Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (John 3:1-15)
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today is the Sunday of the Holy Trinity, which is the last Sunday in the first half of the church year, which we call the festival half of the church year.
And it’s strange in some sense that we should have a Holy Trinity Sunday, because every Sunday is a Holy Trinity Sunday. Every Sunday is a Sunday where we say Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Every Sunday services is one which is empowered by those living words: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. Every Sunday is a Sunday where we say in the creed “I believe in the God the Father Almighty. I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the Holy Spirit.”
And the teaching of the Holy Trinity is a great mystery, it is a great mysterious teaching of the church. It is in some sense impossible for us to understand fully. It’s a great mystery.
But also, the teaching of the Holy Trinity as we confess it in the creeds is what defines us as a church, it is the line in the sand between the church and the world. If we don’t believe in God as the Holy Trinity then we are not Christian, and we are not the church. In the Athanasian Creed, it says: “Whoever wishes to be saved must think thus about the Trinity.”
And so, when we say that the teaching of the Holy Trinity, or the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, is mysterious, and that it is a mystery, it doesn’t mean to say that we don’t teach it. It is not the church’s job to explain the Holy Trinity, it is the church’s job to teach it. And it is not the church’s job then to understand the Holy Trinity, but it is the church’s job to believe it, or rather believe in the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The church is not about explaining away mysteries, and it’s not for you to comprehend great mysteries, as it says in our epistle reading today: “Oh the depths and riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”
But on the other hand that doesn’t mean that you don’t ask, seek, knock at the Holy Trinity’s door, and simply say: “It’s all a mystery! I can’t understand anything anyway, so why bother?” That’s the way an atheist and an unbeliever speaks. That’s the way Pontius Pilate speaks: “What is truth?”
No – we don’t understand the Holy Trinity by trying to get our head around it all. We understand the Holy Trinity by believing in God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and by experiencing the Holy Trinity. Quite simply, if you want to understand the Holy Trinity, then pray to God the Father to send you the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. There it is: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. St Paul says in Galatians: “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying out “Abba Father”. You pray to God the Father, you ask for the Holy Spirit, and you do it in the name of Jesus Christ. If you want to understand the Holy Trinity without prayer, without being involved in the powerful life of the Holy Trinity, without being drawn into the life of God himself and being filled with God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, then you’ll find yourself at a dead end. It simply can’t be done.
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In our reading today, the Gospel reading says: Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Nicodemus perhaps wants to come at night to discuss some things with Jesus. Maybe he comes at night because he is afraid of the other Jews. But he comes and speaks to Jesus not in the public places, but in a private place. And he says: “We know that you are teacher come from God.” Instead of saying, “I”, he says “we”. He means to say, “It’s not just me who thinks this, but other Pharisees too.”
Here’s the problem, though. Where are these people to say this for themselves? Why don’t they come and say it to Jesus’ face when he’s there in public?
Now for us too, there’s a real trap and a temptation for us to want to talk about Christianity in such a way that it’s an intellectual thing. We want to keep our distance from the real life-giving power of God. We want to distance ourselves from being like those crazy Christians down the road: We don’t want to be too much like them, or too much like those ones. And so it’s easy for people to want to stay neutral and not be involved in the life of the Holy Spirit and simply say, “Let’s have an intellectual discussion.” “Let’s talk about this: let’s try and work out what the truth is, without really committing to anything.” “Let’s go to church to give ourselves a pat on the back so long as we don’t have to be religious.”
In answer to this, Jesus says: “You are neither hot nor cold, but you are lukewarm, and I will spit you out of my mouth.”
“Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
That’s it. No argument. You are either involved in the life of the Holy Trinity, or you are outside the kingdom of heaven. If all you want to do is rationalise, and think, and talk about the Holy Trinity, but you have no desire to live the way the Holy Trinity commands you to live and to believe what he commands you to believe and you don’t have a desire to bring every one of your thoughts into conformity with Christ as he himself commands you and expects of you, then you are simply out. If you have no desire to see your old self drowned with all its lusts and desires, and to put on the resurrected Christ and his divine life, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit.
The human mind, your human mind is a gift from God, but it is something that God gave you through your natural conception and birth from your mother and father. And so, your mind is part of your flesh.
