Today, we look at a Day 4 text from this year’s summer curriculum, “Holy Trinity, Wholly Love.”

Reading: Romans 6:3-11

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Reflection

Did you know there’s a fourth member of the Trinity?

Every Friday since January we’ve been reflecting on readings from this year’s summer camp curriculum focused on the Trinity. A lot of it, I imagine, can feel rather…academic. We talk about these supernatural and metaphysical realities (using confusing phrases like “metaphysical realities”), and we’re left wondering if any of this has anything to do with you. With me. With us.

Today’s reading from Romans tells us that it does. Paul starts off with a question: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Whether we know it or not, it’s true. And somehow, in some mysterious way, we are united with Christ through his death and resurrection. This doesn’t just mean that we’re stamped with the free pass of grace or that God simply chooses to look the other way when we sinful people pass through heaven’s gate. It means that we have been united with him, meaning we are now one with Christ. That’s the definition of unity. We are of the same stuff. Whatever Jesus was and is and will be, well, we’re that now too!

Lots of books have been written about this wonderful mystery and they usually use big words like ontology, soteriology, and Christology. But all we need to know is this: if we have been (somehow) united with Christ, then because Christ is united with the Father and the Spirit, we are united with them too.

There is a fourth member of the Trinity and it is you!

To God, you are not insignificant. To God, you are not worthless. To God, you are not nothing.

You are as precious to God as God is to God’s self. You are as precious to the Father, Son, and Spirit as the Father, Son, and Spirit are to each other. By the grace of the Father in Christ Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit we are united with the Trinity, forever a part of that loving, intimate, gracious, beautiful relationship. That is the truth of who you are.

Now go live in the light of that good news.

–Jim Vitale

Prayer

Intimate, Trinitarian God, we give you thanks that you have united us to yourself. We give you thanks that you have made us members of the Trinity, forever in relationship with you. May we be reminded of this profound grace this day and every day.

Amen.