1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. Trinity Sunday is a day we confess the mystery of our faith. It is a mystery that saves. The message today is taken from John 3:1-17 and is entitled, “The Mystery That Saves,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. A Pastor was once visiting a church with an artist. He had taken her there to see the stained-glass windows. But, at that point, they were standing in front of the altar. She wasn’t a believer and so, wasn’t familiar with our traditional Christian symbols. Carved into the marble face of the altar was the traditional symbol of the Trinity. Three circles, overlapping one another, held together by a triangle. Each was traced in gold. The triangle was in the center, grounding the symbol, and the circles extended beyond it. For a Christian, this symbol was easy to read. Three persons in one God and one God in three persons. The circles represented the persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and the triangle represented one God.
3. But, for this artist, the mysteries of the Trinity weren’t something she was seeing. Instead, she said to her Pastor friend, “I like that symbol.” “The Trinity,” the Pastor said. “Whatever,” she answered. “I’m talking about the combination of the hard and the soft.” The Pastor looked closer. “The curved lines of the circles and the points of the triangle,” she said. “The circles are soft and easy to experience but then the hard edges of the triangle come and interrupt you, making you reconsider what you are seeing.”
4. While this Pastor’s non-Christian friend had no idea what the Trinity means, I think her description can be helpful. Encountering one God in three persons and three persons in one God can often involve this interplay between the hard and the soft, the pointed and the smooth, the difficult and the easy. Consider our gospel reading today. Nicodemus, a teacher of the law, comes to Jesus at night. He has heard and seen the ministry of Jesus and believes He is a “teacher come from God” (John 3:3). But, in this late-night conversation, Jesus takes Nicodemus into the hard and the soft, the pointed and the smooth, the difficult and the easy, the limits of his understanding and the beginning of God’s grace.
5. In this conversation, Nicodemus encounters a hard truth about himself. As a teacher of Israel, Jesus tells him that he doesn’t understand everything (John 3:10). The ways of God bringing life “from above” are a mystery to Nicodemus. Although Nicodemus has taught the stories of Israel, although he has read how the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 37 called the Spirit of God to come from the four corners of the earth and bring the bones of Israel to life, he still doesn’t understand. Nicodemus 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. But, at the end of Nicodemus’ understanding, is the beginning of life. It is life which comes as a gift, life which flows from the mystery of God.
6. On this Trinity Sunday we recognize that the Holy Spirit brings man to the only knowledge that saves—that of the only God, the holy God, through His only Son, Jesus. Jesus says in John 3, “Truly, truly, one can see the kingdom of God only by being born anew” (John 3:1–3). Nicodemus opens his inquiry with an “only” of his own: Jesus couldn’t do the miracles he’s doing unless God is with him. That’s a good start, but it shows us Nicodemus doesn’t yet know Jesus as the only Son of God. He doesn’t yet know the triune God. Fact is, Jesus has the only “onlys” that count here. The only way to see the kingdom of this only God (to be saved), Jesus says, is rebirth (John 3:3). The Greek gennēthēi anōthen means “born anew.”
7. But, we and our world think we can know God—or what we want our god to be—by other means. By intelligence, science, or logically deciding for him. By our feelings or best guesses, without really knowing what he says in his Word. Truly, truly, one can be born anew only by water and the Spirit (John 3:4–8). Nicodemus doesn’t get it; his thinking is earthly. Jesus is talking about a miracle from above. Born “anew” also translates as “from above.” Being born again, knowing the Holy Trinity, is totally passive by us, only a work of the Spirit.
8. But the Holy Spirit does work that miracle! In Baptism, we are “born anew” “from above.” When water is applied with God’s Word, the Holy Spirit comes down and creates faith in us, a whole new person who knows God. Truly, truly, we know we’re saved, because these words of the only Son of Man are the words of the triune, the only, God (John 3:9–17).
9. Although God’s ways are hard and beyond our understanding, they proceed from grace. The hard ways of God reveal the softness of His heart. God’s grace enters into that which is painful, that which is difficult, and brings about life. God is painfully creative.
10. God the Father sees the world He has created: Fallen, Rebellious, Broken, Riddled with death. But, God the Father will not abandon His creation. Instead, He sends His Son Jesus into the world to bring life, new life. Life from above, born by the power of the Holy Spirit, that all people might be saved through Him.
11. But, this way of life, isn’t easy. Like the bronze serpent in the wilderness (Numbers 21), Jesus will be lifted up on the cross. He will experience divine punishment. Painfully bearing the sin of all people, your sins and my sins. Jesus will powerfully bring God’s grace to all. Yes, He will be lifted up on the cross and die. But He will also be lifted up from the tomb and rise. He will then be lifted up to the heavens and ascend, and be seated at the right hand of God, the Father, from where He will send forth His Spirit, through water and the Word, to bring life. We are baptized in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Three in One, One in Three, graciously joined in a mystery.
12. Trinity Sunday is a day we confess the mystery of our faith. It is a mystery that saves. The ways of God are beyond our understanding but at the heart of this mystery is a love that saves. Some mysteries are puzzles to be solved. Others are questions to be answered. But, this mystery, is a love to be experienced.
13. Jesus says, “We speak . . . we know . . . we have seen . . . our testimony” (John 3:11). He’s talking about the Holy Trinity. The Son, Jesus, speaks what the Father and Holy Spirit know one God in three persons. Hear what he speaks: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The Father gives the Son to die on the cross. The Holy Spirit brings you to believe it. And you have eternal life! Only by birth from above, only by a washing of water and Spirit, and only because Jesus speaks for the Father with the Holy Spirit can we know and believe heavenly things.
14. A child was digging up a seed that had been planted. He was curious and wanted to figure out how this seed became a plant. But, all he ended up with was pieces of dirt and a small sprout in his hands. This adventure brought him no closer to understanding the mystery of life. Now, as an adult, he plants seeds and trusts in their growth.
15. There are some mysteries we don’t understand but that doesn’t mean we can’t experience the blessing of their life. In some ways, the Trinity is like that mystery. Deep within the heart of God, one God in three persons and three persons in one God, is the gift of life. It’s a life which is abundant, gracious, freely given, able to take our painful limitations, able to enter into our sin and our suffering, able even to grasp the limits of death itself, and break through with salvation, that, “Whoever believes in Jesus Christ should not perish but have everlasting life.” Today, we rejoice in that mystery. The mystery that saves. Amen. The peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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