Trinity Sunday, 2010

Text: John 3:1-16

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“Except A Man Be Born Again”

Nicodemus has things pretty good. He’s a member of the ruling council of the Jews, the San Hedrin, a Pharisee, one of the religious elites of his society, a righteous man by just about anyone’s standards. And on top of all that, he’s just a good guy. Unlike some of his brother Pharisees, he gives Jesus the benefit of the doubt and reasons that He must be from God, because He was able to perform all the various signs and miracles they were seeing him do.

But something is still missing in Nicodemus life. He can’t quite identify it, but he knows that, with all his religiosity, there is something still leaving him wanting. It’s like the old U2 song: “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” And so Nicodemus comes to Jesus figuring that He might be able to teach him something to get his spiritual life together and make religion really work for him. You see, what he comes expecting is some lessons for fine tuning his life. But Jesus responds in a way that show’s that he’s missing the point entirely. It’s not enough to come to Jesus merely as a teacher to give you principles for getting your life together. What you need is a whole new life – His life in you. The Christian faith is not about adding the finishing touches to a life lived by your own power, it’s about being reborn in Christ. So Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

This was not what Nicodemus was expecting to hear. It’s not what many going to church today would expect to hear. It means that all of our religion, all of our moral rectitude, all of our ‘natural goodness,’ even our best deeds - our service to our neighbors and our service to our country, even helping the little old lady across the street – counts for nothing in terms of our ability to see, or experience, the kingdom of God. For Nicodemus it meant that not even his being the blood-born son of Abraham, a member of the chosen people, gave him any inherent right to a become a true child of the kingdom.

Our natural response is: “I can’t see how that’s fair!” But that’s just the point. In our natural state, in our fallen life, we can’t “see;” we cannot see the kingdom; we are blind to the things that pertain to it. And so natural life must pass away, and we must be born anew, born from above— super-naturally—to be able see and to take part in God’s kingdom.

The kingdom of God is a present reality here on the earth; it was present in Seed form right before Nicodemus’ eyes in the Person of Christ. But the Scripture says the prince of this world, the devil, the father of lies, has blinded the children of this world so that they cannot see the kingdom of God. And part of that blindness is their assumption that they are worthy to enter it. Part of that blindness is their assumption that’s it’s on their own merits or by their own goodness that they’ll get to heaven. Part of that blindness is assuming that all they really need is some fine-tuning on their lives, rather than a total renovation, a total renovation that breaks down the wall of their sin which blocks their entrance into the kingdom. So Jesus says again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

These are challenging words. They were certainly challenging to Nicodemus. “How can these things be?” he asks. “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” You see, he still doesn’t see. Jesus says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” To get a fresh start by being born physically a second time wouldn’t do the trick, because you’d still be in your natural, fleshly, fallen state. You could have all the do-overs you wanted, and you’d still end up in the same place: outside the kingdom looking in. You must be born of water and the Spirit to enter, Jesus says.

Even the great Brethren scholar F.F. Bruce says this is a reference to baptism. It’s in Holy Baptism that we are born anew in Christ. It’s not by making some decision on our own to get ourselves reborn, any more that we made a decision to be born the first time. Baptism isn’t our declaration that we’re going to change our lives; it’s God’s declaration that He has given us an entirely new life in Christ. For by the Father’s will through the working of the Spirit, we are united to the Son in his death and resurrection, whereby we die to our old nature and are raised up as new creatures in Christ. Baptism isn’t our work to dedicate our lives to God; it’s God’s work - the work of the Holy Trinity - to dedicate Himself to us and, to give us brand new lives. For we are given the right to become the children of God, says John, not by being born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And Jesus says this is the only way we can see and enter the kingdom of God.

Now if the kingdom is supremely present in the Person of it’s King, to see and enter the kingdom of God means first we must recognize and receive Jesus Christ for who He truly is: not merely a good man who teaches us a lot of neat principles for daily living, but the Son of God, the Second Person of the Divine Trinity, who came down from His Father in heaven to die upon the cross in order to save us from our lives of sin, and give us that new birth in His Spirit. This is what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus.

“No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Remember the story. The people of Israel in the wilderness had been bitten by poisonous snakes because of their rebellion against God. But when they cried out to Him in repentance, the Lord provided a way to be saved. He had Moses make a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole. Whoever looked to that bronze serpent trusting God was delivered from the power of the venom. It wasn’t that the bronze serpent had some magical power. It was a foreshadowing of the Holy Cross of Christ. In the same way, all of us will perish eternally because of the poison of sin coursing through our souls, unless we look to Jesus as the One who came down and was lifted up and made sin for us on the cross, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

So you see, Nicodemus came expecting to have a nice chat with a teacher, to get a few pointers on how to improve his spirituality; what he found was a Savior. Nicodemus came expecting the Law, and what Jesus gave Him was the Gospel. But the Gospel was almost too much to handle for Nicodemus, for the Gospel comes at a price. It comes at the price of the death of your pride. As one of my professors used to say, “The only thing you contribute to your salvation is your sin, your need.” That’s quite a blow to the old ego, isn’t it! The Gospel comes at the price of the death of everything you count worthy in yourself to give you a right to enter the kingdom of God, in order that you might receive that one and only holy life that can make you right with God – Christ’s life in you. The Gospel comes at the price of the death of yourself that you might gain Christ and, in Him, eternal life.

So how do you come to Jesus today? Do you come expecting a mere fine tuning of your life, or a total transformation? Do you come this morning expecting to hear just a nice moral lesson to help you get your life together? Or will you walk away having heard and received the Word of Christ to die to yourself and to submit to His forming of His Life in you through the power of His Spirit? If it’s not the latter, you’re not coming to the real Jesus; you’re not yet seeing the kingdom of God. So come, and look to the Son of God who came down to be lifted up and made sin for you that you should not perish but have everlasting life. Come now and receive not mere bread and wine, but His own life, his very body and blood, into your souls that His life might be formed in you. And go from this place today having met and received your Savior that you may know that you have both seen and entered the kingdom of God. +