Holy Trinity B
John 3:1-17
NRS John 3:1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He 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." 3 Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the
“To try to deny the Trinity endangers your salvation, to try to comprehend the Trinity endangers your sanity” – Martin Luther
When I was in college, I belonged to a group called Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. This was a group of Christian college students who met regularly for Bible study, prayer, service and fellowship. One of the ongoing blessings (and curses) of Intervarsity was that it had members which came from a variety of denominational backgrounds. There were members who were Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, and some non-denominational. During one of the “get to know you” games that we played, someone asked that we each take a turn telling everyone when we “had gotten saved.” This seemed like a strange question to me. As some of my friends each took their turn telling about how they “got saved,” I realized that they were looking for me to tell them when I had become a Christian. Now, I suspect that many of you are like me in that you have grown up in the church, or even if you haven’t you might have a hard time picking out that exact moment when you could say, “Before 9am on Sunday the 23rd of April, 1991 I was not a Christian, but after that I was.” As Lutherans we do not spend so much time focused on experiencing a single, life changing moment.
The text before us today is often used by those who speak of having a “born again” experience. In fact, some go so far as to say that if you cannot pick out such an experience from your past, that you are doomed to the fires of hell. If you would, take a moment and look again at the Gospel text for today. If you read verse seven, you will see that the NRSV, the version that we read from weekly, has translated this passage, “you must be born from above.” But if you happened to be reading this same verse from the NIV it would read like this, “you must be born again.” How can this be? Is it possible that one of the translators screwed this whole thing up? Well, not quite. Greek, the original langue in which this lesson was written will sometimes use one word to mean two different things. This happens in English too. For example, think about driving along a road, and you come to an intersection and you ask the passenger, “Should we go left up here?” and they respond with “Right.” Now, which way do you turn the car? You can see how it is that one word can have multiple meanings. So too the Greek here can have two different meanings, it can mean “born again” or it can just as accurately be translated “Born from above.”
Our text today begins with a man called Nicodemus. He is a learned man, someone who would have been highly respected around the town. Yet he chooses to come at night to see Jesus and seek his wisdom. Yet, as so often happens when Jesus speaks, Nicodemus is left with more questions, “How can a man be born when he is old?”
This is kind of like the situation I was facing in college, what was a life-long Lutheran supposed to do? I really started to feed badly. I didn’t remember a time when I could say that I was not a Christian. I couldn’t point out like those others could a time when I was “saved” or “born again.” Was I missing something? Was there something I had forgotten to do?
I wish that I had known then, what I have come to know now. It isn’t what I have done or have failed to do that will keep me from going to hell. It is what God has done. Jesus speaks about being born from above. There are a lot of things that happen to me in this world for which I can try to take some measure of credit. I can talk about jobs that I have had or grades that I have earned, or choices that I have made. But one thing that I still haven’t figured out a way to take credit for is my birth. That happened with out any help or input from me. In fact, being born is probably the most passive thing any one of us will ever do.
So Nicodemus is puzzled when Jesus speaks of being born again or born from above and he asks, “How can these things be?” Jesus’ answer is found in what has become the most famous passage in all of scripture, “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. 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.” How is it that one can be born again, born from above? It happens because in God’s love Jesus was sent into the world that the world might be saved through him.
Jesus sets up his response by calling to mind another time when God acted in a saving way. We read this in our first lesson for today. Poisonous snakes are all around, killing people with their venomous bite. Notice that the solution here is not to remove the snakes. Instead the power of the snake’s venom is overcome through a simple act of faith. Each person is to look up at the serpent on the pole and live. The similarities between Moses time and our own are hard to miss. Sin lives in our own time, spreading its venom and causing pain and death. Sin is so pervasive that it is impossible for any of us to avoid. Despite our best efforts to the contrary, we are bitten by the snake of sin every day. How can we be saved from this? Just as those wandering Israelites six thousand years ago, we too are told to look up in faith, and when we do, we find Jesus hanging on a cross, overcoming the power of sin which had us dead to rights.
This brings us, finally, to an answer. When were you born again? We were born again 2,000 years ago when Jesus was raised from the dead and broke the power of sin over our lives. We were born again when baptismal water was poured over our head and we became adopted members of God’s family. We were born again, not through any action of our own, but because of what God has done. We are born again each time we look to the crucified and risen Jesus in search of healing. We are born again each day, when we trust in God’s forgiveness and live lives of service to others.
We are born again, and again, and again . . . for God’s grace is new each day.
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