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I sat spellbound as did everyone else in the audience that night. The lights went out and almost all we could see were about two dozen white-gloved hands, seemingly suspended in the air above the stage before us, each holding a drum stick. We were watching an exhibition of military drummers (I don’t remember which branch). They stood in a single line, stretching across the stage, and were now motionless, as a black light made their floating, frozen hands look ghost-like in the dark.

And then it began. As if some silent switch were flipped, the hands exploded into a fury of perfect moving unity. It was mesmerizing. The cadences tapped out from their snares sounded like a single drummer. Their movements looked like mirror images set side by side. They were many but in a very real sense they were one.  Sure, the lighting added to the experience, but it did so by focusing our attention on the essence which captivated us – synchrony.

I have had the same experience numerous times throughout my life, that sense of wonder at watching people performing in perfect synchronization. Whether it’s dancers, swimmers, jugglers or musicians, whatever it is they do is made more impressive by the multiplied unity. What is it about these performances that holds us in wrapt attention? I believe it is yet another example of sensing an echo of a deeper reality, God is a Trinity.

Of course, an echo is not the thing itself, just as a metaphor is not the object it represents. Every metaphor breaks down if you press it too hard. But somehow metaphors help us notice things about the object they symbolize. Nothing in creation is exactly like the uncreated and Triune God, but the things He has made bear witness to their Maker, and scattered all throughout His world are things that give us a sense of what His unseen attributes are like.

What makes these performances remind us of the Trinity is their living unity. A sprocket doesn’t engender the some sort of awe in us as these precise, replicated movements, though they are certainly just as accurate. Why not ? Because it’s a lifeless precision. The accuracy of a gear was secured the moment its metal cooled in the mold, or perhaps further back, when the engineer designed its specifications.  The tightness of a skilled dance troupe, on the other hand, happens the very moment they perform, it’s a living synchronization. 

There’s a kind of mystery that grips you as you watch. “How are they able to do this?!” “How is this possible?” And yet there they are, moving in perfect unity, diversity as one. And here we must be careful, here, our metaphor begins to break down, for our God is not three separate gods working in unison, but rather one God in three Persons – a mystery. How can it be?

But our reaction to these skillful performances teaches us the proper response to this doctrine. We’re not distracted as we watch, by considering how much time it must have taken the performers to achieve this level of skill. Indeed, consideration only heightens our appreciation. No, there’s a thrill in the synchrony, an exuberance we can’t help feeling. Something in the performance resonates with us – the loveliness of unity! Being made in the image of the Triune God, we find such displays delightful.

But the Trinity is an innate unison. Unlike the unified performers, who practiced for days, weeks, perhaps even months and years to hone their solidarity, our God existed in undiminished oneness for all eternity. Yet it is no less true to say that there was never a time when the Trinity did not equally exist as three distinct Persons. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, nor is the Spirit either Son or Father. There is eternal diversity in this oneness. And again, I believe it is this similarity to the greater reality that we feel in the presence of the synchronized swimmers, the barbershop quartet, or the drummers that moves us so.

And ponder this too, that the motivation of the performers to share such unity must flow from their realization that there is something inherently glorious about the thing itself, something beautiful and captivating about doing something so tightly together. What else could propel them through countless hours of wearisome practice, binding their individual movements into one, but their inner knowledge that what they were striving at was worth the sharing, because it was worth the seeing.

Could this not be behind all that is? That our God’s eternal delight at the mutual love and glory which each Person of the Trinity knew was the motivation for all of creation – a place to display this glorious unity, this perfect love, and to bring others into that fellowship. Didn’t Jesus pray along these lines? “Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.” – John 17:11

May all of these pale imitations remind us of that ageless and timeless unity that is our God, and cause us to bow inwardly, even as we sit transfixed, watching from our theater seats.