Timely Trinity Spirit
Commentary
Bill is an older middle-aged public-school administrator who is staring out his window, as more changes are happening in his school system. This is not the first time life has thrown him curve balls. In his younger college years, Bill was a scholarship baseball player who won many trophies and regional championships for his school. The sovereign God provided for him as long as he kept up his baseball skills, attended practice and was a good team player. God was good in those days. This is a God of the creation psalms of praise indeed!
Upon his first job as a schoolteacher and coach, Bill had a rude awakening! He discovered that coaching jobs go to people who had the right name and relatives within the school district. He got the leftover sports teams. His young wife decided to divorce Bill and she did not want any counseling to repair the marriage, leaving Bill with a toddler child to care for while he juggled both a job and coaching. This was a time when Bill could relate to the suffering servant in Isaiah who tries to do his best, only to be inflicted with even more pain, loneliness and obstacles. Bill became active in church and even served on church council there. Attempts to obtain coaching positions in school systems in his state proved to be futile, as it was always about last name and family connections in the area. So, Bill took a career detour and earned credentials to become a school administrator.
In his now new life, Bill is remarried with a second family and works as a school administrator. Finally, there is calm and stability in his life. After getting settled into his new position, he is informed that his school system needs to consider going to online learning, instead of face-to-face classroom education, due to illnesses in the land, accelerated use of artificial intelligence and distance learning technology. Also, there are urgently needed cost cutting measures due to state cutbacks in public education and decreasing school enrollments. There is now a new spirit which has both unforeseen obstacles, as well as promise of new life for the school system.
Now at the twilight of his education career, Bill has experienced the thrill of the God of victory and new creation, loss and hurt and the ongoing spirit of unpredictable change. This might be one way to illustrate how people of faith experience timely Trinity Spirit on this Holy Trinity Sunday, which the early church fathers meticulously attempt to articulate in the longer Athanasian Creed. All four of today’s texts speak to how Christians experience the Triune God or three expressions of the God of Christianity.
Isaiah 6:1-8
This text is a vision report of sorts by the prophet. The first 39 chapters of Isaiah are uncontested as written by the prophet himself or his scribe. This is generally recognized as a call narrative. It is also viewed as an outline for right worship: praise (vss. 1-4); confession (vs. 5); forgiveness (vss. 6-7); and commissioning for a prophetic vocation (vs. 8). The text also wishes to make authority claims for both the prophet and the prophetic book itself, as being from God for generations to come after the lifetime of the prophet.
As part of Trinity Sunday, this intended message is that God abides and dominates the heavenly throne room. There are angelic winged seraphs covering God’s holiness while singing, “holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” (c.f.: Revelation 4:8 has a similar vision with John on the island of Patmos). Is this a time of monolatry, where there are many gods, and Israel’s God is Lord of them all, or is this a time of total monotheistic belief in only God? This is a contested question. However, the God of Israel is indeed the Creator whose Spirit sustains all life of the earth, is a recurring theme in Isaiah. Hence, this text is part of the Holy Trinity Sunday readings.
The response of the prophet of humbling man of unclean lips. Yet his eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts (6:5). This text accents the sovereign nature of God, in a throne room which is merely a shadow of the majestic temple of King Solomon. When the seraph places hot coals in the prophet’s mouth, despite the dangers, the purpose is rehabilitating and purging of any guilt, thereby permitting Isaiah a legitimate place in the presence of God. The prophet is then commissioned to announce judgement on Judah and Jerusalem. A three-point sermon on this text might be: 1) vision of splendor; 2) awareness of inadequacy; and 3) readiness to dispatch a message. On Holy Trinity Sunday, this passage supports a portion of the Isaiah’s biography, worshiping model, and commissioning of the prophet.
Another dimension of this passage is suggested in 6:1 “In the year that King Uzziah died….” Uzziah was a righteous king of Judah (2 Kings 15:1-7), which was during a time of peace and prosperity. It was a 52-year reign as the monarch began his reign at age sixteen. A moment of pride in abuse of incense in the temple led to Uzziah being struck with leprosy which eventually led to his death. This account suggests that after a golden era of rule in any nation or organization, God is still active in the words of a prophet like Isaiah, rather than the nation’s leader. A preaching path here might be to suggest when a particular nation, state or organization had a golden era under a leader, who moves on or dies? Now God has new (prophetic) words for such people. In the case of Isaiah, he would later announce a “wonderful Savior” (Isaiah 7:14), as well as (suffering) servant songs (Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 52).
