John 3:1-17

The Holy Trinity | May 26, 2024 | John 3:1-17 | Ryan D. Mills |

¹Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” ³Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, 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 a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
¹¹“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹²If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And just 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.
¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”(John 3:1-17, NRSV).

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Welcome on this Trinity Sunday, the day when we celebrate our identity as belonging to God the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yesterday I was up in Bethel, Connecticut, for the graveside service of a father and son, who died this past year within a few months of each other. As you can imagine, it was a pretty difficult and somber affair, but having known the family for a while, I knew they had chosen this weekend because of the pair’s famous Memorial Day cookouts, the father and son alike loving to grill burgers and steaks and have people over, to gather the family and invite over all their friends to just be together. And that’s what they did after the service, with the next generation now appointed as grill masters, they gathered to mourn, to laugh, to celebrate, to remember, to reconnect, and to be together. As humans we are made for this kind of deep connection, this deep relationship, we are made to love each other, we are made to be in communion with one another, and we feel the pain and the grief when that same communion is broken. And this is why our celebration today of God as a Trinity, as a deep community of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is not just about some abstract ancient doctrine, but rather a recognition of who God is as a community of love, and so who we are made to be, because we’re made in his image. Today we recognize that the Trinity is the basis of everything, that the Trinity is the loving heart of life itself.

The Prophet Isaiah in our first lesson tells us about his vision of the Lord God as Trinity. The night the king died, when everything was falling apart, Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the hem of his robe filled the temple.” To come before a living God, to realize there is a God who is all-powerful, and majestic beyond understanding and holy like a devouring fire is a terrifying thing! Seraphs, fiery angels, surrounded him, covering their eyes before the glory of God, and they cry out, 3 times, “Holy, Holy Holy is the Lord!” At this three-fold praise, the massive temple building shook and the house filled with smoke, and Isaiah, ready to duck and cover says, “Holy… Smokes,” “O… No,” “Woe is me.” “I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Maybe we can relate—the closer we get to God, the more we try and live in faith towards him and love towards one another, the more we recognize our own sins, our own stains which we can usually ignore somehow stand out more vivid in his brightness, our own unworthiness becomes more painful before the only worthy One. And so yes, our lips are unclean, but also our hands, and our hearts. All the ways we have not loved him with our whole hearts, nor our neighbors as ourselves. All the ways we have degraded the image of God in ourselves and in others. All our living as if we ourselves are God, our deadly bondage to the unholy Trinity of me, myself, and I. Oh no, we say, woe is me.

The first lesson of Trinity Sunday is that there is a God, and that it’s not me or you. And yet look what this God does—one of his angels takes a live coal from the heavenly altar with a pair of tongs, and touches Isaiah’s mouth with it. Burning, sizzling, cleansing Isaiah—and burning, sizzling, cleansing you! “Now this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed, he says, your sin is blotted out.” Yes, before the glory of God we are not worthy, but God is a God who gives and makes us worthy—“your guilt has departed,” says the Lord, “your sin is blotted out. You are forgiven.” This is what God specializes in—forgiving you and me who don’t deserve it, opening a future to you and me who are trapped in our pasts, sopping up and blotting out our sins by the blood of his Son, we are made right, we are made worthy, we are made to belong to him! But then, a voice from God himself“—Whom shall I send and who will go for us?”

Who will go for us, did you catch that? Us, plural, we—God is a we, God is an us, from the beginning God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and from the beginning he makes worthy we who aren’t. “Who will go for us” God asks? “Here am I,” says Isaiah. “Send me.”

“Who will go for us?” This is God’s call, the call of the Holy Trinity, to you and me. 159 years ago there were a few families of German immigrants in New Haven who began meeting on the second floor above an Orange St storefront for worship, their faith in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was strong, they needed to meet and worship. They heard that call from God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: “who will go for us?” And today, through it all, through all the ups and downs, we’re still here in the heart of New Haven, listening to that call, gathered together by him, sent out into our neighborhood and city in his power, knowing that the Community of Love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is still the basis of life, 159 years later we are still proclaiming to all people the forgiving, eternal life of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a community, a life, a family that we share in through God’s Word and Sacrament. “Who will go for us?” God asks again today—Well, “Here we are,” we say again today, “here we are, send me!”

We can go, we can be sent, because we know from John chapter 3 today how much God has loved you and me—that he gave his only Son, he gave his only Son, the Holy and Blessed Trinity has opened itself to you and me, made space for you and me, sacrificed its life for you and me—He gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. God gave, and keeps on giving, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, ceaselessly giving, blessing, loving, sustaining, and holding you and me and this whole world, so that by faith we might share in that Eternal Life God has from the beginning as Trinity, so that even when we die we shall not perish, but have eternal life.

God so loved, that he gave. And now he gives again. At the Communion rail here in a moment, God gives you his Son, gives you all he has, his broken and risen body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins, so that you may have eternal life, God gives you all he has in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that you and I can go out, made a part of the family of the Holy Trinity, adopted into the unending love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so that now we can go out and give ourselves, give our lives, invest our lives, lay down our lives for our families, our children, our church, our neighbors, those in need—God so loved that he gave, and so we will give too, but first we must receive. Here circled around the altar we share in that great feast of the Holy Trinity, the celebration of their love that is at the heart of the universe, a feast of the Father who so loved you that he gave, a feasting upon Christ, in the power of the Spirit, a feast that is for you and me, no burgers or steaks here, but still a feast of love that lasts forever, that is stronger than death, and that one day we will share in glory with our loved ones and all the saints.

So Happy Trinity Sunday, and thanks be to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

—

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills

New Haven, Connecticut

Pastor@TrinityLutheranNH.org