Sermon on John 3:1-17

HOLY TRINITY SUNDAY, 2021 | A Sermon Based on John 3:1-17 | by Paula Murray |

¹There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ²This 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.” ³Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. ¹²If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

English Standard Version (ESV), Crossway, 2001

It is this Sunday, more than any other Sunday in the year, that you all stand in clusters in the parking lot after worship and fellowship asking, “Did you understand what she said?” How do I know this?  Because you tell me.  If I were actually brave enough to watch the parking lot on Holy Trinity Sunday I expect I might find a lot of heads wagging “no” to the question. But I’m not brave enough.  Feel free, though, to let me know if you DO understand this year’s offering on the Holy Trinity.  That would be a plus for me, a big one.

I doubt this makes it any better, but clergy are in no better shape when it comes to comprehending the 1-in-3 and 3-in-1 that is the Godhead of Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit than you are. In fact, our lot is worse, because seminaries stopped teaching anything in the way of real systematic theology thirty years ago and we actually need to prepare a sermon on the Trinity and you do not.  I do have a library with some offerings on the topic at hand, and, of course, there is Scripture, so I am not crying, “Woe is me, woe is me,” here.  Still, it is a challenge.

It is a necessary challenge, one to be wrestled with not only by people with M.Div. after their names but also by the Christian who not once heard the call to attend seminary. The Holy Trinity is a necessary challenge for us all because the topic at hand is all about the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then it is all about the relationship we have with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as baptized Christians and as members of the body of Christ, the Church.  That last looooonnnnnggg sentence is enough to tell you that the matter is complicated, difficult, really and explains why our chances of success in the area of comprehension are not as high as we would like.

What the pastor frequently does at this point is proclaim, hopefully in deep, resonant tones, that it is a mystery, and we should simply accept the doctrine as proclaimed and walk away from any kind of sortie into description of what the Bible and the Church means by the mysterious One God in Three Persons.  It’s a cowardly approach from the pulpit side of the Church, and while it saves a lot of frustrated pastoral study it does nothing for those for whom a sermon is proclaimed.  That means you, so pastors must throw themselves on this biblical mortar for the good of the flock he or she shepherds.

So, this Sunday we swap out the Nicene Creed used for festival Sundays or the Apostles’ Creed used for regular or non-festival Sundays for the Athanasian Creed.  Like the other two creeds, the Athanasian Creed, attributed to Bishop Athanasias of Alexandria, Egypt, lays out what Christians believe about each of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Unlike the Apostle and Nicene Creeds, the Athanasian Creed is longer, much longer, because it is most concerned with the relationship between the three persons of the Holy Trinity and correcting some misunderstandings about the nature of Jesus Christ that had crept into Christianity and were laying waste to the unity of the Christian Church and Christian worship and practice. People were fighting in the streets about who Jesus is and was and what He did. Athanasius himself did time in prison for punching the bishop who promoted the idea that Jesus was not one with the Father.

The Athanasian Creed is pretty clear on the oneness of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. “For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another. But the deity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty.” In its page and a half of length, the Athanasian Creed also strongly asserts that the only way by which human beings are saved from sin, death, and the devil is the catholic, meaning universal, faith described in the Creed.  The creed begins and ends with this statement: “Whoever wants to be saved should above all cling to the catholic faith.”  Second, the Creed asserts that the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are indivisible, meaning that they cannot be separated from one another. Ever. And finally, that while the three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot be separated from one another neither should they be confused with one another like the triplets in my grade school who none of us could tell apart.  I remember really well the day they showed up at our back door for the walk to school dressed in identical white shorts, plaid, short-sleeved shirts and bow ties.  Adorably confusing.

The Holy Trinity can in no way be described as adorable, confusing for a mind limited by human physiology, yes, but not adorable.  But, all three persons of the Trinity are uncreated, infinite, eternal, almighty, each of them, together. The Son, the second Person of the Trinity, did walk the earth for some time as our incarnate Savior, and here the Athanasian Creed again expands on what the two shorter creeds say about Jesus.  Careful to remind us that the Christ was both God and man, the Creed asserts that neither was He divided in Himself.  He was, “not divided, but is one Christ,…in the unity of His person, without confusing His natures.”

Okay, so what? Here’s why we bother with the Athanasian Creed or the creeds generally. We do not relate to different people in the same manner.  Usually, the love we bear for our fathers is different than the love we have for our uncles or our sons. It’s important to keep those different relationships straight, especially in difficult times.  We pray to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, and because we do we know God hears us and cares for us, and so do others as well.  We know also that when we pray to the Father the Son continues His redemptive work in us through the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit continues to direct our attention and our faith to the Son.  We are particular about the Names of the Holy Trinity to whom we pray because we do not want to inadvertently find ourselves outside of the boundaries of faith and in danger of losing our salvation.

In Whose Name to pray was essentially Nicodemus’ problem when he came stealthily to Jesus’ door under the cover of darkness.  This morning’s reading from the Gospel of John describes Nicodemus’ night time visit, and Jesus’ response to it. Who is this man who did only what God could do yet who was despised by the political and religious powers that be?  Was he only a teacher, or something much more? Nicodemus supposed he knew the answer, but needed to be convinced before he put his relationships with the political and religious leaders of the day to the test.  Well, our faith is routinely put to the test as well by those who would rule our world and our lives.  Will we worship what is convenient, easy, and, dare I say it, politically correct?  Or will we worship He Who was sent by the Father, the same Father that sent the rushing wind through the void to create this world and the whole of the universe? The Creeds bring us back home, home to the Father Who gave us life and sustains it; home to the Messiah who redeems us from sin and death; and home to the Holy Spirit, through Whom we know God and can worship Him.

The Rev. Paula L. Murray

St. Jacob’s Lutheran Church, Glen Rock, PA