Finally, another direction might be to explore what the “holiness” of God looks like today. In some social circles, “holiness” has a negative connotation of legalistic piety and self-deprivation. As this applies to the opening illustration, regardless of whether there is confusion or another golden age ahead of Bill, God remains on the throne above the creation. [Sources: Brueggemann, Walter, Westminster Bible Commentary: Isaiah 1-39, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), Sakenfeld, Katherine Editor “Uzziah,” New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, volume 5, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2009)].
Psalm 29
A good summary of this psalm as supported earlier in Isaiah 6 is verse 10, “the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.” This might be a good interpretative lens for the whole text. Scholars debate if this psalm was adapted from a popular Canaanite hymn of the day, and replaced with words which glorify Israel’s God. Might this be an ancient version of taking a school fight song of a rival team, and placing one’s own school’s name in it? Regardless of the direction, the psalm is intended to be an anti-Baal god polemic favoring Israel’s God as creator rather those of the Baal religion.
“Thunder” is mentioned seven times and is understood as the voice of God in this psalm. This God rules over chaos and the waters which represent disorder in the world. However, the God of Israel brings life on this earth, thereby affirming the Trinity portion of God as the ongoing “Creator.” Such a God is worthy to be ascribed with praise to reflect God’s divine majesty.
Regarding a preaching path, the religion of Baal was as seductive of a belief and value system as consumerism is in many western nations. Psalm 29 rejects any view of the creation which does not glorify the Creator God of Israel, but allows self-gratification and exploiting nature and human beings for selfish gain. When one thinks they have successfully hidden from the God of creation, Psalm 29 would argue, listen to the next thunderstorm as a reality check as to who is the true Creator. [Source: Brueggemann, Walter, and William Bellinger, Jr., Psalms, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014)].
Romans 8:12-17
This text is a new section, but still linked to Romans 8:1-11. Paul continues his discussion on “Spirit and flesh,” but now focuses on ethics. The Christian is to be an instrument of righteousness rather than succumbing to worldly passions of the times. He insists that those who are in Christ and are led by the Spirit should also put to death the deeds of the body. Christians are to live as children of God and God’s household. They are to practice communion with God by doing God’s bidding. This is what it means to be heirs of the promise, as well as being united with God in the Spirit. This might be a practical application of living out the third person of the Triune God on this Holy Trinity Sunday.
How is the Spirit seen living in the lives of Christians? The sober warning is also to live in the glory of God through Christ, maybe to be incorporated in the suffering of Christ through baptism and because of living in union with Christ in his Spirit. Are Christians prepared for this in any time when conforming to the social norms is easier than living out the ethics of the kingdom of God? Essentially living in the Spirit should translate into some form of ethical living which might cost the believer in some practical way if he or she is living contrary to the populist norms of the community they reside in.
Christians are called to a closer relation with God, in calling God, “Abba,” or Daddy as Christ did. This is also what it means to be an offspring of Father Abraham in Genesis 12. The world of the Bible thinks in terms of families or community groups.
For Paul, one can either be a slave to sin, or a Christ follower, and therefore an heir to his kingdom. This does not come without cost. There indeed will be suffering, but also vindication as indicated later in Romans 8:18-30.
As a preaching path, Paul suggests that living in the “Spirit” is not all about a perpetual feel good moment of spiritual highs and theophany moments on top of life’s mountaintops. There is a cruciform shaped reality of standing against unethical behaviors and acts as Paul and other apostles had to against the authorities of their time. To be “spiritual” by this definition means more times of discomfort and anguish, than feelings of emotional high moments of mountaintop feelings.
When are Christians called to buck the system? In the case of Bill in the opening illustration, does he try to bring back face to face learning in his school system or follow the flow or online learning, or a hybrid of both?
Another practical illustration might be that a son or daughter inherits a business of their parents, who are living out a well-deserved retirement. The business the son or daughter inherited proves to be much more work with less financial return than they originally imagined. Yet, there are employees and staff who need the income and health benefits from this job. Growing weary of the long hours with little financial reward, the new owners are facing an offer from a competitor to buy this business from them. As living Christians who practice their discipleship, how would the Spirit of Christ respond in this situation? These are difficult questions in lieu of recent pandemics, sluggish economic trends and shrinking pools of labor who are willing to work harder for plateaued wages. On Trinity Sunday, how does one live out in the Spirit if they are an inheritor of God’s kingdom when it is uncomfortable? What would be the timely Trinity Spirit here? [Sources: Esler, Philip F., Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter, (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2003); Hultgren, Arland J., Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Commentary, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012)].
