The Son was separated from the Father when he was on the cross. In this sense he experienced the essence of hell: complete separation from the Father. I can understand what it would mean if I were to go to hell, to be completely separated from the Father. I am a man, I am finite, I am not God. I am a man. There is nothing particularly bizarre about me being separated from the Father.

But what we learn is that the Son was separated from the Father for a time. The Trinity was apart, was severed, split. The Trinity apart: how did the universe not fall apart?

The Trinity apart! How can this be! How can the center of the universe, how can that which holds all existence together, how can this be separated? How did the universe not fall apart, how did the stars in the galaxies not spin apart in all directions? Gravity still worked while Christ was on the cross, for we read that he hung on the cross. How did gravity work while the Trinity was apart? The essence of unity, of oneness, is it not God? How then can it be separated? When the person of the Father was separate from the person of the Son for a few hours, how did protons and neutrons not spin apart: when the Trinity is separate, why should atoms hold together?

It defies us to even pretend we could ever comprehend it. This truth exceeds our grasp. Our minds, in their unrighteous hunger to contain all existence and to master even God, reach upwards, and see this thing, this fact that the Trinity was apart for a few hours while Jesus Christ was on the cross, and it finds that it cannot grasp it. The heart reaches a bit further, and wonders if poetry can’t grasp the incomprehensible, but no! No, for the infinity mysteries are not comprehensible to finite emotions, hardly any more than to finite logic.

The Trinity apart! How did marriages not become such that they had never been married, not as if they had never been but that they had never been? How did the universe not fall apart? Is it because God is outside of time, because there was Jesus Christ in time during those hours who was separated from the Father and the Spirit and Jesus Christ in eternity, at one with the father, looking down at the knife-edge of time? But what does that mean, anyways? What does it mean for us to say that the same person can look outside time and see himself looking at himself from outside of time, into the time from which he is both looking and seeing himself look at himself? What does that mean? Or is it because Christ's sustaining of the universe (Colossians) is an act within time, making the previous explanation all wrong?

Is the whole question flawed because Christ's sustenance is the reason for galaxies not spinning apart, because the Trinity staying together is not the reason? Or is the question whether sustenance can still be sustained when the one-third of the sustaining being is severed from the whole? How can God still be God when he is separated from himself? Or is it ok because God can do what he wants, defy our logic, seem to still be infinity when he is separated from himself? Is that what infinity divided by three equal--the same infinity? Or is it infinity only because it is not divided? Would a severing of the essence of the infinite being threaten the infinity?

In any case, we know why the galaxies did not spin apart. Because Christ was holding them together! Because the cause of them holding them together is the unity in the Trinity, but Christ's sustaining of the universe. Let us not be too quick to congratulate ourselves, for we have only proven that the question "Why did galaxies not spin apart?" picked a very poor example for the elaboration of our question, "The Trinity apart! How can this be?" For this question we have lost even our ability to say what we mean when we wonder at this. We never had the answer; we have lost the implications for understanding the question. Do we still have the question? Yes, for I still say . . .

THE TRINITY APART! HOW CAN THIS BE?

. . . and now I wonder if I even understand the question itself . . .

So is this what we Christians have got for our decision to trust documents that make sense when it’s something we can comprehend? When they show us they are more than trustworthy as ancient documents go, scores of times more reliable than whatever documents told us about Julius Caesar and Socrates, they show us mysteries we cannot comprehend. It’s one thing to say that there are things we never know. But we find ourselves taking one thing that makes sense (ancient documents) and trading in that knowledge for . . . mystery! incomprehensibility! confusion! humility of mind! awe! questions to which we can probably never know the answer!

Is all this a fair trade? What is the Incarnation? How did the universe stay together while the Trinity was separated for a few hours? How can Three be One in the first place? How can redemption atone for sin? What is an infinite being like? These questions we have received in return for our submission to the documents.

Isn’t it fun!? Don’t you feel sorry for those people who aren’t Christians and know better than us? Everyone’s confused, you know, but they now, they are confused about things they can understand, like the fact that they are frail and need a Savior for their sin; and they’re not at all confused about the things that make no sense, about miracles, and virgins having children, and the Trinity severed for a few hours, and Incarnations of infinity into flesh, and redemption, and resurrections of dead people? They’ve got it all figured out, these things that make no sense and can’t be expected to be believed by any rational person! But how disheartening it must be to be so confused about things they’re actually able to make sense of, like sin and human frailty and the existence of the universe!

Calvin was neither the first nor the last person to know that Christianity is all about knowing what we can and being in awe of what we can’t know, yet somehow do know (because God told us) yet still don’t have a clue about the full meaning of.

Isn’t it fun!?