Holy Spirit comes down on him like a dove. When Jesus loves God into the tomb, the Holy Spirit fills him with new life and gathers him into God again. The Holy Spirit seems to be the love and life of God. The Holy Spirit is Love.
This is the Trinity. One God loving, loved. God is love--we can be sure about that.
Jesus says to baptize in God's name--in the name of God who is Loving, God who is Loved, God who is Love. Into all this love, we are baptized. Into all of God, we are baptized.
All the nations, into all of God.
All, into all.
Until?
God is all in all.
That's the plan.
It is a bit of a mystery. It is hard to be sure that we get it. But even when we are not sure, we can still worship. So we begin,
In the name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.
When the disciples are not sure, Jesus says,
remember, I am with you always
That is good to know. That is something to be sure of.
Our hearts are full.