From the most abstract theological arguments to comparisons to sunbeams and shamrocks, the Trinity has always been hard to explain.

Just last Sunday we heard in the Book of Revelation how those who worship before God’s throne “will not hunger or thirst anymore. . . . and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

In the passage from the Book of Revelation, something on the outside—the washing white of robes—symbolizes something on the inside—the faith of a person.

Why praise God? Because, of course, God is worthy of praise. Praise, though, is also a response as well as an obligation, an expression of gratitude for forgiveness, for the blessings of life, and for the sacrifice of others.

The reading from the Book of Revelation speaks of “the endurance we have in Jesus”: perseverance in the face of adversity.

Both the second reading choices speak of the way Christians are to live, and heard on Easter Sunday their message becomes a challenge to respond to resurrected life in Christ. To “think of what is above, not of what is on earth” does not mean to deny the world but to focus on Christ and what is spiritual. To clean out the old leaven—as the Israelites literally did in their households before Passover, the feast of unleavened bread—is to remove whatever could corrupt.

Isaiah’s beautiful description of his vocation could serve as a call for all Christians and people of faith:

With so much emphasis on sin and redemption during the Lenten season, you might overlook an incredible fact: You have already been saved.

Christ, however, also opens God’s heart so that human beings can see into it and know that it is love. There is initiative on both sides. “Be reconciled,” Saint Paul commands. How are you reconciled to God? To your sisters and brothers of the human family?

Though he had been set aside since infancy for a special purpose, the Moses we meet in the reading from Exodus today seemed a little lost. He was a fugitive and a “resident alien” in a foreign land and needed a job.