Trinity Sunday
Dear friends in Christ. Today many loving children gave their father cards and/ or gifts. Probably many of the cards had written on there: “world’s best dad;” or maybe a barbecue apron emblazoned with “the world’s best dad” or any other sort of trinket the Chinese spent their Christmas making. The point is this—all these things are mass produced by the millions; millions of fathers are the “world’s best dad.” If millions are “the world’s best dad”, then none is really the “world’s best dad”—except in the hearts of loving children.
There is a theological significance here: how often do we hear that all people really worship the same God; how often do we hear that all religions lead to the same God; that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe in something? But one god may have a different name, act differently, demand different things from us—all diametrically opposed to another god; how then can all really be worshipping the same god? If all these things that people worship are really god, as different and opposed to each other as they are, they can’t all be god—except in the hearts of their followers!
In our age that rejects the very notion of truth, the idea that there is only one true God, raises holy horror in people. But here stands the Christian Church saying just that: there is indeed only one true God—the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that He is one divine being [God] but yet three distinct Persons [Father, Son and Holy Spirit]. We confess that the one true God is not some sort of “generic” God, but that He is Triune—and on top of that the Son, the Second Person of the holy Trinity, took on human flesh—became also a true man—Jesus Christ—and He did this for our salvation.
The teaching, doctrine, of God is the most basic of any religion: who/ what is the God that you worship? But how can we understand the one true God, the holy Trinity? After all, it doesn’t make any sense to reason/ logic at all—there is one God and yet within that Godhead there are three distinct Persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That’s why our Gospel this morning, Jesus’ conversation with a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews so helpful. This man came to Jesus by night, probably because he feared his colleagues who were opposed to/ rejecting Jesus; and at night time he could have a long conversation, undisturbed by the crowds of day time. Nicodemus certainly came with a very high regard of Jesus but not —at least not at the beginning of the conversation— as the long awaited Savior: "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 sees the real question in Nicodemus’ heart—how is a person saved from their sin—and cuts to the quick: "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is not by our works, not by what we do, that saves us. Instead, it is God’s work, His grace by which He gives us a new birth, a birth from above. But notice that what Jesus says is ridiculous to reason, so Nicodemus asks: "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" The point is this: although what Jesus and Nicodemus talk about is conversion and how a person is saved, it is similar to the doctrine of God, the doctrine of who God is, the doctrine of the Trinity—one God and yet three distinct Persons. And the similarity is this: it is contrary to reason; it makes no sense to it!
Isn’t that really a huge hang up with a lot of people? The Moslems and Jews for example call us tritheists—worshippers of 3 Gods. A lot of people—even among those claiming the name Christian—are really Unitarians: they will say that the Father is God but somehow the Son and the Holy Spirit are lesser, beneath the Father, not quite on the same level. But what does it mean to be Trinitarian, to be Christian? It means to confess that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God—and yet there are not three Gods but only one God; it means to confess as we do in the Athanasian Creed: And in this Trinity none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another; but the whole three Persons are coeternal with each other and coequal...
Here we come to a “proof” or “evidence” of the truth of this doctrine. Precisely because it is contrary to reason; precisely because it is so opposite to how we are “wired” to think, it cannot be of human origin. Because human reason opposes and fights against the notion that there is one God and yet three distinct Persons it has to come from outside of us; it’s not something we can come up with on our own. And, on top of it, if you do try to follow it through and rationally try to follow it all the way through logically and consistently, you will “fry out” the “wiring” of the brain. It does not and cannot go that way. One God—yet 3 Persons?