John 3:1-17
This text has both the blessing and obstacle of being remarkably familiar with the John 3:16 often quoted text. In my early ages, I knew John 3:16 before I knew the words to the nation’s pledge to the flag or national anthem. The text is also ripe for preaching themes at any given time of the year, aside of Holy Trinity Sunday.
To get right into the heart of the matter of the Trinity theme, one might quote, “Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit (John 3:5). There is mention of Jesus, God’s kingdom and being born of water and Spirit. This distinguishes Jesus’ baptism from that of John the Baptist, which was a proselyte baptism into Judaism of his day. To be baptized on most Christian traditions (infant or adult) usually is accompanied with naming the Triune God, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” One path to preach here might be to remind people of faith for the church’s teachings on what distinguishes Jesus’ baptism to those before his incarnation (John 1:14).
Note that this text supports the tradition that water and spirit are both given at the same time during the baptism event. This might suggest a sermon on the church’s view of baptism as a sacrament for generation and/or rite of Christian commitment?
“The wind blows where it chooses” (3:8) suggests the nature of the Spirit is unpredictable. One discussion has been whether the Spirit can transcend the New Testament canon in bring life in new ways. This was a point made during my seminary years during the question of affirming the gifts of women for ordained ministry. More traditional definitions of the Spirit’s work confine it to the sacrament and interpreting of scripture. This would be a fruitful path to explore in a sermon. Does the Spirit prompt us to think outside of the box beyond the world of the ancient Mediterranean writers of the Bible?
This text also features the Greek term, “Amein, amein” quote or “Truly, truly” pattern in in the gospel. Three of the 25 uses of the term is here in John 3. Truly, truly… “unless one is born again (or from above) he cannot see the kingdom of God to him” (3:3); …. “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit” (3:5) …. we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. …If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things” (3:10-12)? What does seeing and living in the kingdom in Christ as Messiah mean today on this Holy Trinity Sunday? The text is located during the season of Pentecost. How can a particular congregation live out their being born from above in water and spirit?
Another path to explore is that of the faith journey of Nicodemus who was a leader of the Jews. In this text he hides in the shadows as a curious, still uncommitted seeker. Later in John 7:50-51, he publicly defends Jesus. Finally, he offers a royal burial for Jesus (19:39-42). Not all people suddenly decide to “make a decision for Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.” It might take time, persuasion and in John’s gospel many “signs” to indicate he is indeed God in the flesh (John 1:1-14).
If one wishes to pursue an Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) path of sorts, John compares Jesus’ being lifted up on the cross to save humanity from sins and death with Moses’ lifting up a bronze serpent upon a pole to deliver Israel from peril in the wilderness (Numbers 21:6-9). To be crucified in John’s gospel, is to be lifted up (in glory), or it is Jesus’ “hour” referred to as early as the Cana wedding banquet in John 2.
Finally, John 3:17 refers the world being saved by him [Jesus]. Is this an invitation to a universal salvation which may or may not include Jesus as Savior, or does it carry the qualification of a confessional and/or creedal faith in a particular form of Jewish monotheism (Christianity)? An argument for the universal view might be the son came “not to condemn the world, but to save it.” How does one define the “world” God sent Jesus to save here? If the central theme of God’s love for the world is found throughout the gospel, and Jesus self-giving love is the ultimate expression of such love, this suggests that Nicodemus’ reluctant faith journey might be more normative of modern people who come to faith in varying times and after diverging experiences in their lives. [Source: Thompson, Marianne, Meye, The New Testament Library: John, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015)].
Application
Quoting John 3:16 as the gospel in a nutshell might be one way to explore in a short sermon. It offers the path of living out this text in how our communities of faith give of themselves for other people, businesses, and community groups to have new life. For example, would an old church building with extremely low attendance and high financial overhead with inefficient heating and cooling systems be better served closing down and allowing another group to occupy it or rebuild?
In the case of Bill in the opening illustration, he might have to decide to tear down old school buildings in the district and risk angering local residents who identify with such a building in their town. Will his argument that he is trying to save the school system with its limited resources prevail? Time will tell.
Will the next generation of younger Christians have the same number of resources to maintain the old church structures that might have been developed during a historical time era of record worship attendance in the 1940s and 1950s? How is the Spirit energizing the current community faith who worships in church buildings? Might they be rented out to people of other religious faiths for their worship services? How is the Creator doing “creating?” Who is sacrificing for what purposes of new life? What spirits are both life-giving and disruptive in our churches in these changing times? This is how the Trinity timely Spirit works in these times.
