This sermon was preached at St Peter's Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am.
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again
he cannot see the kingdom of God. (John 3:3)
Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today, we celebrate the festival of the Holy Trinity. This occasion is quite unusual in the life of the church, in that most of the church festivals commemorate some event. In the Old Testament times, the Jewish people celebrated Passover, which commemorated a particular event, when they were rescued from Egypt together with Moses. In the church today, we often celebrate particular events in the life of Jesus, for example, at Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, at Easter, we celebrate his resurrection from the dead, and so on.
However, on Trinity Sunday, we don’t commemorate an event, but we are commemorating a particular doctrine, a teaching. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity has to do with how Christians understand the fact that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, which are revealed in three persons. The teaching of the Holy Trinity comes to us right from the early times of the church, and teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three gods but one God. We read in many passages in the Scripture that there is only one God, and that to worship more than one god is idolatry, and false worship. At the same time, we read in many places that not only is God the Father true God, but also the Son. Many times, we read in the Gospels that Jesus himself claims to be God, for example, he says: I and the Father are one. Also, after Jesus rose from the dead, Thomas calls Jesus: My Lord and my God. Also, we read in many places that the Holy Spirit is not simply some kind of created spirit, but is actually the Spirit of the living God. We are very careful not to worship three gods, because that would clash with the teaching in the Scripture that there is only one God. But at the same time, we also believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equally true God. Therefore, Christians teach that we worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God.
But let’s come to our Gospel reading today, from John chapter 3, where we read about Nicodemus coming to visit Jesus, and ask God to send us the Holy Spirit to open our minds to understand the words of this reading, and also to recognise and confess the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
At the beginning of our reading, we read: 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.”
This man Nicodemus is called a Pharisee, and also he was a “ruler of the Jews”. He was actually a member of what was called the “Sanhedrin”, which was the ruling council of the Jews. Nicodemus comes up in a couple more of places in the Gospel of John. In John 7, we read where Jesus was teaching in the temple, and people are disputing about Jesus whether he is the Messiah or not. The chief priests and the Pharisees were discussing and arguing about this, and Nicodemus realises, as he listens to his colleagues, that some of them had already made up their minds that Jesus is a false teacher. We read: Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
You can see here that Nicodemus wants to be fair-minded about things, but he is under a lot of pressure. And so, we read in our Gospel reading today that he came to Jesus by night. That is, he came to Jesus secretly, at night-time, when his colleagues wouldn’t know about it. He is interested in Jesus, but he’s afraid of taking his stand with Jesus. He says: 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. He recognises Jesus as a teacher from God, and also he realises that the miracles of Jesus must be empowered by God. Notice that he also says, “we”. We know that you are a teacher come from God. Who’s the “we” here? It seems like he’s claiming to talk on behalf of himself and his colleagues. However, Jesus knows, and we all know from the Gospels, that this is not entirely true. Not all the Jewish leaders know this, and even if they suspect it, they don’t want to believe it, and they resist it.
So Jesus says: 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 teaches a profound mystery here about being born again. He explains what he means just afterwards. But notice here that with this one little sentence, Jesus exposes Nicodemus’s heart and shows us where he is at. He doesn’t understand what Jesus has said about being born again, and instead of asking him, “What do you mean? I don’t understand. Can you explain to me some more?”, or something like that, the voice of reason kicks in, and he makes fun of Jesus’ words because they don’t make sense to him.
When Jesus says that he must be born again, Nicodemus draws attention to the fact that he is an old man. How can a man be born when he is old? We have a saying in English, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks!” The older we get, the more we like things to be stable and fixed, and don’t like to do new things too much. But also, Nicodemus makes fun of what Jesus is saying, as if it is ridiculous. He says: Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? Of course, this is every mother’s worst nightmare. Once their child is born, they’re happy to be done with the whole process of giving birth, and now they can enjoy the child. The thought for a mother of having to go through the whole process again would be terrible! And Nicodemus knows that what he is saying is ridiculous.
However, what Jesus is saying is not ridiculous. And this passage shows us how our faith relates to reason. Our reason, and our capacity to think things through, is a wonderful gift from God. However, when it comes to the things of God, we always need to be careful that we don’t try and twist God’s word around, because we might think that something is offensive to our reason. Rather, we should sit, wait, be patient, and learn, and let God teach us the matter from his word. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, the devil twisted God’s word around, so that it said the exact opposite of what it said. God said: You shall surely die. And the devil said: You shall not die. In the parable of the sower, we read that the devil is like a bird that feeds on the word of God. He feeds on the word of God, in such a way that he twists it around to say the opposite of what it says, and in doing so he removes it, eats it, devours it.
So Jesus explains what he means. He says: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
In the first passage, Jesus talks about being born again: here he speaks about being born of water and the Spirit. Actually, in Greek the word, “again” (anothen), can also be translated as “from above”, as if to say: Unless one is born from above. Jesus here is speaking about Holy Baptism. And he also speaks about the Holy Trinity. Holy Baptism is our second birth, where we are born from water and the Spirit. We are born again, and we are born from above. All these things go together. Also, Jesus speaks about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He talks about entering the kingdom of God, of God the Father. He himself is the one who teaches this with divine authority, saying, Truly, truly, I say to you. And also he speaks about the Spirit coming from above to give us new birth. And these three, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, also go together.
