+ Trinity Sunday – May 30, 2021 +
Series B: Isaiah 6:1-8; Acts 2:14, 22-36; John 3:1-17
Beautiful Savior Lutheran
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I don’t know about you, but I enjoy a good mystery. Solving a riddle. Reading Sherlock Holmes. Watching Scooby Doo, Shaggy, and the gang unmask another dastardly villain.
Today on Trinity Sunday we celebrate one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith, the Holy Trinity.
Today we join the Scriptures in celebrating not so much an event, like Jesus’ birth at Christmas or his resurrection at Easter, but God’s revelation of himself. That God is Three in One and One in Three. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet there are not three Gods, but one God. A singular plurality and a plural singularity.
Today we celebrate not a when, but a who. Today we rejoice in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. That…We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.
It’s Trinity Sunday, and there’s a mystery afoot. Ultimately, however, this mystery of the Holy Trinity isn’t a riddle to unpack, a puzzle to solve, or even a question we can fully answer, much less understand. Rather, the Holy Trinity is revealed in Scripture that we believe, teach, and confess.
After all, one of the first things we confess when it comes to the Trinity is that God’s ways are far above our theological and intellectual pay grade. As Christian writer Dorothy Sayers once said about the Trinity, "The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Spirit incomprehensible, the whole thing incomprehensible."
We must admit that it’s enough to make our heads explode, or at least toss up our hands with Nicodemus in John 3, and say, “What does this all mean?”
And that’s good for us. Trinity Sunday is a dip in the doctrinal deep end, a reminder that God is bigger than our heads, greater than our reason, and defies our tidy little categorical boxes. As baptized believers, we are born into a divine “mystery,” the mystery of God Himself. We are reminded that we do not imagine, invent, or otherwise cook up God, but God reveals Himself in the Person of His Son Jesus.
Turns out that we’re not alone in our limited understanding. That’s where we find Nicodemus in John 3. A Pharisee. A learned, respectable man. And yet he quickly found himself in the deep end of the theological swimming pool.
“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.”
Jesus replies, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
And here’s where poor Nicodemus hits a wall. Born again? “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?”
No, not born again. Born from above, Jesus said. The word there is anothen; and it can mean “again,” but also “from above.” This is what John was getting at earlier in chapter 1 when he said that to all who believed in Jesus’ name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Expecting a late night theological conversation between rabbis about the nature of miracles, Nicodemus ran smack dab into the middle of the mystery of the Holy Trinity…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. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus learns a hard truth from Jesus’ words. As a teacher of Israel, he does not understand everything. The ways of God bringing life “from above” are a mystery to him. He is limited in his understanding and Jesus presses into that limitation, bringing Nicodemus to the hard truth that there is an end to his understanding.
Jesus’ words reveal the same hard truth to us as well. We’re all Nicodemus. Our understanding is limited. God’s ways are not our ways. And while Jesus’ words reveal that God’s nature is mysterious, they also reveal that God’s ways are gracious.
For Nicodemus and for us, the mystery of the Holy Trinity all centers in Jesus. John 3 reveals the gracious work of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – who saves you by his love and grace.
The God who is beyond our understanding reveals himself in Words we can hear and understand. The uncreated God comes to us by means of his creation revealing his saving love in simple words, plain water, ordinary bread and wine. The incomprehensible God becomes comprehensible for us as he accomplishes the most incomprehensible, yet gracious act of all, as he goes to the cross to die for you.
The Father loves the world, loves Nicodemus, loves you in this way, that he sends the Son to die and rise who sends the Spirit who leads us to the Son who brings us back to the Father. This is what it means to be born of God, born from above, born of the Spirit. God the Father is our Father. God the Son is our Brother and Savior. God the Spirit is our Guardian, Guide, and Friend. We are caught up in a mystery that defies our reason and our senses.
That’s why when we confess the Athanasian creed we’re not confessing that “we understand” but “we believe” and “we worship” the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance or Essence of God.
Yes, indeed, we confess a great mystery in the Holy Trinity. But it a gracious mystery from our good and gracious Lord.
A blessed Trinity Sunday to each of you…
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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