At nearly fifty I’m back in school—and loving it! Some of us need time to figure out what we really want to study. 🙂 This week in one class we talked about the concept of perichoresis. That’s basically a fancy word to talk about the Trinity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and how they relate to each other.
“At the center of the universe, self-giving love is the dynamic currency of the trinitarian life of God….When the early Christians spoke of perichoresis in God, they meant that each divine person harbors the others at the center of his being. In a constant movement of overture and acceptance, each person envelops and encircles the others.” (Cornelius Plantinga, “Engaging God’s Word”)
It’s sometimes referred to as the Divine Dance bringing to mind the incandescent swirling of light, unconditional acceptance, and love. The point is that God is complete and perfect in Himself. He already has all the fellowship He needs. If He ‘needs’.
I’m not sure where, but somewhere along the way I’ve picked up the concept (mostly subconsciously) that God made the Earth and mankind because He was lonely. Adam was lonely so God made his wife Eve (Genesis 2:20), but nowhere in Scripture that I know of does it say that God created because He was lonely. He was already perfectly complete in Himself.
“To speak plainly, from eternity God has had a communal life and didn’t need to create a world to get one. Nothing internal or external to God compelled him to create….Creation was neither a necessity nor an accident. Instead, given God’s interior life that overflows with regard for others, we might say creation is an act that was fitting for God.” (Plantinga, again!)
Picture that. A God so perfectly complete in Himself that Creation is an overflowing abundance of Who He is. I don’t know about you, but that slight shift in thinking makes a subtle difference in how I relate to God. You see, He doesn’t need us. He loves us, created us and welcomes us into the Divine Dance that is all of Him, but He doesn’t need our companionship for His own fulfillment. We don’t have to guiltily come to Him in prayer because He’s lonely, so we don’t need to feel like we’ve let Him down when we don’t. We are simply extended an invitation to take part and because of the inclusive hospitality of Who He is, He is joyful when we join in.
Join in with Perfect Love.
That slight shift also changes Easter and what Jesus did for us on the cross. Since He doesn’t actually need us, He didn’t need to die to restore us to Him for His sake. He did it solely because He is extreme love for OURS…..
Let that soak in.
This morning I went to a lovely meditative Good Friday service that brought home again what Jesus went through on the day He died. And what He went through on the cross. Pilate washed his hands (Matthew 27:24) saying that he was innocent of what the crowd was demanding happen next, his crucifixion. That Jesus’ blood being shed wasn’t His fault.
(Spoiler: It was ALL of our faults, including Pilate.)
The Perfect Lamb was led to be slaughtered, not because he was desperate to draw us back into relationship with Him FOR Himself——but for the extension and inclusion of Perfect Love pouring out of Who He is. He is goodness itself.
At the end of the service we were given the chance to light a tea light, to kneel and place it at the foot of the cross. As all of those lights flickered and danced in the dark I thought again about perichoresis. All of those lights representing individuals in my community dancing together at the foot of the cross. Included. Because of the cross.
Yet He still loves us individually. In His immeasurable creativity He made each of us uniquely valuable. He offers us relationship with Himself, one priceless person at a time.
And unlike the version of the Bible I saw once in a place where the Bible was censored, it doesn’t end with the death of Jesus. Because Jesus didn’t just take the deserved punishment for all the evil in the world onto Himself and die, He defeated evil and death—-and rose!
Esther. The perfect gift of perfectly, self-less love.
Click here to watch an amazing video about more of Who He is!—–> That’s My King
Heather Pound 