Trinity Sunday

John 3:1-15 - Trinity - May 22, 2016
Confronting God

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Today is Trinity Sunday.  The word Trinity is not found in the Bible.  It’s a word that was created by Christians in order to express what the Bible teaches about God.  The Bible teaches clearly that God is three distinct Persons in one divine Essence: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  That’s what Trinity means: tri + unity = Trinity.  The only true God is the Triune God.  All true Christians believe this.  Every true Church confesses this.  The Christian Church has learned to articulate her faith in the three ecumenical creeds – the Apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian – not by thinking really hard about God – not by sitting down and figuring out his mind – no, but by learning from Holy Scripture who God is and what God does, and by defending the doctrine they learned when controversy arose.  Our creeds are not extra words that we impose upon the word of God.  They are concise expressions of the holy Faith that God’s word teaches us. 

We are saved by faith.  St. Paul writes, “With the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”  The word creed simply means I believe.  When we confess what we believe, we are confessing two things: First, we confess the content of our faith – that is, who God is, what he has done to make, save, and preserve us.  Second, we confess that this is what we ourselves personally believe as the body of Christ and as individual members of it.  The two always go together: the objective truth, and our subjective commitment to it. 

We are saved by faith because we are saved by God.  That is why it’s so important to know God – and to know how to talk about him.  That’s why the creed we just confessed together is so exclusive and uncompromising.  No other faith saves because no other god saves.  Our faith isn’t just a list of right answers by which we pass a test before our Maker and Judge.  No, our faith learns and relies upon the deeds by which God rescues us from sin, death, and the devil.  We hold onto our creeds and cherish them precisely because we cherish the words and works of Jesus.  Jesus gives us knowledge of God. 

Nicodemus desired knowledge.  He went to the right person.   Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews.  And as such, he had lots of knowledge already.  The Pharisees were experts in the Old Testament, as well as experts in the code of outward behavior that they had extrapolated from it.  The Pharisees regarded the law as something to fulfill; and they thought they had.  They looked at Scripture as something to master; and they thought they had.  And then here came Jesus.  He taught God’s law for what it truly required, and so by revealing their sin, he made enemies of the self-righteous Pharisees.  They had already learned all that they were willing to learn from the prophets.  But Jesus opened Scripture as one who knew it better.  He showed himself to be among the prophets, and so exposed their ignorance.  No one could do the works that Jesus did unless God were with him.  There was something to learn from this man.  They didn’t like it.  But they had to admit it. 

Yes, Nicodemus went to the right person.  But he wanted to learn in the wrong way.  He approached Jesus in the same presumptuous manner as he had approached the rest of the prophets.  He came under the cover of night, blinded by the darkness of his own self-righteousness.  He thought if he and Jesus could just sit down and hash things out one-on-one that he would in that way master his words too and acquire whatever wisdom Jesus might have had to offer. 

He paid Jesus a compliment.  “Your works impress us.”  But there’s no true praise in this.  Recognizing Jesus as more than an ordinary man is not the same as recognizing Jesus as your Savior from sin.  Nicodemus knew that Jesus must have come from God – like some sort of prophet.  But he could not figure out by his own observation that Jesus was of God, begotten of the Father from eternity.  To learn this, he needed more. 

So Jesus taught him.  And he taught him on God’s terms.  Nicodemus started the conversation; but Jesus chose the topic: “You must be born again.”  Nicodemus needed more than just a really good explanation in order to receive what Jesus offered.  He needed a new mind; he needed a new heart, a new life.  He needed to become a totally new person.   That’s what Jesus told him.  He needed to be born again.  Nicodemus had to forsake his ability to figure things out.  He had to despair of his obedience to the law that made him shine as righteous before men.  He needed to know who he was talking to.  Nicodemus needed to acknowledge himself as a sinner before God. 

This rebirth from above that Jesus requires is not just a hoop that we have to jump through.  It’s not just another item to strike off our list as we make our way to the kingdom of God.  But that’s how Nicodemus took it.  “How?” He asked.  “How can a man do this?”  … You can’t.  That’s the point.  Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  Human reason cannot understand the mind of God.  You must be born again.  You must be born of God.  You must look and see what God does and quit trying to figure out the next thing you need to do. 

No less than Nicodemus did, we naturally look at the word of God as something to figure out intellectually.  We lean upon our own understanding all the time.  Now, perhaps this isn’t the case with us when it comes to the central tenants of the Christian faith.  Maybe we recite the Creed week after week and readily consent to all that it says.  Perhaps the need for Baptism to be saved doesn’t cause any confusion at all.  Perhaps the doctrine of Christ’s bodily presence in the Lord's Supper gives no occasion to doubt for those of us who are particularly strong in faith.  Maybe.  And maybe the fact that we can’t figure out the Trinity or understand the Two Natures of Christ doesn’t bother us too much.  We simply believe it, right?  That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? 

