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Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Trinity
Romans 11:33-36 + John 3:1-15
Last week on Pentecost Sunday, we saw the gift of the Holy Spirit being poured out on Jesus’ disciples, and then connected with the waters of Baptism by a solemn promise: Repent and be baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit didn’t only begin to work through Baptism on that day. In fact, He has always been working, since the beginning of creation, giving life to man in the beginning, and then giving new life to men who were dead in sins. But with the coming of Jesus—or, rather, with the coming of John the Baptist, who pointed to Jesus—the Spirit began to give new life in a brand new way, a bodily way: in connection with water, the water of Holy Baptism, that all men might be born again of water and Spirit, by the will of the Father, through the atoning sacrifice of the Son, so that God the Father might become a Father to everyone.
Let’s turn to today’s Gospel for Trinity Sunday. Most Christians are familiar with John 3:16, as we discussed this past Wednesday. Not as many are familiar with the verses leading up to it. Here we see an older man named Nicodemus coming to the young Rabbi, Jesus, in the dark of night to ask Him some questions. Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Jewish council called the Sanhedrin, and a Pharisee, too. He had been listening to Jesus for some time, and to John the Baptist even before Jesus arrived on the scene. And their message was not consistent with the Jewish faith as Nicodemus had always understood it, and as the Pharisees had been teaching it.
Rabbi, he said, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing, unless God is with him. He was exaggerating; most of the Pharisees didn’t believe Jesus had come from God. But Nicodemus was different. He saw the signs Jesus had been doing and drew the right conclusion: Jesus had come from God the Father. Now, to Nicodemus, that meant that God had sent Jesus as He had sent the former prophets, calling men into His service to speak for Him. The reality was much deeper.
But Jesus got right to the point, the main area where He knew Nicodemus needed to be taught: Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” What a statement! With that one sentence, Jesus wipes out every path to God that mankind has ever invented. Good works, good behavior, good morals? Tossed out. Offerings, prayers, sacrifices, religious practices—gone. Race, color, gender, ancestry—irrelevant. What a shock to a man like Nicodemus, who was a respected elder of Israel, a Pharisee who worked so hard at keeping God’s law, a descendant of Abraham. What an offense to people still today who think that there’s something they can do, or some inner goodness within themselves that will make them worthy of God’s kingdom (if they believe in God at all). No, the only way to enter God’s kingdom is by having something done to you. Someone has to give you a second birth.
But that someone isn’t the woman who gave birth to you the first time. Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he really enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and 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. Even if you could be born again by your earthly mother, it wouldn’t do you any good. Flesh gives birth to flesh. And flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Because the flesh of all men, born in the natural way, is corrupted with sin. “Flesh” here includes, not only the physical body but also the soul. The human soul is corrupt with sin, and there is no fixing it. What’s needed is a brand new spirit, by means of a new birth.
And that new birth is by “water and Spirit,” as Jesus says. In truth, the Holy Spirit gave new birth to people already in Old Testament times by having the Word of God preached to them and by converting them from unbelief to faith in the true God. The word of God has always been the Spirit’s tool for creating new life. But with the coming of Christ, the kingdom of God had come into the world bodily, and a new bodily Sacrament had been instituted by God called Baptism. Everyone in Israel knew that John had been preaching and performing a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Not just splashing water on random people, but preaching the Word of God to people, exposing the sins of his hearers, warning them of the judgment that was coming, and urging them to repent and be baptized, which now had God’s promise attached to it as the means by which His Holy Spirit wishes to wash away sin from a person’s record.
But the washing away of sin is only part of what baptism accomplishes. At the same time as the Spirit brings a person to faith and washes away his sins, the same Spirit also gives birth to a new man, a spiritual person who can and will see the kingdom of God.
