Bible Text: St John 3:1–17 | Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christian Preus
The Christian Church sets aside this day, Trinity Sunday, to focus on who God is, the three in one, the Holy Trinity. We confess the Athanasian creed, the only Sunday of the church year we get to do that, where we repeat over and over again the same formula, “The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three gods, but one God. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord, and yet there are not three lords but one Lord.” And then we Lutherans find out each year that we’re really catholics, “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith.” That’s of course not the Roman Catholic faith. We’re not pledging allegiance to the pope one Sunday a year. Catholic means universal. When we say we’re catholic, we’re confessing that we believe what all Christians have always believed, what the Bible, which is the Word of God, teaches so clearly, that God is Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One God, world without end, Amen.
But it can all seem very impractical. Why does it matter? This is a sincere question. And we should ask and answer it as a serious question. Ligonier Ministries puts out a poll periodically and in 2022 most self-identified Christians in America, when asked to respond to the statement, “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God,” answered either agree or strongly agree. 70% of self-identified Roman Catholics who were polled agreed with that statement. That Jesus is a creature. In other words, they agreed with Nicodemus, who said to Jesus, “We know that you are a man sent from God.”
I don’t think this is simply because they don’t pay attention in church and don’t read their Bibles – that might be part of it. It’s that their pastors and priests aren’t teaching them that the Son is the eternal God. And why is that? Because it doesn’t seem to matter. We live in a consumer society, and that’s leaked into the church, and if people don’t care to hear very impractical things, like who God actually is, then it won’t get preached.
What do people care about? People care about themselves. They care about their problems. Family problems, work problems, health problems, interpersonal relations problems, money problems, car problems. Isn’t God there to solve our problems, isn’t that His use? I don’t know if we want to call God useful, a computer’s useful, a car’s useful, God’s not useful, He’s not a means to an end, He is the end, and the beginning, and the middle. For from Him and to Him and through Him are all things, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
And to think that God cares about your problems is very presumptuous, the pagans didn’t think that way, why would God care about you? It’s nothing but religious imagination, unless you first know God as Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity teaches you that God Himself, the eternal Son of the Father, not only cares about your problems, He faced them, He bore them, He died to release you from them all, and He sends you His Spirit to assure you of this very thing.
But God will in the end become useless to you, if you don’t know who He is. So there is really nothing more practical than for you to take the time, not only today, but every day, to think on, meditate on, the Holy Trinity. When you do that, not only your problems, but your joys, and your entire life, will all come into perspective. They have to all be swallowed up first into God, drowned into insignificance because God is God, He is what matters, and then they can be handed back to you, with God in control not only of your problems, not only of your life, but of everything, because He is and has been all along and will be forever and ever. God is almighty, all-knowing, all-seeing, the unchangeable, all-good, all-merciful, all-just, and amid all the changes you go through, He remains the same. Nothing you do, nothing you succeed in, nothing you fail in, will change who He is or the fact that He governs everything.
The beauty of the Trinity is that you can’t know Him outside the Gospel. I love that Trinity Sunday’s Gospel is John 3:16. How does that teach the Trinity? Why not Matthew 28, which lays out the Trinity in exact terms, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” But no, we get, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life.” It teaches the Trinity by teaching the cross of Jesus Christ. And that’s the only way you’re going to learn the Trinity. How do you know the Father? He sent His Son for you, to be your Brother, to die for you. “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Jesus says. And how do you know the Son? He sent the Holy Spirit to you, and the Spirt has exposed your sin and then set the Son before your eyes, crucified for you, your Savior, so that you believe in Him. There’s the Trinity. He is the eternal God, He’s all those things, almighty, all-knowing, infinitely good and just and beautiful, but you don’t know Him, you can’t know Him, He remains a total mystery, except for what He has done in time. In creating you, in the Father sending His Son to redeem you, in the Spirit giving you new birth in baptism and pointing you to the cross of Jesus.
Not all the intellect in the world can figure out the Trinity. Three doesn’t equal one. One doesn’t equal three. Nicodemus is the perfect example of this. He’s smart, successful, wise, powerful. He’s everything man aspires to be. And Jesus tells him he has to be born again to see the kingdom of God. When Jesus says that, uses that word, “see,” He’s being ironic, because Nicodemus is looking at the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the King, He is God’s dominion, He is the Kingdom of God, and Nicodemus is literally looking at Him, but He can’t see Him for who He is. He sees a man who does miracles, That’s Nicodemus’ reason working: Jesus must be a good man, a good teacher, must be sent from God, because no one can do what Jesus does unless God is with him. But that’s as far as his reason will get him.
And Jesus teaches him that all his wisdom got him exactly nowhere. He has to be born again by water and the Spirit. How humiliating. It’s insulting to Nicodemus’ mother. What was wrong with his first birth? He was born in sin. That’s the insult not only to our mothers, to our fathers, to us, but to every man woman and child who has ever walked on this earth. We’re sinners. We’re turned in on ourselves, prideful, selfish, and when it comes to God, invincibly ignorant. And here with Nicodemus you see what sin does. That God Himself can be right in front of you, and you can’t see Him.
This is why we treasure our Baptism so dearly. Nicodemus wasn’t baptized with John’s baptism. And John’s baptism, though it wasn’t in the name of the Trinity, was still a baptism of repentance. It was, as our baptism is, a confession that we need saving, we need washing, we need a new heart, a new mind, and only God can give it. And Baptism is God giving it. The Father gives us His Spirit, so that by the Spirit we can see Jesus for who He is, the eternal Son of God. And not be ashamed when we look at that cross, not turn our eyes away, but see there our God, the almighty, the eternal, the infinite, the Creator of all things, suffering for us, dying for us, to bring us back to His Father, and win us eternal life.
God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. That word “so” there, “God so loved the world” means “in this way.” It answers to the question, “How?” How has God loved the world? And people can point to all sorts of things to say, “Why would you think God loves you?” 242 people died in a plane crash on Thursday. Is that God’s love? Israel and Iran may be starting WWIII. Is that God’s love? Your migraine, is that God’s love? Whatever pains and problems you are going through, is that God’s love? Where do you see it? God loved the word in this way – He gave His Son into death for you. You want to know God’s love, look away from everything else. You won’t find it in your bank account, you won’t find it in your health, you won’t find it in your happy family, not unless you first find it in the agonies of the Father’s beloved Son. That’s how God loves you. And that’s where you see the holy Trinity.
Here we need to stop thinking about ourselves for a time, and just think of the Father, who loves His Son from eternity, and the Son who loves His Father from eternity, so that their love is one love, and the Spirit proceeds from that love, because God is love. But the beauty of the Trinity is that when you think only of God, you are thinking of the God who thinks only of you. The Father gives up His Son. He curses Him on the cross. And the Son wants this. He presses on for the joy that is set before Him; and to redeem you and send you His Spirit and make you a child of His Father and His brother, that is His joy. That’s the joy of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be the Holy | Trinity*
and the Undivided | Unity:
Let us give glo- | ry to Him*
For He has shown mercy | unto us.