“I am… I am in the Father… I am in the Father and the Father is in me… I am.”
Today’s reading is telling of us the connection between Jesus and God – that they are one.
The doctrine of the special union – that they are one – between the three personas of God – God the creator, God the Son, and God the Spirit – is known as Trinity.
Trinity is not an easy doctrine to understand. At least not for people who does not buy in on the special principles: That a single God can present himself in various ways.
Most people will see the personas as separate beings: God as the God. Jesus as a kind of avatar or demigod. The Spirit as something else.
Yet they are the same. In today’s Gospel Reading the disciples are reminded of this by Jesus’ speech and answers to them.
Are his answers good? Or are they mysterious?
The disciples seem in the Reading to buy in on the principal Jesus is serving them. Are we?
I do not know. I have always thought that the best explanation of Trinity was made by the Irish Saint, Saint Patrick.
He explained it very simply, yet powerful, through a clover. A clover consists of three leaves, yet they all belong to the same flower.
The same goes for Trinity. God consists of three personas, yet they all belong to the same being.
Up until recently I had always thought of Saint Patrick’s explanation as the best, but then I got talking with my wife, Camilla, who told me how she explained it to the Students for Confirmation that she once had.
Now, first, Camilla is – just as I – a theologian. Second, she is a lot more pedagogical than me. And her explanation simply was brilliant.
She had always explained Trinity through a Kinder Egg.
Do you all know how they are? Dark chocolate on the outside, white chocolate on the inside, and then a kinder surprise in the middle. A perfect combination.
As she told me, I could not stop thinking how brilliant this explanation is. And the depths of how you can go into detail with each of the personas – all part of the same egg though – simply is stunning.
As humans we live in our world within the egg. God, he is the dark chocolate. He is living in a reality outside our world. In an everlasting world – at least once the wrapping is taking off the egg.
Jesus, he is the white chocolate. Once the white chocolate on the inside was a part of our world. But now it has been raised sitting next to the Father. And we can see the Father through him. After all, they both are chocolate.
As we live our lives within the egg we can glimpse the white chocolate. The effect of its historical presence among us, but also the scriptures proclaiming his deeds and lessons.
Sometimes our world even touches the white chocolate and Jesus becomes almost alive. This happens during communion for instance.
The Holy Spirit lives among us. We can play with it, interact with it, forget about, only to find it again one odd day, we can even – as I did when I was a kid – showcase it in a ‘sættekasse’.
The Holy Spirit is of course the Kinder Surprise. The Kinder Surprise is our world as well. The world through which we can understand – and taste – the other: The dark and the white chocolate. The Father and the Son.
Oh, and one last great analogy between faith and a Kinder Egg: How is it we should always approach God? As children. As ‘Kinder’s’.
Is that not brilliant?
So much for the burning bushes and the ‘I am’s’. So much for all the names and titles: “God of Abraham… God of Isaac… God of Jacob.” “High priest.” Just to mention the names of God mentioned in today’s reading.
All you need is a Kinder Egg to reveal “the way and the truth and the life.”
Well, maybe a little more but from now on my favorite way of describing Trinity for sure is by means of a Kinder Egg.
My sermons usually last for approximately three more minutes but as I believe what I have said so far is sufficient and well-balanced I did not want to ruin its simplicity by prolonging it.
Maybe Trinity after all was not all that hard to understand, nor proclaim. All we needed was something relatable among us through which the mystery could be solved.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the name of Trinity.
Amen.