This is Trinity Sunday, the beginning of the backstretch of the church year. From Advent through Pentecost, we commemorate the life of Christ our Lord, marking His arrival in our midst, His life, His death and resurrection, His ascension into heaven, and His outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon His people. Our observance of these days takes half the year.
Trinity Sunday is the Sunday after Pentecost, and is the eighth Sunday after Easter. It commences the “ordinary” half of the year, but we have to realize that if what we have said from Advent through Pentecost is true, then nothing is really ordinary. We live our lives in the light of the triune God, walking in His ways, building on the foundation of the historical events we have marked and commemorated.
As we do this, recall the reason for it. Man will mark his days, and he will evaluate it somehow. We want you as Christians to think of your summers as part of Trinity season, and not primarily as the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Civil holidays are fine, and barbequing some burgers with the family is just great, but these are not the days we want to use to define our lives. We are Christians—that is the most important thing about us, and that should be reflected in how we celebrate and mark our days.
At the same time, we want to avoid the problem of ecclesiastical clutter, the problem of some saint’s day or other getting underfoot every time we turn around. With the Reformers, we mark the life of Christ and the authority of the triune God. Consider these the five evangelical feast days. Do not look for any commemoration of St. Alphonse the Lesser, patron saint of three-legged cats.
When everything is special, nothing is. God wants us to cultivate a biblical cadence and rhythm to our lives, and not a constant pounding.