Trinity
Sunday – John 3:1-17 – May 26th and 27th,
2018
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
By in
large, people don’t like to be different. People don’t want to
stand out from the crowd, don’t want to stick out. Even the people
who want to be “rebels” or stand out simply stand out the same
way every other “rebel” does. Maybe in the 50s if you wanted to
be a rebel you would wear jeans and a black jacket – just like
James Dean. Or when I was in college, you’d dye your hair a wild
color – right after you went to store where they sold tons of hair
dye to all those other people who wanted to be rebels just like you.
Even our rebels like to stick together. By in large, we don’t
really like to be different.
But
here is the truth. As a Christian, you are different from the rest
of the world. This is what our Lord teaches us today – “That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit.” Last week was
Pentecost – we saw again and were focused upon the wonder and
mystery that we have received the Holy Spirit from God through the
gift of Baptism – we are born of the Spirit. We are Christians –
and as such, we are different from the world, we will be different,
or to borrow from a song, we now have a little Gospel light, and we
are called to let it shine in the midst of a world full of people who
have no light. That makes you different from the rest of the world.
The world dwells in darkness and loves it, but you are a child of the
light, born of the Spirit. Christ our Lord shows us what this means
in our Gospel lesson today.
To
begin, we hear, “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.’” So, here
you have Nicodemus, a powerful and respected man. A ruler of the
Jews, sometime high up there, one of the hoity-toity, a muckity-muck.
And he is bold and he comes to Jesus and says, “Oh yes, we know
You are a Holy teacher sent by God.” But did you note when
Nicodemus says this? By night. When no one is around to see. Jesus
teaches and preaches all the time, in front of crowds. Does
Nicodemus come then, when people can see? No, he doesn’t want to
stand out. Nicodemus creeps up to Jesus, skulking around like a
thief, and when no one can see then he puts on a bold face. Oh yes,
we know. . . we know. He’s there by himself, in the dark, hiding
his actions from the rest of the Pharisees, yet still he’s trying
to hide himself in a crowd. We. Do you see how ashamed and fearful
Nicodemus is here? What would happen if people found out he was
conversing with this Jesus? Would he be mocked? Would people laugh
at him? And Nicodemus wants to know more, knows that he should learn
– he does say that Jesus is a teacher, and you go to a teacher only
if you need to learn – but Nicodemus is flat out scared and
ashamed.
Now,
consider your own life. Are there times when you are scared, when
you are ashamed to be a Christian, ashamed to be a Lutheran? When
you are keenly aware of the fact that your faith doesn’t let you
fit in with everyone else? Are there times when you wish you could
just fit in better – maybe with the folks at work or school who are
coarse and unkind? Or even when you wish that this Church just
wasn’t. . . so different from the other Churches around – that it
would be nice if we just kept quiet and did what they do? Not would
it be more truthful, not would it better proclaim Jesus and His
forgiveness, but wouldit just be. . . more comfortable? The thing
is, when we have these types of thoughts – where are looking? When
we worry about fitting in, are we looking at Christ, are our eyes
focused squarely upon our Crucified Lord, are we determined to know
nothing but Christ and Him Crucified, or are our eyes wandering to
the folks around us? This pressure to impress others, to fit in, to
do what “they” do, whoever they are, has been around since the
fall, and it is harmful and destructive. It is blinding, for it
takes our eyes of off Christ.
Which
is why Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say
to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Unless one is born again, he’ll not see. His eyes will be off
elsewhere and he’ll miss, he’ll ignore these things of God, he’ll
ignore the things of Christ Jesus. And Nicodemus, he misses the mark
here too. “Now can a man be born when he
is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be
born?” Misses the point. Is there
some bizarre ritual I must do in order to join the club? No, there
isn’t. You’re thinking is off right now Nicodemus – our Lord
says, “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.” You are
thinking in fleshly terms, Nicodemus. This birth has nothing to do
with your earthly mother – it has to do with the Spirit taking
water and joining you to Christ Jesus and your Heavenly Father! To
be a Christian, to be one born of the Spirit means that you think,
that you see things along spiritual lines. We think in terms of the
faith, in terms of the Creed – our lives are shaped by what we
believe, that see things along the ways we have been trained from the
Catechism. The world loves and trusts all sorts of things, power,
wealth, fame. We have been born of water and the Spirit, and so we
know that we are to fear, love, and trust in God above all things.
