John 3:1-15 - To Enter the Kingdom of the Triune God - May 27, 2018

It’s no secret that one of the hottest of the hot-button issues not only in our own nation but all across the world is immigration – legal and illegal. On one side of the issue are those who insist that all of the inhabitants of the world have the inherent right to come to the nation of their choosing and become citizens with all of its privileges and responsibilities – no questions asked. On the other side are those who are convinced that citizenship is a privilege which is only bestowed on those who have immigrated legally and have completed the necessary citizenship procedures. In short, is citizenship up to the individual or the state? While writing immigration policy is not the job of the church – it is remarkably similar to the issue presented in John 3: does a person enter the kingdom of God based on their own initiative, good work, or decision or is entrance into the Kingdom of God a gift that only he can give? Nicodemus and Jesus represent either side of the issue, and the conclusion is clear: to enter the Kingdom of God you must be born from above and you must look to Jesus.

Jesus was infamous for associating with the lower social classes, the rabble of Israelite society. But Nicodemus was not your average run-of-the-mill 1st century Jew. As a member of the Jewish ruling council, Nicodemus represented the very best of Jewish learning, religion, and pious living. Having witnessed Jesus’ miracles in Jerusalem, he came to him for a little rabbi to rabbi shoptalk. And, having learned through experience how to make friends and influence people, he began with that conversational necessity, flattery: rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these miraculous signs you are doing unless God is with him.

Jesus, on the other hand appears to not even hear Nicodemus, cuts through the small talk and gets right to the point: Amen, amen, I tell you: unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Poor Nicodemus. Probably expecting to have a pleasant conversation about the latest religious ideas of the day – he suddenly found himself drowning in the deep end of theology. He was lost. How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he? Unable to see beyond his own fallen reason, Nicodemus took Jesus to mean that a person must be physically “born again.” But that’s not what Jesus said or meant. The Greek word here (anothen) can mean “born again” – but, in context, it is clear that Jesus is not talking about doing something again, but being born anew, not from flesh but from spirit, not from a human mother but from God himself. (So much for all the “born again” talk one hears. The question shouldn’t be “are you born again?” but “are you born from above?”)

How is one born from above? Jesus explains: Amen, amen, I tell you: unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God! Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh. Whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. This is Baptism. Baptism is God’s work, not ours. And by bringing up Baptism and throwing out human will, desire and effort Jesus is taking direct aim at Nicodemus’ Pharisaical religion, the religion of works and choices and free will, the religion that is ours by nature. Up to this point Nicodemus had based his hope of salvation to his own decision to follow God, his own obedience to the Law, his own desire, his own efforts. Jesus rolls a hand grenade into Nicodemus’ religion: your works, your will, your desire and merit are all ruined by the fact that you inherited a corrupt, rotten, sinful nature from your parents. We can no more decide to enter God’s kingdom than we could decide when and where we were born. It’s not up to us. It’s not within our power or ability. All the power, will, and effort we have cannot bring us into God’s kingdom – because from the moment of conception we are dead in sin and dead to God.

Whether citizenship should be left up to the individual or the sovereign nation may be up for debate – but there’s no debating this: no one can enter God’s kingdom on their own, apart from the gracious working of God himself. Only God can do the choosing, the cleansing, the creating and sustaining of saving faith in human hearts. This is the miracle of conversion, the miracle God works in Baptism, a miracle beyond our understanding. Jesus concedes this fact in his comparison to the meteorological mystery of wind: do not be surprised when I tell you that you must be born from above. The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Just as we cannot see or completely understand where or why the wind comes and goes so we cannot understand where and when believers are made. Yes, Scripture does reveal the how – through the means of grace: the Gospel in Word and Sacrament – but as far as why some who are baptized fall away or why some hear the Gospel and believe it and others kick it to the curb, that remains hidden to us. What’s important is not the moment of conversion but the fact of conversion. But how can you know if you’ve been born from above? No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:3) If you confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, the Spirit has converted you, you have been born from above, you are a child of God and a citizen of his kingdom. When and where – those remain hidden to us, beyond our understanding and control. But this we do know, it does not depend on our works, our effort, our will, or our feelings – it depends on God’s grace. To be saved, we must be born from above, of water and the Spirit.  

For proud, independent people like us, this is, without a doubt, a very humbling doctrine. It requires us to crucify our pride, our logic, our emotions – and submit ourselves completely to God’s will and Word. This is true not only when it comes to the mystery of conversion but also to the mystery we are celebrating today: the mystery of God himself. Nothing about God makes sense to us. Since creation 1+1+1=3. Jesus comes along and says that 1+1+1=1. He is three in one and one in three. There are three unique persons but one essence. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Spirit is God. But there is only one God. (Oh, and he’s eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, and present everywhere.) The doctrine of the Trinity makes rocket science look like child’s play.