But this is always the way God works! Getting back to today’s Gospel: In response to Nicodemus’ question, "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, "Most assuredly, 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. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The way God works and is, is always contrary to our way of thinking how it should be. Nicodemus was of the Pharisees, a group that thought that by not only keeping God’s law but in addition, all the different laws handed down throughout the ages, that they could earn God’s favor and heaven. That’s a very human way to think—do a lot of good and earn your way into the kingdom of God, into heaven. What people think of as righteousness does not justify us before God, does not fulfill His holy demands. We cannot see/ enter the kingdom of God via works. Reason, nature, our own understanding know nothing of God and His works and ways. And why? Jesus tells us in our text: That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Since the fall of Adam into sin all of us are born corrupt. When God first created Adam and Eve, He created them in His image—perfectly holy, desiring His holy will, knowing Him perfectly. But since the fall into sin, we lost that image of God. Now we are all conceived and born in sin, guilty; we are all born hostile toward God; we are all born knowing that “yea verily” there is a God, but not knowing Who He is.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That’s why we need that second birth/ that birth from above. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' We need that second birth because from our first birth, we are born corrupt; we are guilty and unclean because of our old sinful nature. Without that second birth from above, that is, without conversion, that thorough change of heart and attitude, there is no way we can see/ enter God’s kingdom because left to ourselves we would know neither Who the one true God is nor would we know how to enter His kingdom. In other words, without the gracious work of God on us, none of us would be rescued from sin, death and devil and brought into His kingdom to live with Him forever. The wondrous, glorious thing here is the grace of God. That’s what makes Christianity, Christianity. All the other religions of the world—because they are of human origin—are religions of works: do this and you will be saved. Only Christianity is a religion of grace—God, in the Person of the Son has done everything to save us. Just as grace is opposite human reason, so too is the fact that there is one Divine Being [God] but 3 distinct Persons.
The ways of God are opposite our thinking. Jesus tells Nicodemus: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. The Father sends the Son to take on human flesh and blood and become one of us. He does so, so that He can fulfill God’s law for us in our place and suffer in our place all of God’s wrath and punishment for sin and so by His holy life and innocent suffering and death He opens the way of eternal life to us. Notice again: God works so opposite our way of thinking. Jesus’, the Son of God’s, sacrificial death is the object of our faith. And through this faith we are saved; that is, through this faith that looks to and trusts in Jesus for forgiveness of sin and eternal life, we receive those very blessings Jesus won for us on the cross.
Yes, it is foolish to human reason—just as much as it was nonsense to reason in the OT days of Moses when the people were bitten by deadly snakes to look on a snake on a pole and be healed from the poisonous venom. They did so trusting in God’s promise to spare them—that’s faith! Through faith in God’s word and promise to grant healing, they received that healing that God was offering them. In other words, human reason/ nature does not want to and knows nothing of God’s grace and works; and in the same way human reason/ nature does not know anything about Who God really is.
Here’s a great grace of God: so that we may receive the forgiveness of sin, peace, eternal life, etc. that Jesus won for us, so that we may know Him—the holy Triune God—rightly, God in grace gives us the birth from above, that second birth. "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Water and the Spirit—the Holy Spirit—that’s holy Baptism! And what does God do? The Holy Spirit changes/ creates the heart anew using simple, ordinary humble means—the visible water together with the word of God! Not only is this a mystery that reason cannot grasp; that’s also not the way human reason would have done it. That’s why, lest we stumble and trip up and rely on corrupted human reason, Jesus has to tell Nicodemus and us: Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Not by grand works but by simple/ ordinary water and word the Holy Spirit works faith when and where He pleases in those hearing the Gospel.
Dear Christian, the Holy Spirit has come to us—for most of us it was in the waters of Holy Baptism, for others it was through the word heard later on in life—but in any case He has come to us and given us that second birth, that birth from above so that we now know the true God rightly as the Holy Triune God; and so that we put our trust/ confidence in His work for us and our salvation. We don’t see the Holy Spirit at work in the word and sacrament but He’s there—you, me, all Christians are proof of that. According to our human reason, when we try to figure out and try to understand our salvation and God completely, we ask with Nicodemus: "How can these things be?" We can only meet these divine things of Who God is and What He works with that same question. We will never understand them—and especially today as we ponder the main and basic doctrine of Who the God is that we worship—the Holy Triune God—we are just left in holy awe and wonder. But our great joy and thanksgiving are in what Jesus says about Himself: No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. The very God revealed Himself to us in Scripture and in the Person of the Son who became also true man to be our Savior.
We rejoice that in greatest grace the one true God revealed to us the mystery of Who He is—One God and yet three Persons and our Savior. This is something which our sinful, corrupt reason can never come to on its own and which we will never now completely grasp, but in the joy of faith we exclaim with St. Paul in today’s epistle [Romans 11:33]: Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! INJ Amen