Sunday, June 12, 2022 is Holy Trinity Sunday. This is the only festival day that is not based on an event in the life of the Church. The other “big” Sundays are Easter, Christmas and Pentecost. In the Lutheran tradition Reformation Sunday is a pretty big one as well. But these are all days that we recall a specific event.
Holy Trinity is not about an event but is a teaching or belief of the church of the nature of God. We believe God is one AND God is three. How can this be? Many metaphors are used to try and make it make sense. H20 is one thing, but can be water, ice and vapor. The one clover has three leaves yet it is one. God has three parts – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. None of these ways of thinking of three in one and one in three both hold up to logic AND fully articulate the nature of God. We may just find ourselves going around in circles.
The Holy Trinity may serve to point out our limitations as humans. It’s impossible to fully grasp all God is. It’s a mystery. It may be true, but this distances us from the divine. And God, if nothing else, seeks to be right here with us, in our presence. Back to that going around in circles though… John of Damascus, who lived about 700 years after Christ, was said to have used a term to describe the nature of God that literally means going around in circles. Perichoresis comes from a Greek word that is a combination of peri, meaning “around” and choreo, meaning “going/coming.” Such a term conjures continual movement, indwelling and relationship. One might also make a connection between choreo and choreography or dance.
One of the most famous depictions of the Holy Trinity is an icon written by Russian Andrei Rublev. The interplay between the figures keeps our eyes rotating around the image, suggesting movement. Ultimately, there are no words to fully capture the movement, tenderness, giving and taking of the divine. This doesn’t have to mean that we don’t explore with words and ideas who God is. When we are all talked or thought out though, we can rest in the wonder of it. And God will stir us to the dance once more.