Alternative Application
Has Nicodemus gotten a bad rap? Do all of us have times when we would prefer to linger in the darkness when we see uses and abuses of organized religion?
Upon his first job as a schoolteacher and coach, Bill had a rude awakening! He discovered that coaching jobs go to people who had the right name and relatives within the school district. He got the leftover sports teams. His young wife decided to divorce Bill and she did not want any counseling to repair the marriage, leaving Bill with a toddler child to care for while he juggled both a job and coaching. This was a time when Bill could relate to the suffering servant in Isaiah who tries to do his best, only to be inflicted with even more pain, loneliness and obstacles. Bill became active in church and even served on church council there. Attempts to obtain coaching positions in school systems in his state proved to be futile, as it was always about last name and family connections in the area. So, Bill took a career detour and earned credentials to become a school administrator.
In his now new life, Bill is remarried with a second family and works as a school administrator. Finally, there is calm and stability in his life. After getting settled into his new position, he is informed that his school system needs to consider going to online learning, instead of face-to-face classroom education, due to illnesses in the land, accelerated use of artificial intelligence and distance learning technology. Also, there are urgently needed cost cutting measures due to state cutbacks in public education and decreasing school enrollments. There is now a new spirit which has both unforeseen obstacles, as well as promise of new life for the school system.
Now at the twilight of his education career, Bill has experienced the thrill of the God of victory and new creation, loss and hurt and the ongoing spirit of unpredictable change. This might be one way to illustrate how people of faith experience timely Trinity Spirit on this Holy Trinity Sunday, which the early church fathers meticulously attempt to articulate in the longer Athanasian Creed. All four of today’s texts speak to how Christians experience the Triune God or three expressions of the God of Christianity.
Isaiah 6:1-8
This text is a vision report of sorts by the prophet. The first 39 chapters of Isaiah are uncontested as written by the prophet himself or his scribe. This is generally recognized as a call narrative. It is also viewed as an outline for right worship: praise (vss. 1-4); confession (vs. 5); forgiveness (vss. 6-7); and commissioning for a prophetic vocation (vs. 8). The text also wishes to make authority claims for both the prophet and the prophetic book itself, as being from God for generations to come after the lifetime of the prophet.
As part of Trinity Sunday, this intended message is that God abides and dominates the heavenly throne room. There are angelic winged seraphs covering God’s holiness while singing, “holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” (c.f.: Revelation 4:8 has a similar vision with John on the island of Patmos). Is this a time of monolatry, where there are many gods, and Israel’s God is Lord of them all, or is this a time of total monotheistic belief in only God? This is a contested question. However, the God of Israel is indeed the Creator whose Spirit sustains all life of the earth, is a recurring theme in Isaiah. Hence, this text is part of the Holy Trinity Sunday readings.
The response of the prophet of humbling man of unclean lips. Yet his eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts (6:5). This text accents the sovereign nature of God, in a throne room which is merely a shadow of the majestic temple of King Solomon. When the seraph places hot coals in the prophet’s mouth, despite the dangers, the purpose is rehabilitating and purging of any guilt, thereby permitting Isaiah a legitimate place in the presence of God. The prophet is then commissioned to announce judgement on Judah and Jerusalem. A three-point sermon on this text might be: 1) vision of splendor; 2) awareness of inadequacy; and 3) readiness to dispatch a message. On Holy Trinity Sunday, this passage supports a portion of the Isaiah’s biography, worshiping model, and commissioning of the prophet.
Another dimension of this passage is suggested in 6:1 “In the year that King Uzziah died….” Uzziah was a righteous king of Judah (2 Kings 15:1-7), which was during a time of peace and prosperity. It was a 52-year reign as the monarch began his reign at age sixteen. A moment of pride in abuse of incense in the temple led to Uzziah being struck with leprosy which eventually led to his death. This account suggests that after a golden era of rule in any nation or organization, God is still active in the words of a prophet like Isaiah, rather than the nation’s leader. A preaching path here might be to suggest when a particular nation, state or organization had a golden era under a leader, who moves on or dies? Now God has new (prophetic) words for such people. In the case of Isaiah, he would later announce a “wonderful Savior” (Isaiah 7:14), as well as (suffering) servant songs (Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 52).