But the wiles of human reason don’t stop there.  Even a Pharisee can blindly assent to the mystery of the incarnation or the holy Three in One without understanding why it is such a precious revelation of God.  For there is one unfortunate habit that the flesh cannot suppress.  It’s what theologians call the opinion of the law, or opinion legis.  It is the habit of regarding the righteousness that God demands from us as something that we are actually able to render – as something that we can produce and offer to God.  And it is not simply an intellectual problem for really smart people.  It is a problem for lazy-minded people too who have what Luther calls a coalminer’s faith: “Whatever the church says; that’s what believe.”  It is that attitude that either says, “This is something I need to master with my reason,” or else, “This is too complicated; I will just agree to accept it so that I can go to heaven.”  Either way, this is damnable sin.  It does not consider that when he hears the word of God, he is actually being confronted by God.  It does not tremble before his voice, and so does not rejoice to hear that voice speak peace and pardon. 

He who does not know this struggle in himself has not yet learned what it is to repent and be saved.  If you don’t notice and wrestle with this contrary attitude of your old Adam, it is because your old Adam is in charge and you do not realize the war that is raging.  You must learn to identify this opinion of the law, and to crucify it daily. 

The fallen reason of fallen man despises the mysteries of the Christian faith because it’s not able to figure them out.  Our flesh likes to be in control.  But there is nothing that our natural reason and fallen flesh despises more than the righteousness of faith that is freely reckoned to those who believe in Christ.  Nothing puts us more out of control than the full and free forgiveness of all our sins for Jesus’ sake.  It is in God’s hands!  Just as our mother’s labor was beyond our control, so our spiritual rebirth is God’s work alone.  But our flesh, that is, our old Adam wants to do something.  He wants to regard our confession of faith as some small contribution to our salvation.  He wants to count our half-hearted compliance as something to boast in.  And this is the most deadly way to lean upon our own understanding.  That’s why our flesh must be put to death.  That’s why the old Adam must be daily drowned in the water by the word of Holy Baptism. 

Jesus says that unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  Our natural affections, our natural urges, even our most pious and generous thoughts do absolutely nothing to bring us to God.  They keep us away.  Our success in life, our wealth, our good looks, our moral victories and social charm all drive us deeper into the darkness of ourselves. 

“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.” 

In order to see and enter the kingdom of God, we need to know the power of our Baptism to wash our sin away.  But first, we need to know our sin.  We need to know what our fleshly births have proffered.  And so we look at what the law teaches us, and we see what the law condemns.  We see that the law is right.  We agree with its judgment.  But agreeing is not enough.  We find no power or willingness to be what God requires us to be.  Yet where the flesh is weak and stubborn, the Spirit is willing.  And the Spirit is willing.  He is bound by no one.  The Spirit is God.  He proceeds from Father and Son together and so blows where the Father and the Son want him to go, because the will of God is united in love within the eternal Godhead and is revealed as one in the proclamation of the gospel for you. 

And you know where he blows even if you don’t see it.  It is where God condemned sin in the flesh once and for all as his own Son from eternity suffered for your sin and for mine?  The punishment and anger that we see lashed out on Jesus as he bears the stripes and torture of crucifixion was the anger of God against the very sin in which our flesh was conceived.  In the symbol of the crucifix (right here), we don’t just see an identification that we’re in a Lutheran Church.  No, we also see the true nature of sin.  We see what the Spirit wants us to remember.  We see what identifies Jesus as our Savior who gives us true life.  As the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so we behold this and every reminder we can to ponder with repentant hearts how the Triune God has saved us from our selves and redeemed us to be his own. 

The venom of the serpent’s lie corrupts our flesh – both our reason and will.  It brings death. We need a new life.  We cry for mercy to our God who sees us in our misery.  And the Spirit of God who knows our every weakness, and who bears with our wayward will, intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  That is his intercession – too deep for words.  But his instruction, his comfort and help – ah, these are revealed quite plainly enough in words.  We hear them, confess them, and learn daily to apply them to ourselves since whoever it is who believes them does not perish but has eternal life. 

In the preaching of Christ crucified for us, we confront God – no less at all as when we are confronted by God as Isaiah was who in his holy presence learned to bewail his sin and despair of himself.  But in Christ, we confront the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts, not with dread, but with joy and confidence, because it is he who comes in the name of the Lord to save us, as we sing, Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who reveals the fullness of God’s triune glory by showing mercy to sinners! 

Yes, we confront God.  Because God confronts us.  He does so by becoming true Man.  He does so by having no sin of his own but by becoming sin for us.  He takes the form of a servant as he obeys the law in our place.  He takes the form of the cursed adulterer, drunk, fornicator, betrayer, and lazy rogue.  What poison courses through your veins?  What sin do you struggle with?  Behold that struggle end where sin is lifted up for you to see.  That, dear Christian, is where God sees it.  See what God sees.  He confronts you in mercy, because there in the image of God made Man, and Christ made sin for you, the venom of rebellion is purged in him, and forgiven in you.  Here the Spirit creates in you again and again the clean heart you pray for and the joy of salvation that only the truth of the almighty God can give you. 

For thus the Father willed it,
Who fashioned us from clay;
And His own Son fulfilled it
And brought us endless day. 
The Spirit now has come,
To us true faith has given;
He leads us now to heaven.
O praise the Three in One.  Amen.