About One Hundred Years Before The Reformation, ...

About one hundred years before the Reformation, an artist named Andrei Rublev painted a depiction of the Trinity. Today we celebrate the feast of the Trinity, this mystery of faith revealed to men. Rublev’s painting is taken from a scene in Genesis 18. The story is of when three angelic beings visited Abraham and Abraham presented them with a feast at a table.

The painting featured these three angelic figures in a configuration that created an invisible equilateral triangle: one at the head of the table, one at the right and one at the left – sitting in obvious conversation and camaraderie, the way many of us might appear if we’re sitting down at lunch with people that we love and know well.

Throughout the years, pastors and theologians have used this painting to explain or understand something about the Trinity. Strangely enough, the most profound thing that has been said about this painting has nothing to do with the presence of three figures, but rather it has to do with an absence, or a void.