This is exactly the same thing as when Jesus gathers his disciples before he ascends into heaven. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. On the one hand, he teaches them to baptise, but he also wants them to do it in the name of God, and to teach them his words. And Jesus says, the Holy Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you. And so when we teach the words of Jesus, we know that this comes with the activity and power of the Holy Spirit. So what Jesus describes here is a baptism of water and the Spirit. And also, you can see very obviously in this passage the Holy Trinity: baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Now, when we speak about baptism here, there is only one baptism. But there are two elements: water and the Spirit. In Ephesians, St Paul talks about it as a washing of water with the Word. This is the same thing, because the Holy Spirit always comes to us through the Word of God. We are not born three times: once from our mother, once by the water, and once by the Spirit. No, as Christians, we are born twice: once from our mother, and once by water and the Spirit. So when we baptise, we never baptise in silence, because without the Word of God being connected to baptism, it would not have the power of the Holy Spirit. So we also baptise and speak at the same time, and say, In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. When we baptise in this name, we know it comes with all of God’s authority, and with the power of the Holy Spirit.
It’s a bit like water and fire. Water washes and fire burns. But if you connect the two things together, by putting the water in a pot on the stove, the water takes on the heat from the fire, and then has the capacity to burn, just like the fire. So also, in baptism, through the Word of God, the Holy Spirit is connected to the water, in such a way that Holy Baptism becomes a burning hot water, a water which does not just wash our bodies, but washes away the condemnation of our sin, and purifies us with the righteousness of Christ. The Holy Spirit then creates in us a living trust in that Word of God which was connected to the water. Our eyes see the water, our ears and our hearts hear the Word. And through baptism, we then trust that we have been received into God’s family, receive the forgiveness of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Many Christians today can be quite dismissive about baptism, and sometimes we meet Christians who have gone along for years and never been baptised. This is because some Christians put a lot of emphasis on the personal experience of conversion, but not on baptism. They say: If I’ve been converted, why need to be baptised? Now, there’s a problem with this: first of all, if we read the Book of Acts, every person who becomes a Christian and converts is baptised. Second, if we put the emphasis on our personal experience of conversion as the basis of our salvation, we will always fall into doubts. Sometimes a person might dedicate themselves to God numerous times. Which one was the genuine conversion? The first, the second time, or the third time? Or maybe I haven’t been genuinely converted yet. Conversion is a work of God, but as far as we can see it, it always seems to get messed up in our hearts with our own works. All our decisions and our choices are all tainted with sin, and so we can’t look back and put the basis of our salvation on the fact that we chose to follow Jesus, or decided to follow Jesus. Baptism, on the other hand, is outside of us, and it is a gift from God, in such a way that we can look at it, and point to it, and say: On such and such a day, God made me his child. It’s a bit like citizenship. We might come from another country and make a decision to become an Australian citizen. However, even though we have made a decision, we only really become an Australian, when we are received by the nation of Australia, and have a citizenship ceremony. It’s not us that chooses Australia, if you like—Australia has to choose us, if we want to be a citizen! In the same way, in baptism, Jesus chooses us. And we pray that the Holy Spirit may change us and shape us and work in us in such a way that make choices and decisions in our life that are pleasing to God, but always realising that it is God who first has to come and convert our mind, our choosing, our decisions.
Sometimes, also, when it comes to baptism, people say: but the thief on the cross wasn’t baptised. He just asked Jesus to remember him, and Jesus promised him the gift of eternal life. And we would say, yes, that’s true. However, this passage also teaches something about what baptism really is. The thief on the cross was there right next to Jesus, when he was dying on the cross. In that sense, it was a very unique situation. However, after Jesus rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, we people are not in the same position to be able to see Jesus in the flesh, look over to him and ask him something. At the same time, when Jesus told his disciples to baptise, he said: And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. That means, in baptism, Jesus is not absent, somewhere else, but he is right there. He promises to be with his church, when we baptise and teach. When we are baptised, we actually die with Christ, just like the thief. Our old self, and our old person is put to death, and each day we are called to put off that old person, and put it to death. So in baptism, Jesus actually comes to meet us in our life, just as he met the thief, and promises us eternal life, in such a way that we can trust Jesus to remember us when we come into his kingdom. If we play off baptism against the thief on the cross, it can often mean that we put our trust in our own prayers, since the thief prayed: Jesus, remember me. Rather, the thing that saves here is Jesus’ words and Jesus’ promise: Today you will be with me in Paradise. Of course, we should pray to Jesus and ask him to remember us when we die. But all our prayers are imperfect in a way. We need Jesus to clean them all up with his blood. We need to submit our prayers in the name of Jesus, meaning that they go to the Father through Him. He gets out his red pen, like a school teacher, and edits our prayers, and puts his blood all in between everything they say, and then Jesus presents them to the Father. When we trust in baptism, we trust in something that doesn’t involve us and all the things that go around and around in our minds and hearts. Instead, we are trusting in Christ, and his word, and the fact that he promises to give us new birth by the water and the spirit.
Another time, we will look at the rest of this passage from John 3. It is a wonderful passage, actually, where we see Jesus teach about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the meantime, on this Trinity Sunday, we commend our minds and hearts, together with our reason, with all its protests and corruption, into the hands of Jesus. Our old fleshly self only knows what it is to be born from our mother in the natural way. Our old mind and heart is conceived and born in sin. But Jesus gives us a new birth, a new birth of water and the Spirit, so that we can enter, and finally see, the kingdom of God. We commend ourselves to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, trusting in the blood and the sacrifice of Jesus, and asking God send us to the Holy Spirit to work and bless us in our lives. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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