“Doing Our Dance!” Daily Office: July 9, 2015

For many Protestants the understanding of God being Trinity is an exercise of intellectual assent without really investigating what does it mean to our Mission on planet earth as the Church. There are two tendencies that historically we fall prey to when it comes to thinking and living with a Trinitarian mindset: First, is the failure to maintain equally the oneness and ‘threeness’ of God. Second, our failure to stress equally the humanity and deity of Jesus Christ which gives birth to an unbalanced ecclesiology. In the words of Howard Snyder the results of these two view-points give a distorted understanding of what the church essentially is and what its mission in the world is (Howard Snyder, The Community of the King, p 57). Colin Gunton asserts, “The manifest inadequacy of the theology of the church derives from the fact it has never seriously and consistently been rooted in a conception of the being of God as triune” (Gunton, Promise of a Trnitarian Theology, p 56).

The church as the body of Christ is essentially a community, a koinonia that is sort of a Trinitarian echo. The church is the visible representation of the kingdom of God on earth and as an agency of the Kingdom we are called as part of the God’s cosmic Mission to be a message of reconciliation of the world to Christ. In the sixth century, a Damascus monk called the beauty of the unity of the God-Head the “perichoresis” or the circle-dance. In the God-Head there is no hierarchy but rather perfect overlapping relationship. The Apostle Paul grounded “the being of the church in the purpose of the Father to reconcile all things to himself through the Son and in the Spirit. Thus, it is the fulfillment of the destiny of creation as declared in Colossians 1:20. Reconciliation is the key work of the church as it advances the kingdom of God.

What does this mean for us a individual believers? As we live our lives in light of 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, “As one dances with God who is Trinity we have opportunities to be ambassadors of reconciliation.” As others see us dance we can invite them to get on the dance floor with us. It’s not about getting people to hear the words of the songs first but instead it is the invitation of grace for people to experience the music.

Why do people stay off the dance floor? My opinion is they focus to much on the church and not enough on the King who has ushered in the His Kingdom which frees us to dance with Him! The Kingdom of God is both a “Now” and a “Not Yet” In other words, there will come a time that the King will come a fully establish the full manifestation of His rule and reign. In this in-between time we live in the power of His Might and “We get to Dance with Him!” This dance is all about God who is Trinity desiring others to be brought close to Him so that they can dance the dance of reconciliation.