St. John 3:1-17
Divine Service
Pentecost 2 (Proper 6)

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Dear brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Today is the First Sunday after Pentecost, traditionally Trinity Sunday.  Even if you had not read that on the top of your bulletin, you may have figured it out from the creed that we used – the traditional creed for Trinity Sunday, the Athanasian Creed – the creed that seems to go on and on forever; the one creed that you didn’t have to memorize for Catechism class. 

Martin Luther in his sermon for this Sunday from 1522 says: “It is indeed true that the name ‘Trinity’ is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scriptures, but has been conceived and invented by man.  For this reason it sounds somewhat cold and we had better speak of ‘God’ than of the ‘Trinity.’  This word signifies that there are three persons in God.  It is a heavenly mystery which the world cannot understand.  I have often told you that this, as well as every other article of faith, must not be based upon reason or comparisons, but must be understood and established by means of passages from the Scriptures, for God has the only perfect knowledge and knows how to speak concerning himself.” 

Although the words ‘Trinity’ or ‘Triune God’ are never used in scripture, scripture does indeed show us a Triune God.  Our Gospel lesson today points us to all three persons of the Godhead…The Son – the one whom Nicodemus is talking with; the Father, God who has sent His Son; and the Spirit, without whose washing none can be saved.  All three persons of the Trinity were present at Jesus’ Baptism  -- Jesus rising from the water, the Father speaking: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased,” and the Holy Spirit descending from heaven in the form of a dove.

There have been those, and many do still exist, who will claim that Christians do not worship just one God, but worship three separate Gods.  They see, and hear, us speak of the three separate persons of the Trinity and can’t understand how we can claim to be worshipping only one God.  These people, usually, are simply looking for some reason to reject Christianity – and often to reject the very existence of God.  They simply look for any reason to deny the truth of Scripture.  We can recite Deuteronomy at them: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one,” and they will simply ignore us. (Deut. 6:4)

Our two regular creeds, the Nicene and Apostle’s, simply assume that we understand and accept the Trinity as fact.  These two creeds are typically described as one paragraph per person of the Trinity.  The Athanasian Creed specifically addresses those who would reject the Trinity.  Our faith tells us the Biblical truth of the Trinity; it accepts the truth of the Trinity, even though our human logic simply can’t understand how this could be true.  The Athanasian Creed also is the only one of the ancient creeds that contains the threat of damnation for heresy – for not believing rightly.

And that faith is a gift of God, given to us by the Holy Spirit.  The ‘faith except every one keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.”  Do we make a rational human decision to accept these things and that becomes faith?  No, for mankind is so dead in sin that we “cannot by [our] own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, [our] Lord, or come to Him but the Holy Ghost has called [us] by the Gospel, enlightened [us] with His gifts, sanctified and kept [us] in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith (SC, Creed, Article 3 explanation). 

Nicodemus seemed to have grasped the beginnings of this knowledge.  The statements he made to Jesus: “How can a man be born when he is old?” and “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!” (v. 4) are phrased in such a way that they appear almost rhetorical.  Nicodemus knows these things – but what is the real answer?  Jesus tells Nicodemus the real answer: “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit” (v. 5).  Born again through water and the Spirit – the very conditions of Baptism, where God comes to us through “the word of God which is in and with the water, and faith, which trusts such word of God in the water. For without the word of God the water is simple water and no baptism. But with the word of God it is a baptism, that is, a gracious water of life and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Spirit.”

In last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to the disciples: “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father.”  The Father sends the Counselor – the Holy Spirit.  The Father – the person of the Trinity who gets the shortest statement in the Apostles Creed, just “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.”  But what large statement in just 12 words! Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth!  Almighty – all powerful, all-knowing, omni-present.  This is what we confess in the Apostle’s Creed. 

Yet, more than these things, he is Father – with all that is implied in that word.  Stern, reprimanding, disciplinarian – yes those things are there.  But a father – any father, but particularly this Father – is so much more than that.  Yes, He will be strict in His judgments – Yes, He does tell us that we are wrong – Yes, He does discipline us.  But more importantly that any of that is Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus in today’s lesson: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  The Father – the Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth gave His one and only Son to be the sacrifice for us – to be the atonement for our sins!

Our human nature rebels against believing this, exactly as did the nature of Nicodemus.  We just do not want to believe in the God of the Bible.  We want to construct our own God.  It is SO much easier that way!  Then we can have a god who won’t be strict in demanding obedience to the Law.  We can have a god who will simply tell us that we are all his children, and thereby worthy of all of his gifts, including the gift of eternal life.  Then we can have a god who would only forgive and never punish his children for their misdeeds.  Then we could have a god who could have created the world and then stepped back and let evolution run what he had created.

But this is not the God that is.  The God who is, IS stern, He is demanding and He is a disciplinarian.  The true God demands from us…and we cannot accomplish what He demands.  He demands that we keep His Law, and we fail regularly.  He demands that “we love Him with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul and with all [our] mind;” (Matt 22:37) and we tend to love things more than God.  He demands that we “Love [our] neighbor as [ourselves];” we cannot do this either – we are too self-centered and prideful.  Yet this is a true Father, who will forgive when He is asked.  This is a Father who truly loves all of His children, even those who go astray.

This is the Father who gave His one true Son to be the sacrifice for our sins.  But exactly what, and WHY, is that sacrifice?  “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (v. 14-15).  That is the ‘what’ of the sacrifice.  The Son of Man – Jesus – must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert.  This Jesus who is this night instructing Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of Israel, will, at the proper time, Himself be lifted up on a pole. 

The parallel between Moses’ snake on the pole and Jesus on the cross is remarkable.  Moses asked for deliverance for the people of Israel in the desert when God sent poisonous snakes to punish them for their unbelief.  When Moses did as God instructed and place a bronze snake up on a pole, anyone who received what should have been a deadly bite could look upon this bronze snake upon the pole and be spared.  Spared not by the power of the snake – nor by the power of the pole – but by their belief that God would forgive – and thereby save – them.

Our deliverance comes through the same faith.  Jesus was placed upon a pole – a cross – and hung on it until dead.  In His crucifixion and death, He carried with Him all of the sins of the world.  Each and every sin that we have every committed:  those sins that we remember, those that we have confessed, and those that we do not remember!  Each and every one of those sins carried the same penalty for us – eternal death and damnation.  Yet in His death, Jesus paid the penalty that the Father has demanded for our disobedience.  Yet, the Holy Spirit has brought us the faith of the salvation won by Jesus on that cross on Calvary.

The ‘why’ of the sacrifice is so “that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  The Triune God chose to create man in His image.  He does not want to destroy His creation.  So the Father sent the Son into the world to be a sacrifice for our sins.  And the Holy Spirit creates the faith in that Son, and in His atoning work, that we cling to in the promise of eternal life.

We hold to that faith given us by the Holy Spirit thereby knowing that Jesus has “purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, in order that I may be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity” (SC, Creed, 2^nd Article). 

This is the catholic faith; which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.

+ SDG +

Sermons | Sermon Archives