That is the Spiritual truth. The world strives to get ahead, to have
more and more, to be powerful and successful and make people adore
you. We have been born of water and the Spirit, and we know that we
are to love our neighbors, to serve them, to strive to make their
life better even at cost to ourselves. That is the Spiritual truth
that we are part of.
But
the problem is that right now we are so flesh-y. We know the
Spiritual truths, we know how our lives ought to be – and yet so
often we fall right into those comfortable, sinful patterns of the
world. We worry about what our friends and neighbors think more than
we worry about what God has said. We worry more about what luxury we
might not have more than we worry about what our neighbor needs, what
our Church needs. The old sinful nature rises up in us, and we turn
our eyes away from Christ and towards that utterly sinful, messy
world and we dive on in there. Luther is wonderful to read on this –
I don’t think that there has been a theologian in the history of
the church who has been so eloquent and so blunt on the struggles we
have with our sinful flesh – here is one that I surprisingly like –
“The original sin in a man is like his
beard, which, though shaved off today so that a man is very smooth
around his mouth, yet grows again by tomorrow morning.
As long as a man lives, such growth of the
hair and beard does not stop. But when the shovel beats the ground
on his grave, it stops. Just so original sin remains in us and
bestirs itself as long as we live, but we must resist it and always
cut off its hair.” That’s where we are
at – constantly fighting the same struggles against sin, constantly
beating down sinful desires. The struggles we worked against
yesterday pop up again today. And whenever we look in the mirror,
whenever we take stock of our life honestly, we will always, always
see more sin creeping. In fact, as you grow in the faith, as you
learn to see things spiritually you will see more and more sin in
your life, you will see clearly the vileness of things that you had
been used to doing with nary a thought.
So
then, what remains? Nicodemus asks, “How
can these things be?” We can ask it
too. When we see the sinfulness of our lives, when we cast off the
smug, self-righteous “Oh, I’m a good person” attitudes and look
at ourselves, we can ask this question too. How can we be turned
away from sinfulness and unto God? What is our Lord’s response?
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever
believes in Him may have eternal life.”
It is true that sin is a vile illness, but you have been Baptized
into Christ Jesus and His death, and this means that your sin has
been taken up by Christ, that your sin was lifted up with Christ upon
the Cross and put to death. On account of Christ Jesus, the sin that
you have done is forgiven. The sin that merits your death and
damnation is done away with. And that is how you have eternal life –
that is how you have it now. You are baptized, you are joined to
Christ, and you are risen as He is risen. It doesn’t always show,
sometimes your sinfulness hides it, but Christ Jesus Himself dwells
with you. The True and Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is
with you, and they give you strength to actually show love even now
when you still must struggle against your sinful flesh. Life with
God isn’t just a down the road in heaven thing – it’s a now
thing. Yes, you will be perfected on the last day, but right now God
is with you, right now He gives you life and strength. Right now
your Lord gives you His own Body and Blood so that you would be kept
firm in the faith, firm in forgiveness, strengthened to show love.
And this is the wonder and the beauty of it all – Christ has given
you salvation, given you His own Gospel light, and He makes this
light to shine all the more in you when He draws you unto Himself.
Just as the people in the wilderness were healed and had life when
they beheld the bronze serpent, you are forgiven and have life when
you are focused upon Christ, when you are focused upon the Word of
God – and Christ Jesus wrests our eyes off the world and makes us
to grow, to know the things of God. And when you fail, when you sin,
He wrests your eyes back onto Himself. This is how you grow, by
being focused upon Christ and seeing Him.
And
because of this, you will stand out from the crowd. You will be
different from the world, for the world couldn't care less about the
things of God. The world couldn't care less for the Word, the world
despises Baptism and the new birth it brings, the world despises this
most Holy Supper of our Lord’s Body and Blood – but you have been
given eyes to see, you have been called by God to receive forgiveness
and eternal life. You have received the Gospel of Christ, and thus,
all thanks be to God, you are different, you are changed – you are
united with Christ. A blessed life in Him to you all. In the Name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +