June 12, 2022 Holy Trinity Sunday

Holy Trinity
John 3:1-17
June 12, 2022

“Born Again from Above”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

I was at the hospital the other day and heard the music playing. BroMenn, now Carle, hospital plays music over the speakers whenever a baby is born so everybody in the hospital gets to share the joy. Now when that baby emerged from his mother’s womb, how well did he know his Mom and Dad? Could he pick them out of a lineup? Yes, he knows their voices most likely. But what else does he know about them? The doctor doesn’t hold up the baby and say, “Now, baby, please tell us if this is really your Mom and Dad. Please identify and name your parents for us before we hand you over to them.” In reality, baby knows very little about Mom and Dad at all. But rather is born into this family that he didn’t choose and learns to know them day by day.

A similar truth can be said about this baby’s knowledge of God. The doctor also doesn’t say, “Now, baby, that you’re out of the womb and we’ve got you all cleaned up, please tell us, we’d like to know, where you came from. Please explain to us Who made you and Who it is that has made everything else here and what exactly your purpose is of being born into the world.”

As foolish as it sounds for a newborn baby to know everything about his Mom and Dad and everything about God who made him, it’s as foolish also for us to think that we can and should know everything about God. Why do you and I so often insist that we should or even can know everything about God? Of course you don’t know and understand everything about God. He is God! You are not.

First of all, just look at all three of our Scripture readings today in a general way. All three of them are making very clear that God is beyond our wisdom and knowledge and understanding. First Isaiah is given a vision of God, holy and awesome, sitting on His throne with the seraphim angels flying all around Him. The angels are singing, singing so loudly that the foundations of the Temple are shaking and the whole place is filling with smoke. And Isaiah cowers in fear. Does it sound like Isaiah is confident that he knows and understands God? Second, the apostle Paul, in trying to explain to us God’s ways in Romans 11, bursts forth in praise and says, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord?”

Yes, who has known His mind? The answer is no one. No one has known the mind of the Lord. He is far too great and holy and mysterious for us to know His mind. And finally and thirdly, Nicodemus comes to Jesus thinking he knows something about something and Jesus sends him away utterly stupefied, and here’s the real point of today, telling Nicodemus that the only way he’ll understand and know God at all is if he is born again of water and the Spirit.

Here we have come to it. Jesus wants Nicodemus to know the holy and awesome God. Not know Him absolutely and completely because that’s impossible for us here on this earth. But He wants Nicodemus to know specifically the kingdom of God and His love. And how is that to be done? You must be born again. As you were born the first time into this world and came to know things that you didn’t know, like who Mom and Dad were and what is this world outside the womb, so you must be born again a second time, not from your mother’s womb, but born of water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism. You must be born into another family, the family of Father, Son, and Spirit, and then you will see the kingdom of God and come to know God and His love for you in Jesus Christ.

So we, like Nicodemus our brother, come to Jesus and we want to better understand and know God. And we’ve come to the right place. Jesus will truly teach us to know God. And just as He explains to Nicodemus, you must be born again into this family of Father, Son, and Spirit. You can’t find the answers to everything only in textbooks and libraries. You can’t find the answers to everything in laboratories and classrooms. You can’t find the answers to everything in archaeological digs nor in space explorations. The way to better know and understand God is the same way you to come to better know and understand your family. You live with Him and in Him. You’re baptized into Father, Son, and Spirit and you live with Him. That’s how you come to know and love Him day by day. You live in Him.

For the rest of the sermon I would direct your eyes and mind to the concentric circles that are on your bulletin insert, the colorful ones. Last year on Trinity Sunday I asked you to look up at our stained glass windows here and we talked about how we live right in the center where all three circles overlap. Today we’ll be expounding that a little further. That’s the first and innermost circle in the picture. The gold circle.

In Holy Baptism, you were joined to Christ and God placed you within His holy family. You were born again from above as Jesus commands. You live right there in the center of Father, Son, and Spirit. And that’s your station, your calling, your place in life, your office, and where you take your stand. Right there in the middle of that circle. Right there in the middle of Father, Son, and Spirit.

The Creed explains all of this perfectly. I believe in the Father, I believe in the Son, I believe in the Spirit. The Holy Trinity is your life and your belief. Again, I would repeat the point that you don’t and can’t understand God, the Holy Trinity, perfectly or completely. You don’t need to. Rather, you live in Him, in His family, and you confess, “I believe in Him.” So the Creed spells out what we do know and believe about God.

First of all, as I live each day I know and believe in the Father who has made every single thing, including my body and soul, and who gives me everything I need to support my body and this life. Secondly, I know and believe in the Son, true God and true Man, who has redeemed me a lost and condemned creature. Thirdly, I know and believe in the Spirit, who has called, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified me, not by my own reason or strength, but by the Gospel. Just as a baby boy is born into his family and comes to know and trust Mom and Dad, so we are born again through Baptism into God’s family and we come to know and trust Father, Son, and Spirit.

Now the rest of those concentric circles can be explained. When you’re born again into God’s family, the other circles of your life, the other realms of life, take on a whole new significance. Now you see that God has stationed you, placed you, and called you to exactly the place you stand within your family, the Church, and the community or society so that you may be Christ to others and serve as you’ve been served.

In the Old Testament reading today, Isaiah 6, we see that the prophet Isaiah was given a very direct and immediate call to preach the Word to Israel. You and I don’t have the call of Isaiah. That was his call and not ours. However, God has called us through His Word to stand and serve within our families, within the Church, and within the society.

Here’s a way you might lodge this into your memory. Which circles do you run in? In what circles of people will we find you? The first circle you run in is the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You’re baptized! You’re a son of God! Washed in the blood of Jesus and carrying the name of the Triune God on your forehead and on your heart.

The second circle you run in is your family, the family that God has placed you into. You run as a son or daughter, a husband or wife, an aunt or uncle, a granddaughter or grandson, a mother of father, a sister or brother. You are Christ to your family. You serve and love as God has served and loved you.

The third circle you run is the Church. This right here is your circle of friends, an awesome circle if you ask me. You are brother or sister to everyone here. You’re also a hearer, stationed in the Church to hear the Word of God and receive the Sacrament. You’re a giver, returning your offerings to God from what He’s given you for the work of the Church. You serve in this circle of Church as friend and neighbor to others in the pews, as church officers, as Corn Festival committee, as VBS helper, as Sunday School teacher, choir member.

The fourth circle you run in could go by a variety of names such as community or society or government. It’s where God orders all the rest of the world outside the family and the Church. So you serve as a loving neighbor to everyone, as citizens, builders, teachers, soldiers, office workers, and so forth.

And in these circles is where you know and understand God and yourself. You live in Him. Father, Son, and Spirit isn’t someone you dissect in a lab, reason out in a philosophy class, or figure out for yourself. He is the family you are born into through Holy Baptism. He’s the God you live in, the God who gives you all you have, who redeems you from your sin, and who makes you holy through the Word and Sacrament. Jesus explains your family and the circle you run in this way: For God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not die but will have eternal life.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.