Trinity Sunday is a dip in the doctrinal deep end, a reminder that God is bigger than our heads, far above our ability to reason and understand, that he defies every one of our efforts to put him into a tidy little, reasonable box. And it’s good for us to be confronted with the reality that we don’t really “get” God, no matter how long we have been believers. Why? Two reasons. First, it is undeniable evidence that God is not something that some ancient people invented, imagined, or otherwise “cooked up” to make themselves feel better. Secondly, with all of the mysticism and vague spiritualism in the church today – the idea that we can come to God in our own way at our own time – it’s important to realize that the only reason anyone knows anything about God is that he has chosen to reveal himself to us in the objective Words of Scripture and the historical person of Jesus Christ.

As far as we are concerned, Jesus is the centerpiece of the Trinity, the One on whom the spotlight of Scripture – and, therefore, our attention – is focused. No one has ever seen God, John wrote at the beginning of his Gospel, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. (John 1:18) This is where our Lutheran heritage is such a priceless blessing. Luther flat out refused to engage in philosophical speculations about God. He refused to go beyond what was written in Scripture – and he refused to deny or rationalize or cut out any doctrine that defies or disturbs or confuses human reason. He steadfastly refused to search for what he called the “hidden God” and was content to find God in the places he has revealed himself: in a manger, on a cross, not in an empty tomb – and today, in Word and Sacrament, all of which are open and accessible to anyone with eyes, ears and a pulse. In fact, without Jesus and without the Word, we wouldn’t have a doctrine of the Trinity or have anything definite at all to say about God.

And that’s why Jesus concludes: If I have told you earthly things (i.e., fallen human nature, the need for repentance and conversion from above) and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? (i.e., the two natures of Christ, the Trinity, redemption.) No one has ascended into heaven, except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Following in the stead of Martin Luther, John Calvin once commented that the human heart is an idol factory, grinding out one idol after another for us to pursue. (LW 18:9-10; Institutes 1:11:8) And they all have one thing in common; they look just like us, think like us, do what we want them to do, they affirm and cheerlead for us – even when we are engaged in wicked and self-serving behavior. They are gods that make sense to us; gods we can manipulate and bribe, who do what we want when we want.

There’s only one problem. Those gods aren’t real. They don’t live, think, speak, or act outside of our own heads. Most importantly, those gods cannot save. They aren’t the one, true God. The true God doesn’t make sense. The true God doesn’t bend to our will, he conforms us to his perfect will. The one, true God is not the product of human innovation and so he cannot be manipulated by our hands, our demands, our decisions or our emotions. He can’t be analyzed under a microscope, spotted with a telescope, or dug out of the deepest corners of your heart. On our own we could never find God. Which is why God sent Jesus. We cannot see God, but we can see Jesus. We cannot hear God speaking directly to our hearts, but we can hear Jesus speaking in his Word. We cannot grasp or touch the Trinity, but we can see and touch the water of Baptism and receive Jesus’ true body and blood in Holy Communion. Faith in a nebulous, generic higher power, faith in “a” god cannot save – that’s the faith of the demons and the damned in hell. (James 2:19) Only faith in the one who came from heaven only to be lifted up on a cross to die for our sins – can save us from being lost forever, can bring us into the Kingdom of the one, true God. You must see Jesus, not just as a miracle-working prophet from heaven, but God in human flesh. You must trust that he came to earth not only to reveal God to us, but to carry our sins to the cross to purify us before God, to punch our ticket into the Trinity’s kingdom. If you want to enter the Triune God’s kingdom – if you want to be saved – you must not look for Him in the stars, in your feelings, or in philosophical arguments. You must, instead, look only and always to Jesus.

I’ll confess – I don’t understand the Trinity. In fact, there’s not a single pastor who does – and don’t trust any who claim to. And that’s ok. Because God doesn’t command us to understand him, he commands us to believe and worship him. But even that is only possible when God has worked his miracle of conversion on our hearts. It begins with Baptism, our birth from above by water and the Spirit. It continues as God reveals to us through his Word and through his Son and Spirit. It will be a mystery we will enjoy and explore forever in heaven. For now, you don’t have to understand the Triune God to receive his gifts: to have your sins forgiven, to have the peace that passes all understanding, to praise and thank the one who gave himself to you and for you – simply believe it and receive it. God grant us the humility to confess and the gift of faith to believe in the mystery and majesty of the Holy Trinity. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.