Holy Trinity Sunday June 11, 2017
Holy Trinity Sunday
John 3:1-17
June 11, 2017
“Wisdom for Know-It-Alls”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, I have to tell you that I received quite a compliment at VBS this last week. I’m still feeling pretty good about it. It came from one of the younger kids, maybe in Kindergarten or 1st Grade, I’m not sure exactly. But I had told them something they weren’t quite sure about and I asked the one boy in particular, “What, don’t you trust me?” And he said, “Yeah I trust you, you’re the smartest person ever.” So, of course, you know what I said to that. I said, “Here, let me take you to my wife, Valerie. She needs to hear this.” Haha.
Of course, sadly for me, there’s a difference between knowing it all and being a “know-it-all”. I’m pretty sure I’ve mastered the second one and miserably failed at the first one. Sure, I’m a know-it-all. Did you know that? Problem is, so are all of you. And in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus talks with another know-it-all, one Nicodemus. So I’d encourage you to listen and to think about what Jesus has to say there to know-it-alls like us.
So first, it will do us well to understand that this “know-it-all” thing goes way back in our ancestry. Not just to American know-it-alls, or stubborn German know-it-alls, nothing like that. No, this “know-it-all”ness goes all the way back to our first parents—Adam and Eve. When God created them, their knowledge was perfect. They knew God perfectly. They knew each other perfectly. It was pure bliss. Adam and Eve didn’t debate who was right and who was wrong. They didn’t try to one up each other on who knew more about the plants and animals. They didn’t sit there and debate why God told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They didn’t speculate or push their opinions. They just trusted God. He said that if they ate it they would die. So they believed. They knew. It was fine.
But then comes the serpent. That dreadful devilish “know-it-all”. And he tells Eve, “No, you won’t die. If you eat of that fruit, you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” In other words, “you will know it all.” And that’s exactly what happened. She ate the fruit. Adam ate the fruit. And we became a big bunch of know-it-alls. Now we all think that we’re like God. Even better than God. And from that moment on, Adam and Eve were know-it-alls. They quarreled and debated. They pushed their ignorant opinions on each other. And their sons killed each other. Such is the great life of being a “know-it-all”.
See, a know-it-all doesn’t trust God. A know it all like us thinks we’ve gotta figure the whole world out on our own and then we’ll tell God what we’ve all figured out. We don’t trust His simple words like, “Don’t eat of that tree. Don’t have other gods. Don’t misuse My name. Remember My Word. Honor parents. So on and so forth.” We make up a bunch of our own rules and then call them God’s rules.
Do you see what I’m getting at here? If you think you know-it-all, then who do you think you are? God, right? That’s the temptation—to be like God. We each make ourselves “god”. A know-it-all thinks he or she is god. We think we know better how to manage this world than God does.
So fast forward from Adam and Eve all the way to another know-it-all, Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews. No doubt this guy was a supreme know-it-all. He knew all the rules that made someone a good Jew like him. He knew exactly what God thought about everything because it was exactly what Nicodemus thought about everything. So, no doubt about it, Nicodemus and God had it all figured out.
So Nicodemus goes to Jesus at night because he wants to make sure that Jesus also knows everything that Nicodemus knows. Just like we do—“God, you know I’m right about this, right? I’m just praying to you to make sure you know that I’m right so that you’ll know what to do now.” So goes Nicodemus. He’s not coming to Jesus to learn anything. He’s coming to Jesus to show how much he knows.
But Jesus is the Master at dealing with know-it-alls like us. He had a lot of practice dealing with Peter and all the other disciples. So He’s ready for Nicodemus. Nicodemus says, “Rabbi, we know…” “Oh, you do now, do you, Nicodemus? You know, huh? You’re going to tell Jesus what you know, huh?” Wrong answer, bud. Jesus acts like Nicodemus didn’t even say anything. He just ignores the comment entirely. And He goes right for the jugular. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Now as we talk about Nicodemus here, the question we need to think about is this one—“What’s so hard for him to accept?” What is it that he really can’t understand here?
So Nicodemus responds to Jesus, “What in the world are you talking about, crazy man? Am I supposed to go back into my mom’s womb and be born all over again? Why in the world would I do that? I don’t need to do that. I already know everything.” See, there’s the whole rub for Nicodemus. What’s so hard for him to understand and what’s so hard for us to understand—is that we really have nothing to contribute. That all our vast knowledge, all that we think we know—is not going to help us one iota. What’s so hard for us to accept is that the only thing, the only thing, the only thing we need to know is Jesus. None of the rest of the all-that-we-know is worth anything.
I’ll give you a little wisdom parable I read a while back. There was a woman, once upon a time, who set out to discover the meaning of life. She read everything she could get her hands on – religious, historical, philosophical. She talked to smart people. But while she became quite intelligent herself, she still hadn’t found the answer she was looking for. Finally, she decided to start traveling in search of the answer.
She traveled all over the world searching. While no one could give her the answer she did keep hearing about this particular man who knew the meaning of life. Finally, she found this man deep in the Himalayas and climbed to the front door of his little hut. When he answered the door she said, “I’ve come halfway around the world to ask you one question. What is the meaning of life?” “Please come in,” the old man said, “We’ll have some tea.” While he was brewing the tea, the woman was telling him all about the books she had read, the people she had met, and the places she had been.” She was so busy talking that as the old man poured the tea into her cup she didn’t even notice that the cup became full and the tea started to spill over the side and all over the floor. She yelled, “What are you doing? Stop, can’t you see that the cup is full. There’s no more room.”
“Just as well,” the old man said, “You come here wanting an answer from me but there’s no more room in your cup. Come back when your cup is empty and we will talk.”
Our cups are just too full. We’re too busy pretending that we know it all like the devil, like Adam and Eve, like Nicodemus. And Jesus is telling us that there’s really only one thing to do—repentance. Be born again. Become a little infant that only ones one thing—faith. Believe in Jesus Christ, the only one who knows it all. The only one who knows you. The only one who ascended into heaven after descending from there to be lifted up on the cross for all your knowledge of evil and to be raised from the dead for your salvation.
Keep in mind that this same Nicodemus was the one who was there with Joseph of Arimathea to bury Jesus body and cover it with a mixture of myrrh and aloes. We’re not told anything about him after that, but you can venture that he was most likely one of those that was later baptized into Jesus and became a disciple.
That’s what happens when you don’t know-it-all, but instead know Jesus above all. Today is Trinity Sunday and that kinda gets us thinking about the Creeds because we confess the long Athanasian Creed today. Creeds are so important. What we’re doing is confessing what we know. When we confess, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, who made heaven and earth”—then we’re also confessing that we’re not God the Father who made everything in heaven and earth. We’re confessing what we know and what we don’t know. We know God our Father is creator of all and that we are not.
Then we say, “And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.” We’re confessing that He is our Lord and that we aren’t. We believe Jesus has done everything for our salvation and we haven’t. And finally, we confess the Holy Spirit. I believe that the Holy Spirit has given me faith, caused me to be born again, and that I didn’t do any of that.
What we’re doing is confessing we don’t know it all. We’re going back to the Garden of Eden and yelling at the serpent, “No, we don’t believe you.” We believe in God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He knows all. He knows us. And He loves us and gives us salvation. And as Paul says today, “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”