The Jesus Who SurprisesSample

The Dance

It is in the beginning, in the account of creation, where we first spy the hidden Jesus. And it is there, when we see the dance of the Trinity, that we begin to see why our God alone is love. 

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have been in loving fellowship from before the beginning. The early church fathers had a name for this “dance.” They called it the perichoresis. Do you see the music in the word? 

By contrast, the gods of other religions are either warring gods or single-person gods. Single-person gods could not have been love from all eternity, for they had no one to love. Nor could they be fathers, for they had no children. Monolithic gods are more like cosmic police officers: solitary, curved in on themselves, watching for transgressions. Their followers have joined a march rather than a dance. 

But you can see the dance among three persons of the Trinity in the opening words of Genesis: there’s God, there’s God the Spirit hovering over the face of the earth, and there’s God the Word speaking the world into creation. (When we get to John’s gospel, we learn the Word is Jesus Christ.) So we have one God in three persons, and then God says, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26). 

Do you see Jesus hidden in the pronouns? We are made in the image of the Trinity, and because our God is relational, we are relational as well. As Augustine said in The Confessions, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” 

Attempts to explain the personal Trinity with impersonal objects like an egg or an apple fall short. But comparing the Trinity to a dance, with three loving beings in harmony, or to a marriage (the metaphor Scripture gives) comes closer. In marriage you have two similar yet different persons becoming one, joining in a dance of love. And just as husband and wife generally share a love that overflows and desires children, so does our triune God. 

How does the truth that Jesus was present from the beginning of time differ from what most people assume about Him? What does the fact that you are made in the image of a relational God tell you about yourself and your deepest needs?