Rev. Don Erickson

Theos, Logos, Pneuma God, Word, Breath Father, Son, Holy Ghost Creator, Christ, Holy Spirit The Holy Trinity Today is Trinity Sunday. It is a Sunday when we celebrate this beautiful teaching of the church. Maybe you find my description of the trinity as beautiful. Maybe you accept the teaching, sing it every Sunday morning, know it is central to the Christian church, but never thought of it as beautiful. Maybe some of you would prefer the adjective confusing or complicated. Maybe you see it as a condundrum. That’s fine. But let me explain why I think it is beautiful. The Trinity points to a God who includes within God's self a diversity. The Trinity tells us even God is diverse. Creation’s diversity mirrors God’s own diversity. Not just diverse but united as well. The Trinity say that God embodies e pluribus unum, out of a plural, one. This is beautiful to me. What’s more, I think of the simply creed God is Love. Well, if we claim God is Love, love can only be under...

Do you know what the shortest verse in the Bible is? It certainly isn’t one that you could have memorized in your Sunday school classes; it would have been way too easy, at least for most. It is in John 11 and in the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. As Jesus finally arrived to the tomb of a now four-day-old dead Lazarus, he saw the deep sorrow of Martha and Mary Martha Magdalene and the Jews in the village, and in a deep moment of empathy and humanity, verse 35 simply says “Jesus wept.” In this small verse of just two word is found the profound beauty of the Christian faith and practice. December 26, 2004, a Tsunami in southeast Asia ravaged with waves, destroying whole towns and took thousands upon thousands out to sea, never to return. Included in these thousands upon thousands was a friend. Just four years before the Tsunami, in February of 2001, my wife Holly and I vacationed at a small beach resort in the southern Thailand in a beach town called Khao Lak. Holly’s first c...