Finally, another direction might be to explore what the “holiness” of God looks like today. In some social circles, “holiness” has a negative connotation of legalistic piety and self-deprivation. As this applies to the opening illustration, regardless of whether there is confusion or another golden age ahead of Bill, God remains on the throne above the creation. [Sources: Brueggemann, Walter, Westminster Bible Commentary: Isaiah 1-39, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), Sakenfeld, Katherine Editor “Uzziah,” New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, volume 5, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2009)].
Psalm 29
A good summary of this psalm as supported earlier in Isaiah 6 is verse 10, “the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.” This might be a good interpretative lens for the whole text. Scholars debate if this psalm was adapted from a popular Canaanite hymn of the day, and replaced with words which glorify Israel’s God. Might this be an ancient version of taking a school fight song of a rival team, and placing one’s own school’s name in it? Regardless of the direction, the psalm is intended to be an anti-Baal god polemic favoring Israel’s God as creator rather those of the Baal religion.
“Thunder” is mentioned seven times and is understood as the voice of God in this psalm. This God rules over chaos and the waters which represent disorder in the world. However, the God of Israel brings life on this earth, thereby affirming the Trinity portion of God as the ongoing “Creator.” Such a God is worthy to be ascribed with praise to reflect God’s divine majesty.
Regarding a preaching path, the religion of Baal was as seductive of a belief and value system as consumerism is in many western nations. Psalm 29 rejects any view of the creation which does not glorify the Creator God of Israel, but allows self-gratification and exploiting nature and human beings for selfish gain. When one thinks they have successfully hidden from the God of creation, Psalm 29 would argue, listen to the next thunderstorm as a reality check as to who is the true Creator. [Source: Brueggemann, Walter, and William Bellinger, Jr., Psalms, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014)].
Romans 8:12-17
This text is a new section, but still linked to Romans 8:1-11. Paul continues his discussion on “Spirit and flesh,” but now focuses on ethics. The Christian is to be an instrument of righteousness rather than succumbing to worldly passions of the times. He insists that those who are in Christ and are led by the Spirit should also put to death the deeds of the body. Christians are to live as children of God and God’s household. They are to practice communion with God by doing God’s bidding. This is what it means to be heirs of the promise, as well as being united with God in the Spirit. This might be a practical application of living out the third person of the Triune God on this Holy Trinity Sunday.
How is the Spirit seen living in the lives of Christians? The sober warning is also to live in the glory of God through Christ, maybe to be incorporated in the suffering of Christ through baptism and because of living in union with Christ in his Spirit. Are Christians prepared for this in any time when conforming to the social norms is easier than living out the ethics of the kingdom of God? Essentially living in the Spirit should translate into some form of ethical living which might cost the believer in some practical way if he or she is living contrary to the populist norms of the community they reside in.
Christians are called to a closer relation with God, in calling God, “Abba,” or Daddy as Christ did. This is also what it means to be an offspring of Father Abraham in Genesis 12. The world of the Bible thinks in terms of families or community groups.
For Paul, one can either be a slave to sin, or a Christ follower, and therefore an heir to his kingdom. This does not come without cost. There indeed will be suffering, but also vindication as indicated later in Romans 8:18-30.
As a preaching path, Paul suggests that living in the “Spirit” is not all about a perpetual feel good moment of spiritual highs and theophany moments on top of life’s mountaintops. There is a cruciform shaped reality of standing against unethical behaviors and acts as Paul and other apostles had to against the authorities of their time. To be “spiritual” by this definition means more times of discomfort and anguish, than feelings of emotional high moments of mountaintop feelings.
When are Christians called to buck the system? In the case of Bill in the opening illustration, does he try to bring back face to face learning in his school system or follow the flow or online learning, or a hybrid of both?
Another practical illustration might be that a son or daughter inherits a business of their parents, who are living out a well-deserved retirement. The business the son or daughter inherited proves to be much more work with less financial return than they originally imagined. Yet, there are employees and staff who need the income and health benefits from this job. Growing weary of the long hours with little financial reward, the new owners are facing an offer from a competitor to buy this business from them. As living Christians who practice their discipleship, how would the Spirit of Christ respond in this situation? These are difficult questions in lieu of recent pandemics, sluggish economic trends and shrinking pools of labor who are willing to work harder for plateaued wages. On Trinity Sunday, how does one live out in the Spirit if they are an inheritor of God’s kingdom when it is uncomfortable? What would be the timely Trinity Spirit here? [Sources: Esler, Philip F., Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter, (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2003); Hultgren, Arland J., Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Commentary, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012)].
John 3:1-17
This text has both the blessing and obstacle of being remarkably familiar with the John 3:16 often quoted text. In my early ages, I knew John 3:16 before I knew the words to the nation’s pledge to the flag or national anthem. The text is also ripe for preaching themes at any given time of the year, aside of Holy Trinity Sunday.
