This weekend we will celebrate the mystery of our one God being a trinity of persons. I call it a mystery, because the specific “way” in which God is both one and three has mystified people since Christians first began describing God as being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we get ourselves in big trouble when we try to boil down the mystery of God to simply analogies or bumper sticker slogans. Saint Patrick is famous for his efforts to analogize the Trinity with comparisons to a three-leaf clover, or to the three states of water, yet such efforts eventually break down and become deeply problematic (just watch this hilarious cartoon about Saint Patrick to see why).

And yet, the Trinity is a mystery worth probing and pondering and celebrating, because it has to do with the nature of God. And if God is revealed to us as three persons, then that reality must have meaning for we who are created in God’s image. If God is a trinity of persons, loving and sharing mutually and equally, then that means that deep down inside of us, the image implanted in the core reservoir of our soul is relational. We are created with the need for relationship.

There is a theological concept called perichoresis that seeks to describe how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in an eternal state sort of like dancing. It’s funny to imagine God dancing, but that’s about as good an analogy as the Church has been able to nail down and not tick over into the heresies the Patrick cartoon pokes fun at. God is not some stuffy old man, sitting up in the heavenly realm, shuffling around in bath slippers and occasionally banging his walking stick on the floor to get his downstairs neighbors to quiet down. God is not an inapproachable loner who has no idea how to be in relationship with others. God is inherently relational. One medieval theologian, Richard St. Victor likens the three persons of the Trinity to “The Lover,” “The Loved,” and the “love they share.” In the very heart of God, Richard said, is the eternal begetting and receiving of perfect, divine love. This exchange of love, this perfect dance, reveal to us that God is at God’s very core, about relationship; that is fundamental to who God is.

If we want to know who and what God is, if we want to catch a glimpse of the inner life of our Creator, then we should be looking to our relationships to see and understand who God is. We should be continually aware of just how powerful our relationships are for revealing to us God’s identity and nature. So the next time you wonder about the Trinity, or get a question from someone who is skeptical of this mystery-soaked doctrine, don’t be afraid to honestly admit that you’re not too sure about the specifics, but stand firm in the confidence what you know the Trinity does reveal: that God is a relationship, and that means that we, the people of God, are also about relationship, too: with God, with one another, and with the world.

-Casey+