Scripture Reading John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee, a
man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.
He came to Jesus at night
and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from
God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with
him.”
Jesus replied, “Very
truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born
again.”
“How can someone be born
when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time
into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very
truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of
water and the Spirit.
Flesh gives birth to flesh,
but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
You should not be surprised
at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’
The wind blows wherever it
pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where
it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can this
be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s
teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?
Very truly I tell you, we
speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you
people do not accept our testimony.
I have spoken to you of
earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of
heavenly things?
No one has ever gone into
heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.
Just as Moses lifted up the
snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
that everyone who
believes may have eternal life in him.”
For God so loved the
world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son
into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Here ends this reading of the Word of God
for the People of God. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Prayer for Understanding
God
of wisdom, with the wind of your Spirit, open our minds and hearts to receive
your life-giving Word through the scriptures.
Energize us to follow Christ, your Living Word, wherever the Spirit
moves us. Amen.
Message
Mysterious Encounter
Three years ago today, I had my
first Sunday at Trinity. It was the day
I gave my “trial sermon” and the congregation got to meet me and vote on
whether or not to call me as your pastor.
I thought it was quite fitting that we would meet on the weekend that
was both Memorial Day and Trinity Sunday.
Trinity Sunday at Trinity Christian United Church of Christ.
Over a hundred and fifty years ago,
when this church was founded, the name Trinity was applied to us and to our
sister church, Trinity Reformed UCC in Collegeville. Our forbearers in the church were guided by
our loving God and held the Trinity as an important witness to their
faith. As the church of the Trinity,
today is a very special Sunday for us.
As we progress through the Christian
year, each season focuses us on different aspects of our Gracious God – God is
our Creator and Father. God is embodied in Jesus the Son. And, God is
ever-present with us as the Holy Spirit.
When we worship God in our congregation, we focus on the different
ways God relates to creation and to the people of the earth. In the story of our faith, God first gave the
Jewish people the tools needed to know about God. In the time of Jesus, God extended those
teachings to all people. In the stories of Jesus’ life on Earth, we read about
how a part of God came to earth embodied in Jesus. God is not only the father
of Jesus – God the Father and Jesus the Son are both aspects of God. God created us all and relates to us as our Heavenly
Father. In our worship services, we tell
many stories about Jesus, the part of God that came to earth as a human and
worked to teach us about God’s priorities for our lives. As Jesus prepared to
depart the earth in his bodily form, he told us God would come to be among the
people of the earth in God’s “Spirit” form.
Last Sunday, we celebrated the anniversary of the Pentecost event, when
the Holy Spirit came to earth and filled Jesus’ followers. The Holy Spirit is the part of God that
circulates in this room now, and is always with us to guide, strengthen and
heal us.
Our faith is Trinitarian – we
believe in a God with several expressions – God as Creator and Father, God as
Jesus and the Word, God as Spirit and Guide.
In the Islamic tradition, there are
99 Names for God – God is called “The Giver of Peace,” “The All-Compassionate,”
“The Repeatedly Forgiving,” and 96 additional names. Each name is used to describe one of God’s
traits. Instead of focusing on these 99 traits, we condense the characteristics
of God down to three in the Trinity: God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit:
God is the Creator, the Redeemer, and Sustainer; God is the Parent, the Word,
and the Advocate. We are monotheistic,
and have one God. But, our God has different attributes.
We often have questions about
God. In our lives, when we wonder about
questions in theology or Paterology (the study or God), we have lots of people
to turn to….we can ask our pastor. We can ask fellow church members. We can ask
our Christian friends. We can read our Bibles. We can read the books of Bible
Scholars or theologians. We can pray. We have many places and people to whom we
can direct our questions.
In our reading for the day, the
Pharisee Nicodemus also had many questions about Jesus’ teachings and how
Jesus’ described God. Unlike us,
Nicodemus was blessed to live during the years of Jesus’ first journey on
earth, so he could go right to the source. To complicate matters, though,
Nicodemus had a high status as a Pharisee and member of the Jewish ruling
Council. Jesus was a controversial figure in Jerusalem. In order to protect his
reputation, Nicodemus came to speak to Jesus at night – Nicodemus sought Jesus
out when no one would notice him going out to speak to Jesus.
I love imaging Nicodemus dressing up
in a disguise and sneaking around Jerusalem….his cloak up over his face….
Nicodemus timidly knocking at Jesus door.
Jesus did not give Nicodemus simple
answers to his questions. Oftentimes,
when we read over Jesus’ statements, they make sense to us because we know the
rest of the story….we know what happened next in the sequence of events that
made up Jesus’ life. And, we read Jesus’
words with a knowledge of how the Christian church evolved over the years.
When we are baptized, the officiant
invokes the Holy Spirit to fill us as the water is poured over our heads. We are baptized with water and with the Holy
Spirit. When Jesus talked to Nicodemus about being baptized with both water and
the Spirit of God, Jesus described Christian baptism. Our baptisms symbolically wash away our human
mistakes and sins and transform us as we are filled with God’s Holy Spirit.
Nicodemus struggled to understand
what Jesus meant when he talked about being born again – For Christians, we
believe our baptisms are our moment of re-birth. We become new people when we
are baptized.
In our tradition, we often baptize
children when they are so young they haven’t committed any sins or had a chance
to make mistakes. Therefore, when young
people are old enough to make commitments for themselves, we invite them to
“confirm” their baptisms and make the baptismal promises on their own
behalf. The questions we ask parents at
an infant baptism are the same questions we ask young adults at the
Confirmation of the baptisms. We also
make the same promises if we are baptized as teenagers or adults and when we
officially “join’ the church.
During Christian baptisms, when the
minister or priest pours water over the head of the person being baptized, we
say the same words: I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit. Our Trinitarian
understanding of how God relates to us, as Father, Jesus, and Holy Sprits,
undergirds our faith. At the moment of
baptism, we are symbolically embraced by God the Father and Jesus the Son and
we are filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
Nicodemus had trouble understanding Jesus
teachings. As people of faith, we are blessed to both understand and experience
the rebirth available to us when we are baptized by water and the Holy Spirit. And, we are also blessed to experience the
work of God in our lives – God who creates us and parents us, God who came to
us as Jesus and shared God’s word with us, and God who comes to us as the Holy Spirit
to guide us, comfort us, heal us and encourage us. Thanks be to God, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
** Our Artwork is "Holy Trinity" by Saint Andrei Rublev. It is a painted panel in Moscow, Russia. **
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