Trinity before Passiontide – a talk by Rev. Bridgette Siepker

by John-Peter Gernaat

There are three festivals connected with Christmas and the manifestation of Christ in Jesus: Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Then there is a period before we have four festivals of the Death and Resurrection of Christ: Passiontide, Easter, Ascension and Whitsun.

One way of reviewing these festivals is through the pericopes that have been selected. During Epiphany, the pericopes this year (because the last pericope is less rigid than the first three) the journey taken was:

• The story of the Magi and the killing of the little boy-children. This story in Matthew’s Gospel tells of the escape of the baby Jesus to Egypt, a story that mirrors the events when Moses was born. Moses’ life was threatened by a decree from the Pharaoh, and his mother placed him in a basket on the Nile. Moses was found and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. Jesus’ life is threatened by a decree from Herod, and his parents take him into the bosom of Egypt. This similarity between the two children would have been significant to the Hebrews.
• The child Jesus, who is taken to the Temple at the age of 12, undergoes a transformation from an open, dreamy child to an alert child who can converse with religious teachers.
• The first sign of Jesus when he transformed water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana.
• The healing of the child of the Roman Centurion.

​These stories speak to the becoming, the epiphany, of Christ in Jesus. They ask of us to become conscious of our awareness of our own destiny.
Then, there is the period of Trinity between the festival seasons. There are five prescribed pericopes for this period:

• The parable of the vine grower who invited labourers to work in his vineyard and pays them all one denarius at the end of the day. The significance of ‘one’ is that it is complete. They received their due for the work completed. This is a picture of the Kingdom of God: everyone receives their full reward.
• The sower who sows seeds and some fall on rock, some in shallow soil, some among thorns and some in fertile ground.
• The story of the rich young man who has upheld the law and is commanded to sell all he has and give the proceeds to the poor in order to follow the Christ. What we are able to acquire in a lifetime has no value unless we put it to the service of those who have acquired less than we have. This does not speak of material wealth, but of spiritual understanding.
• The Temptation of Jesus in the desert after the Baptism. This is the imagination of the Christ, the “I am” taking hold of the soul constitution of the human being in order to begin the transformation of the earthly human constitution into the Resurrected human constitution.
• The Transfiguration, which pictures the transformed human being in whom the Law and all Prophecy are fully manifest.

A commentary written by Rev. Hans Werner Schoeder helps to connect these five pericopes. We have received one gift – the gift of the “I” – and every human being has it equally, the last and the first. The transformed water strengthens the “I”. The sower sows grain that is to be planted in our hearts. This is a parable of bread; Christ, the Word, becomes the bread of life. The Word is the nourishment for human souls. We have the two substances of the Eucharist in the wine and the bread.

We are called to go into Passiontide each year with something new that arises from our striving.