Born again by the working of the Blessed Trinity

Sermon for Holy Trinity Sunday

Romans 11:33-36  +  John 3:1-15

Thankfully, we’re almost halfway done with 2020. What a year it’s been so far! As if the whole debacle around the impeachment of the president hadn’t been bad enough, as if the pandemic itself hasn’t been bad enough, as if the tyranny of local and state governments during the pandemic hasn’t been bad enough, as if the job losses because of that tyranny haven’t been bad enough, we’re now seeing our country being literally torn apart by riots, fires, looting, shutting down of streets, violence and threats of more violence, local governments failing to stop the violence, the stoking of racial tension and some cases of actual racism, widespread police-bashing and some cases of actual police brutality. What is the solution?

You could say the solution—at least, to most of it—would be justice. “No justice, no peace,” as the chant goes. The only problem is, you know and I know (because God has told us so) that this earth is not the home of justice, the home of righteousness. It never will be. Justice has been absent from the world for 6,000 years, since the days of Cain and Abel. People have always been mistreating people, of every race. Power corrupts. Whoever gets power tends to abuse it. The kingdom of the world is not and has never been a kingdom where justice reigns, because the devil is the prince of this world and always will be, until he and the world are destroyed. So there really is only one solution that will work; it won’t fix the world, but it will enable you to deal with life in this world and it will have a positive influence on the world. The solution is another kingdom, a different kingdom, the kingdom of God, the reign of God in human hearts which begins here in this life and will be perfected in the life to come, both inwardly and outwardly. And the only way to see that kingdom, as Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel, is to be born again, born again by the working of the blessed Trinity.

Nicodemus was the name of the man from the Pharisees who approached Jesus in our Gospel. We heard about him on Good Friday as one of those who helped to bury Jesus after He died. That was the end, when he finally had the faith to be openly associated with Jesus. This is the beginning, when he still doesn’t. He chooses a nighttime meeting with Jesus, a secret meeting. He doesn’t yet believe in Jesus as the Son of God. But he does admit that we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing, unless God is with him.

Then Nicodemus gets his first very direct teaching from the Teacher: Truly, truly I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. What’s He saying there? He’s saying that a person’s first birth isn’t good enough to get a person into God’s kingdom. No matter who you are, no matter what race or ethnicity you are, no matter how good a person you think you are. A person’s first birth still leaves him outside the kingdom of God, still leaves him a subject of the devil’s kingdom, the kingdom of the world that is filled with injustice, that is going to perish in fire one day, together with all who belong to it—the eternal fire of eternal punishment. A person’s first birth still leaves him under God’s wrath and condemnation. The only solution, according to Jesus, is to be born again, to be remade entirely new.

That means, you are not just flawed by nature. You’re ruined. There isn’t just a thin crack in the glass. It has been shattered, like so many store windows in cities across America. Looted and emptied and left in shambles. That’s you, by nature, how you were born. That’s what the devil has done to our race—to our human race. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, Jesus says. Your first birth leaves you dead in sins, empty, without the Spirit of God. So everyone is born in the same shape. Everyone. Everyone has to be made entirely new, born again as a completely new person, with new thoughts, new attitudes, new perspectives, new desires.

How does that new birth take place? Nicodemus was baffled. How can a man be born when he is old? Can he really enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? He was thinking only of a physical rebirth, which is impossible. But Jesus was talking about a spiritual rebirth. Truly, truly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The Spirit of God has to give birth to a person by water, by Baptism. First, even before Baptism, the Spirit comes in the preaching of the Law and convinces you that you’re not good enough as you are, that you’ve sinned against God, that by nature you’re thoughtless, careless, condescending, you’re godless, faithless, an enemy of God, and loveless toward your fellow man. You stand under God’s condemnation; you’re on your way to hell; and you can’t blame anyone else for it. No matter how badly you’ve been mistreated by others, no matter how wretched a place in life you’ve been assigned by God, you are responsible for your own actions, for your own thoughts and attitudes and desires, for your own sins against others, for your own bitterness, your own anger and hatred when others sin against you. And the Spirit of God works sorrow—contrition—in your heart, and fear of the wrath of God that you’ve brought on yourself.

Then the Spirit of God comes in the preaching of the Gospel and shows you Jesus. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. It’s the Spirit who first painted the picture in the Old Testament of the serpent in the wilderness being lifted up by Moses on a pole, so that all the Israelites who were bitten by poisonous serpents for their grumbling against God might look up at it and be healed. Now the same Spirit of God holds that image before our eyes in the Gospel, of Jesus lifted up on the cross, suffering for the sins of the world, so that whoever looks to Him in faith stands forgiven before God the Father.

Then the Spirit of God seals that forgiveness with water that is not plain water, but the water included in God’s command and connected to God’s word, the water of Holy Baptism, which is the washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit, as Paul writes in Titus chapter 3. And so God, in whose name a person is baptized—the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the blessed Trinity—works a new birth, forgives you your sins, and brings you into the kingdom of God, where the Spirit of God rules in your heart.

And guess what happens for all who are born again in this way? They’re all united. They’re all brought together as one people. Men and women, of every race, of every economic and social status and background, are made into children of God, children of one family. Even more, they’re all brought together into one person, into one Son—into the Son of God, Jesus Christ, so that, no matter who you are, if you have been born again by water and the Spirit, God the Father sees Jesus when He looks at you.

And guess what else happens if you’re born again? The old is gone. The new has come. That doesn’t mean the old is gone in the sense that it disappears. The Old Man sticks around, still self-centered, still living for himself, still focused on how other people mistreat him, abuse him, make it hard for him. But the one who is born again as a New Man doesn’t let that Old Man rule his thoughts and guide his actions anymore. The one who is born again is led, must be led, by the Spirit of God, the same Spirit who gave birth to him in that new birth of water and the Spirit.

And where does the Spirit lead? He leads to daily contrition and repentance. He leads to humility. He leads to patience, both with difficult situations and with difficult people. He leads to self-sacrifice. He leads, not to color-blindness when you look at other people, but to kind attitudes and fair treatment of other people, no matter their color. He leads to justice. He leads to courage. He leads to faith, He leads to hope, He leads to love.

Now, some of that you see in another person, some of it you don’t. The wind (same words as “Spirit”) blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes. Such is everyone who is born of the Spirit. You can’t see a person’s new birth. You can’t see what the Spirit has done and is doing on the inside. His work is invisible, spiritual, a new birth on the inside, followed by a new life that is lived on the outside.

It isn’t perfect yet. It won’t be perfect here in this sinful world. And the world around you may still be just as crooked and hate-filled as always. But you Christians have been born again by the working of the blessed Trinity. You have been brought into the kingdom of God, with God the Father who loves you, with God the Son who redeemed you by His blood, with God the Holy Spirit who called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, and continues to sanctify in love all to whom He has given new birth. And through the Word and through the Sacraments, He will continue to hold you up, to keep you strong, to fill you with joy and with the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding. Whatever hope remains for this world, it lies in Christians living as faithful, faith-filled citizens of God’s kingdom and spreading the Gospel of God’s kingdom, into which you have been reborn, into which all are invited to be reborn as citizens with you of a better kingdom than anything you see here, a kingdom of love that will last. Amen.