Dance of the Trinity

Today is an odd day for us. Most Sundays we tell the stories or hear parables or learn the teachings of Jesus. However, Trinity Sunday is about a doctrine of the church-the Trinity. Trinity is a confusing doctrine on top of that. Children’s messages and sermons will try to explain something that cannot be explained. There will be images like pie (crust, filling, topping), or water (ice, liquid, vapour), or one person-three different hats. Yet, these are images that fall short in explaining one God yet three persons. In fact, most of our attempts to explain the Trinity will be classical heresies that the early church fought and died over.

So perhaps trying to explain the Trinity is about as fruitless as Nicodemus’s questions for Jesus. Perhaps the only answers we will get are about how “the wind blows where it chooses.”

And just perhaps, how the Trinity works is not as important as what we confess the Trinity does each time we say the Creed. Trinity is creating, saving and joining us to the body of Christ.

Three-in-One God, bring us into the dance of your Trinity work among us. Amen. — EP

Contributed by Dance of the Trinity

Today is an odd day for us. Most Sundays we tell the stories or hear parables or learn the teachings of Jesus. However, Trinity Sunday is about a doctrine of the church-the Trinity. Trinity is a confusing doctrine on top of that. Children's messages and sermons will try to explain something that cannot be explained. There will be images like pie (crust, filling, topping), or water (ice, liquid, vapour), or one person-three different hats. Yet, these are images that fall short in explaining one God yet three persons. In fact, most of our attempts to explain the Trinity will be classical heresies that the early church fought and died over. So perhaps trying to explain the Trinity is about as fruitless as Nicodemus's questions for Jesus. Perhaps the only answers we will get are about how "the wind blows where it chooses." And just perhaps, how the Trinity works is not as important as what we confess the Trinity does each time we say the Creed. Trinity is creating, saving and joining us to the body of Christ.
Eternity for Today