To get right into the heart of the matter of the Trinity theme, one might quote, “Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit (John 3:5). There is mention of Jesus, God’s kingdom and being born of water and Spirit. This distinguishes Jesus’ baptism from that of John the Baptist, which was a proselyte baptism into Judaism of his day. To be baptized on most Christian traditions (infant or adult) usually is accompanied with naming the Triune God, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” One path to preach here might be to remind people of faith for the church’s teachings on what distinguishes Jesus’ baptism to those before his incarnation (John 1:14).
Note that this text supports the tradition that water and spirit are both given at the same time during the baptism event. This might suggest a sermon on the church’s view of baptism as a sacrament for generation and/or rite of Christian commitment?
“The wind blows where it chooses” (3:8) suggests the nature of the Spirit is unpredictable. One discussion has been whether the Spirit can transcend the New Testament canon in bring life in new ways. This was a point made during my seminary years during the question of affirming the gifts of women for ordained ministry. More traditional definitions of the Spirit’s work confine it to the sacrament and interpreting of scripture. This would be a fruitful path to explore in a sermon. Does the Spirit prompt us to think outside of the box beyond the world of the ancient Mediterranean writers of the Bible?
This text also features the Greek term, “Amein, amein” quote or “Truly, truly” pattern in in the gospel. Three of the 25 uses of the term is here in John 3. Truly, truly… “unless one is born again (or from above) he cannot see the kingdom of God to him” (3:3); …. “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit” (3:5) …. we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. …If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things” (3:10-12)? What does seeing and living in the kingdom in Christ as Messiah mean today on this Holy Trinity Sunday? The text is located during the season of Pentecost. How can a particular congregation live out their being born from above in water and spirit?
Another path to explore is that of the faith journey of Nicodemus who was a leader of the Jews. In this text he hides in the shadows as a curious, still uncommitted seeker. Later in John 7:50-51, he publicly defends Jesus. Finally, he offers a royal burial for Jesus (19:39-42). Not all people suddenly decide to “make a decision for Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.” It might take time, persuasion and in John’s gospel many “signs” to indicate he is indeed God in the flesh (John 1:1-14).
If one wishes to pursue an Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) path of sorts, John compares Jesus’ being lifted up on the cross to save humanity from sins and death with Moses’ lifting up a bronze serpent upon a pole to deliver Israel from peril in the wilderness (Numbers 21:6-9). To be crucified in John’s gospel, is to be lifted up (in glory), or it is Jesus’ “hour” referred to as early as the Cana wedding banquet in John 2.
Finally, John 3:17 refers the world being saved by him [Jesus]. Is this an invitation to a universal salvation which may or may not include Jesus as Savior, or does it carry the qualification of a confessional and/or creedal faith in a particular form of Jewish monotheism (Christianity)? An argument for the universal view might be the son came “not to condemn the world, but to save it.” How does one define the “world” God sent Jesus to save here? If the central theme of God’s love for the world is found throughout the gospel, and Jesus self-giving love is the ultimate expression of such love, this suggests that Nicodemus’ reluctant faith journey might be more normative of modern people who come to faith in varying times and after diverging experiences in their lives. [Source: Thompson, Marianne, Meye, The New Testament Library: John, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015)].
Application
Quoting John 3:16 as the gospel in a nutshell might be one way to explore in a short sermon. It offers the path of living out this text in how our communities of faith give of themselves for other people, businesses, and community groups to have new life. For example, would an old church building with extremely low attendance and high financial overhead with inefficient heating and cooling systems be better served closing down and allowing another group to occupy it or rebuild?
In the case of Bill in the opening illustration, he might have to decide to tear down old school buildings in the district and risk angering local residents who identify with such a building in their town. Will his argument that he is trying to save the school system with its limited resources prevail? Time will tell.
Will the next generation of younger Christians have the same number of resources to maintain the old church structures that might have been developed during a historical time era of record worship attendance in the 1940s and 1950s? How is the Spirit energizing the current community faith who worships in church buildings? Might they be rented out to people of other religious faiths for their worship services? How is the Creator doing “creating?” Who is sacrificing for what purposes of new life? What spirits are both life-giving and disruptive in our churches in these changing times? This is how the Trinity timely Spirit works in these times.
Alternative Application
Has Nicodemus gotten a bad rap? Do all of us have times when we would prefer to linger in the darkness when we see uses and abuses of organized religion?
