If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if
I tell you about heavenly things?
John 3:12 In the name of the father and of the son and
of the holy spirit.
Amen On Trinity Sunday, which always falls on the
Sunday following Pentecost, Christians celebrate our unique understanding and central teaching
about God as Trinity - “Three in One and One in Three.”
In his highly regarded book Principles of Christian Theology1¸the late Anglican theologian
John Macquarrie suggests that this Trinitarian language will “probably strike us nowadays
as quaint” and that “we may be completely puzzled to know what is meant by the idea
of a God who is one in three and three in one, one substance and three persons.”2
Macquarrie adds, “It must be expected…that any language that tries to talk to us of the
mystery of God will have some obscurities.”3 The language and understanding of God as Trinity
– as one in three and three in one is not in the Bible, though it is strongly inferred
in the New Testament.
Trinitarian language and understanding were developed in the early years of the Christian
experience through debates and councils.
Sometimes it was not pretty, but eventually there was general agreement which resulted
in creedal formulas, creedal formulas which we still use today.
Still, these ancient understandings aren’t always understandable to contemporary people.
So how do we make sense of God today, and particularly of the Trinity, which is, after
all our distinctive Christian understanding of God?
How do we arrive at new understandings?
Today, many theologians build on the ancient or classical ideas of the Trinity but focus
on the idea of “relationship” – that is how three persons of the Trinity relate
within their own oneness, but also how the Trinity relates to the rest of creation, including
humankind.4 Years ago, a favorite theologian of mine,
Roman Catholic David Tracy was quoted, saying, 'Real religion does not give final answers;
it makes us ask better questions.''5 I like that.
I like it a lot.
I often find that when people are asking questions about God, they are on the growing edge of
faith.
Questioning opens us up to new discoveries about God.
I think that’s what was going on with Nicodemus who is featured in our Gospel reading for
this Trinity Sunday.
The reading was probably chosen by the church because it includes references to all three
persons of the Trinity.
Nicodemus was learned, a Pharisee, a teacher himself, and not only a teacher, but one of
the ruling class, as John describes him.
Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, in stealth.
He probably didn’t want it to be known that he was speaking with Jesus.
But the darkness of this nightime meeting is not merely the literal dark , it is also
spiritual darkness.
Nicodemus sensed something in Jesus, something powerful of God.
He wanted to know more.
He had questions, lots of questions, questions that were on the growing edge of faith.
Nicodemus came to Jesus by night.
He is respectful.
"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."
You can tell this exchange is of a different sort than we have seen in other accounts of
Jesus with the Pharisees.
Nicodemus is not here to test or challenge Jesus.
He has a deep hunger for God and a yearning to know what this person he has heard so much
about has to offer.
He begins by showing Jesus genuine respect, respect which acknowledges that Jesus’ works,
his signs, his miracles, are evidence of Jesus’ genuine connection with God.
Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without
being born from above."
As is so often the case in John’s Gospel, Jesus’s response to his inquirer is oblique,
enigmatic.
Also typical of John’s gospel, the one who is in conversation with Jesus is often operating
at a lower plane in the conversation.
Jesus begins with lofty words of the kingdom of heaven, Nicodemus can’t launch himself
beyond earth.
Jesus speaks in heavenly, figurative terms, Nicodemus hears only in literal earthly terms,
questioning "How can anyone be born after having grown old?
Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?"
Following John’s pattern, a question leads to deeper waters.
Jesus shrugs off the literal interpretation made explicit in Nicodemus’ question, and
draws him further in.
Jesus answers, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being
born of water and Spirit.”
It is clearly a reference to the waters of baptism and the integral relationship of these
waters with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
But Nicodemus knows little about baptism.
Imagine how confused he must have been.
Jesus does not give him a lot of space to think, but continues on.
“What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.'
The 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."
Jesus is speaking of the mystery of God.
There is something inherently ineffable about God.
Needless to say, this is a whole new way of looking at things.
Jesus stirs things up for Nicodemus, stirs it all up with this talk of water and the
Holy Spirit, strange illusive things that are always changing, always on the move.
You can never step into the same wind, or the same river twice!
That’s a discomforting reality for people who like things fixed and certain…Jesus
turns Nicodemus’s world upside down.
You can hear his exasperation…and his fear.
"How can these things be?"
Jesus brings Nicodemus up a little short.
"Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?”
You can imagine Nicodemus shrugging his shoulders, not having a clue.
Jesus goes on.
But what he has to say is, again, enigmatic, puzzling.
"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.
If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if
I tell you about heavenly things?
No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of
Man.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be
lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
With these last sentences, Nicodemus undoubtedly thought to himself, “What are you talking
about?
What does this talk of ascending to heaven and descending for heaven mean?
Perhaps he thought of Jacob of old, who had a strange dream of a stairway or ladder to
heaven, where angels from ascended and descended.6 The stairway and ladder marked the intersecting
place of earth and heaven.
Was Jesus suggesting that he himself was now that place of intersection?
And what was that reference to Moses lifting up the serpent?7 Or of the Son of Man being
lifted up?
Who is this Son of Man?
Nicodemus must have wondered.
Then come those verses which have become among the most important verses in all of Christian
teaching.
Verses held up on posterboards in hundreds of football stadiums around the country - John
3:16 …"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.
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.”
There it is, Jesus’ primary point.
His primary teaching.
The mysterious and illusive movement of God does have purpose, fixed purpose.
It’s purpose is Love.
Love for the world.
Love, relationship with you and me.
I wonder what Nicodemus made of that.
I wonder how he viewed that stunning statement of Jesus’ about God’s love for the world
as an answer to his question.
We don’t know.
Nicodemus just disappears from the scene.
Oh, he reappears later, to defend Jesus when the other religious authorities put Jesus
on trial.
Nicodemus also reappears in John’s Gospel with Joseph of Arimathea, to bury Jesus after
he was crucified.
I wonder if he replayed the tape of his earlier conversation with him; .thought through all
his questions; pondered anew the words, “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.”
Did Nicodemus grow in his faith and in his understanding of this mysterious God of illusive
wind and water; this God of Love as result of this exchange of his questions?
We can talk all we want about the nature and essence of God, but in the end, that’s what
it comes down to: God is love (1 John 4:8, 16).
That is the nature and essence of God.
Moreover, God loves – "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.
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.”
If we don’t get anything else right on this Trinity Sunday, let’s get this right.
If we do, everything else will flow from it.
God’s love will flow from it and that would be a tremendous way to understand and celebrate
the Trinity.