One of the most complicated aspects of the Christian faith is the Trinity. Over the course of my Christian Education I have heard many attempts to explain how something can be three separate things and one thing at the same time.
I was reminded of a wonderful way to look at the Trinity at a meeting last month when a woman seeking to join our presbytery and I wanted to share it with you all. She was asked a question about the trinity and answered by equating it to a holy dance. Imagine three persons in a circle, joined together by their hands. All are equal and all are moving together as one in a single dance with the same rhythm, with each following the same steps. This is not the picture of three people failing to communicate as they run around in different directions as they try to accomplish three different goals. Rather, this is the picture of three people working together to make something beautiful. That is the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who have been dancing together since before time began and will continue to dance into eternity.
“And that, by the way, is perhaps the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions: that in Christianity God is not an impersonal thing nor a static thing—not even just one person—but a dynamic pulsating activity, a life, a kind of drama, almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance.… The pattern of this three-personal life is … the great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. ”
Our God is alive in movement and activity and our God is always extending an invitation to us. You and I are invited to join in the dance, even in the midst of our imperfection and despite our failure to grasp the rhythm. We were not created to be spectators. The holy dance of the Trinity is not something for us to watch from our comfortable seats in the audience with our only contribution being polite applause. We are invited on stage to learn the steps, to follow their lead, and to bring about the same beauty and activity that has been moving since before the dawn of creation.