Jesus goes on, Do not be surprised that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes. Such is everyone who is born of the Spirit. You may remember that last Sunday we talked about the sound of that mighty rushing wind that filled the house where the disciples of Jesus were gathered on the Day of Pentecost, how one of the words for “wind” in Greek is the same as the word for “Spirit.” The same is true in Hebrew, by the way. So Jesus is comparing the Spirit of God to the wind, as we also did last week. Just as you can’t see the wind but can see its effects, so you can’t see the Spirit of God working through water and word. But you can see the effects of His work. The person who is born again now trusts in God with a firm confidence, where before, he wasn’t so sure about this “religion” thing. The person who confesses Christ as Lord, even when it will bring him trouble. The Christian who cries out to God in faith, with thanksgiving. The Christian who humbly serves, expecting nothing in return. The believer who faces troubles and even death itself with patience. The church member who faithfully attends a small church because he believes the doctrine that is preached there. These are the effects of the Spirit, and of the new birth that is given by the Spirit.
Now, Nicodemus was still not convinced, still not ready to accept the truth Jesus had spoken. How can these things happen? Jesus answered him, “You are the teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things? Truly, truly I tell you, we speak what we know, and we testify to the things we have seen, and you people do not accept our testimony.” “We” is Jesus and John the Baptist, who had both been preaching the same message of repentance and faith and baptism for the forgiveness of sin. Both John and Jesus had been sent from God with this message, and had seen the truth behind that message. But that message conflicted with what the teachers of Israel had been saying. “Keep the commandments and you will inherit the kingdom of God! Trust in your race as Jews and in your descent from Abraham, which makes you worthy of the kingdom of heaven!” No. Again, spiritual rebirth through inner repentance and faith, and now through baptism, is the way to God, but many in Israel still wouldn’t accept it.
If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? The “earthly things” are the things we can relate to on earth, such as birth and the how the wind works, and even repentance and faith and baptismal rebirth—the things John and Jesus had been preaching. The “heavenly things” are things such as the nature and working of the Holy Trinity, and His plan in eternity to save mankind by giving His Son into human flesh, and into death on a cross—the very things Jesus was about to mention.
No one has ascended into heaven, except for the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man, the one who is in heaven. How can anyone truly know heavenly things? Only by being in heaven. But no one had ever ascended into heaven and come back to reveal heavenly things. Except for Jesus, who didn’t have to first ascend into heaven, because unlike every other man ever born, Jesus started out in heaven, not as a man, but as the eternal Word of God, the eternal, only-begotten Son of the Father, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, who “came down from heaven” by taking on a human body and soul in the womb of the virgin Mary, by the working of the Holy Spirit, so that He is now, not only the Son of God, but also, as He says, the Son of Man. The Son of Man who, even as He stood there speaking with Nicodemus, “is in heaven.” How could Jesus speak of Himself as being in heaven at that moment? That’s one of those heavenly things, a mystery of the Holy Trinity, that Jesus is both true God and true Man, who has the attributes of both God and man.
We confessed the mystery of the Trinity today in the Athanasian Creed, with the best words that human language has to offer, based on God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture. But it still goes beyond our comprehension. And that’s okay. Because what we need to understand about the Trinity in order to see the kingdom of heaven is really quite simple. It’s what Jesus went on to explain to Nicodemus.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. As a teacher of Israel, Nicodemus would have been very familiar with the story of the serpent in the wilderness. When Israel was wandering about the desert for forty years, being punished by God for their refusal to go into the promised land the first time, they often grumbled and complained against God. At one point, their grumbling was so egregious that God punished them by sending poisonous serpents into their camp to bite them and to kill many of them. When they finally repented of their rebellion, God told Moses to fashion a serpent out of bronze and lift it up on a pole, so that whoever was bitten by a snake might simply look up at the bronze serpent, and he would be healed from the venomous bite.
In the same way, God the Father sent His eternal, only-begotten Son from heaven, to become the Son of Man, so that He might be lifted up on a cross, as the sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, so that all men, dead in sin by nature, might believe in Him, so that all men might look up to Him in faith as the One who died for their sins, and not perish, but have everlasting life. And that truth, that promise of sins washed away through faith in the Son of God, is brought to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, and attached to Holy Baptism, in bodily form, so that all the baptized may know: I have been born again of water and Spirit. God has washed away my sins, as He promised. I shall not die, but live. That’s what you need to understand about the Holy Trinity, before anything else. God the Father wants to become a Father to every sinner, through the sacrifice of the Son, through the regenerating work of the Spirit. And if you believe and have been baptized, then you can be sure: God has already become a Father to you! Amen.