Psalm 51 says, “In sin did my mother conceive me.” When you are born into the world, you are born into it as a sinner. Just because we leave the womb of our mothers, doesn’t mean we automatically qualify for heaven. Now God didn’t created the world bad, and he didn’t make humans bad. But because of the fall into sin, we are now corrupted. We are conceived and born in sin, we are part of the history of the fallen human race, and anything that we receive from our mother and father through birth is corrupted by sin and is disqualified from entering heaven automatically. It is common for Christians to think today that everyone is saved, simply because they are a human being. It’s not true. That which is born of flesh is flesh. And Jesus says: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Instead, we need to be born again, we need to be born again of water and the Spirit. To be born again does not mean that we make some decision for Jesus, or something, because that’s something that belongs to our flesh, to our minds. Jesus talks here about being born again of water and the Spirit. This is talking about Holy Baptism here. Anyone who talks about being born again, and doesn’t mean “baptism” is not talking the same language as Jesus.
And the power of baptism is not the water, but the living and powerful Word of God in the water, which washes your sins away through the powerful and effective resurrection of Jesus Christ. God needs to give birth to you again in a new way. He doesn’t want you to contribute to it, because you can’t. You didn’t help your mum a brass razoo when you were born, (just ask them!!) and you don’t help God a brass razoo when you are baptised and born again.
St Peter says: “You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.” St John says that people who are born of God, have God’s “seed abiding in them.”
So here we are, we are all born according to nature from the seed of our parents. And this seed is corrupted. It is perishable.
But God calls us to be born again by water and the Spirit, so that God will plant the seed of his word in us, which is pure and perfect, and imperishable, incorruptible. It is a living seed that forgives sins, and grows into a forgiven tree with forgiven branches and forgiven leaves. That Word of God is spoken over us at baptism, when the pastor says as Jesus Christ’s mouthpiece: “I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Now the word of God is planted in you.
And that word of God needs to continue to grow through continual hearing of the word of God, through continual renewal in the life of the church, through the preaching of the Word of God, through the Absolution, through the Lord’s Supper.
And Jesus says: “Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again.” The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Many people think that this means that we never know how the Spirit works, and we never know what the Spirit does. People also think that it means that Christians are just blown around like a feather on the breeze, and to follow God simply means that we do whatever we feel like. That’s not true.
If we don’t know where the Spirit is actually working, why did he just tell us to be born again by water and the Spirit? If you want the Holy Spirit, go and get baptised! If you are already baptised, then stay there in baptism, at the foot of the cross, and learn from Jesus everything there is to know about the faith. As Jesus said: Disciples are made by baptising them and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded them.
Jesus says: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound.” Yes, folks, we do hear the sound of the Holy Spirit. We hear the sound of the Holy Spirit whenever we hear the Words of our powerful and living God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. We do hear the sound of the Holy Spirit, when you hear the words: “I baptise you”, “I forgive you all your sins”, and as we will all hear later in our service, “Take and eat, take and drink”. “The Lord bless you and keep you.” This is the sound of the Holy Spirit.
How the voice of the Holy Spirit entered your ears, and your life, you don’t know because you didn’t see it, just like you can’t see the wind. And where the God who has baptised you will lead you, you don’t know. You can only hear the Holy Spirit through the powerful prophetic voice of the Scriptures. Your not commanded to listen to the Spirit in your feelings, because that which is born of flesh is flesh, you are commanded to listen to the Spirit in the Scriptures, because Jesus says that the words he speaks to you are Spirit and life.
So listen to the sound of the Holy Spirit here in the church, today. The voice of the Holy Spirit – the proclaimed, preached Word of God, the forgiveness of sins – is what renews you. The Holy Spirit is given to you freely in Holy Baptism, because it is a new birth. The forgiveness of sins is given to you freely, without anything that you contribute, and nothing that you can do to earn it. It’s free, free, free.
Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also Jesus Christ was lifted up on the cross, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! This faith, this gift to you, from the calling of the Holy Spirit, does not come from the flesh. If you are baptised, if you are born by water and the Spirit, and believe that baptism saves you, then you know that this call to be part of God’s church is a call from the Holy Spirit, and from the Holy Spirit alone. The Holy Spirit’s the one who brought you here, he’s the one who called you to new birth by water and the Spirit, and he’s the one who keeps you here. The Holy Spirit’s the one who saves you, and preaches to you the words of our heavenly Father and of our Saviour Jesus Christ. This is what it means to receive the life, the power, the vitality of the Holy Trinity, our living, powerful and eternal God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. You can’t stay outside of God’s life – Christians were never called “philosophers” or “understanders”, but “believers”. Believe this powerful, life-giving faith and remain in it!
Amen.
Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Keep us strong in this faith, heavenly Father, renew us in the new birth of water and the Holy Spirit which we have received, and let your name be kept holy in the words of our mouths, the confession of our lips and through our actions of love which you have prepared for us and which you have promised to work in us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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