How do a 15th century Russian icon, a TV show about a teenager who sees God, a "Hootie and the Blowfish" riff, a plastic surgery makeover show and some German theologians help us have a better Christmas?
Well, stay tuned over the next few days as we look at the implications of the incarnation. First, the icon.
If you read my opening Advent post yesterday, you had the opportunity to glimpse at Andre Rublev’s Icon of the Holy Trinity. In my book, It Takes A Church to Raise a Christian: How the Community of God Transforms Lives, 
I use Rublev’s icon as a starting point for comprehending the triune nature of God. Allow me to offer you this excerpt from chapter 4:
“In the fifteenth century icon, “The Holy Trinity,” painted by Andrei Rublev, three divine figures gather around a common table, each holding a staff in his left hand, each with his head gently inclined toward the others, right hands pointing to a chalice filled with wine at the center of the table. Unlike so many icons where the Spirit is portrayed as a dove or a light, the Trinity is depicted as three persons, all equally sharing rule (symbolized by their staffs), in loving communion (symbolized by the inclined heads), and joined together by a common table and a common cup. The table symbolizes the shared fellowship and hospitality they share and, ultimately, offer. The cup symbolizes the “sorrows” and “suffering” which they share and offer with the haunting words of Jesus to his disciples: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” (Matthew 20:23). Because of the two-dimensional nature of the icon, the prayerful believer finds himself or herself as the fourth person seated at the table, drawn into the fellowship and intimacy of the Persons, as well as the cup of sacrificial love they drink.
This icon serves as an evocative starting point. The Godhead as Persons, equally sharing rule, equally involved in redemptive suffering for the world, equally and intimately united to each other invite the believer into their fellowship of intimacy and suffering love. The believer finding the comfort of fellowship with the Triune God, becomes a partner in comforting ministry (2 Cor 1:3-7). It is a communion that is grounded in love, expressed in mutuality, intimacy and hospitality and then is demonstrated in its ministry in the world…
But before we can undertake that task, we (must first) truly understanding what philosophers call the ontological reality of the Trinity. That is, the way that God is in God’s being. The way God really is….(to put it bluntly) God is a covenant group.”
Over the next few weeks we will explore some implications of the Incarnation staring with this one: In the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ we see God as God really is. From God’s action in Jesus we come to know definitively God’s character and mission: The God who is a Divine Community became a person so that persons could experience and express life within the Divine Community.
Tomorrow, Joan Osborne, Joan of Arcadia and the Slobs on the Bus...
(If you find yourself interested in the practical implications of the doctrine of the Trinity for helping Christian communities become truly life-transforming, I hope you'll consider my book, It Takes a Church...)
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