Holy Trinity (B) 2018

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: John 3:17
Theme: To Save, Not Condemn

Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

God’s love cannot be restrained. It can be epitomized. That is, seen in its perfect representation as it is in the person of Jesus. But it can’t be controlled. It can’t be regulated. It can’t be quantified by any human measurement. God’s love can’t be governed by any techniques we possess. And it can’t be reproduced by us in like quality. Christ’s love takes the sting out of death. His grace gives peace to the burdened soul. His love unexcelled. And whether we live one day or a hundred years on this earth we are privileged to benefit from that love beyond what we could ever deserve.

Today, on Trinity Sunday, we are privy to a conversation held between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus. It wasn’t a trivial chat. It was an episode of catechesis in which the divine Son of God explained some of the deeper spiritual truths to a mortal son of Adam. It contains one of the most well-know verses in the Bible. “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”1

Trinity Sunday allows us the opportunity to reflect a little more deliberately on the nature of God’s existence. The almighty God, who exists as one divine essence also exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This reality is not tangible to us, but it is clearly revealed in the Bible. We know it by faith, not by sight. It’s not our concern to dissect finer details of this core biblical teaching. Suffice it to say, all three ecumenical creeds of Christianity- the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian- all go to great lengths to emphasize this truth. We are not free address God any way we please and we are not at liberty to casually misrepresent how He has identified Himself to us. But again, a broad intellectual grasp of the doctrine of the Trinity is not our goal at the moment; to even utter God’s name properly is a response of faith. It doesn’t require cognitive thresholds. The newly baptized infant can do it because it is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Nicodemus, an educated man, struggled to understand how a person related to God and His kingdom. His perspective was warped, and that’s a lesson for us. In our self-indulged, self-focused society it may not readily occur to us that the importance of a single human life within the context of the universe could be considered miniscule. No one is indispensable in the grand scheme of things. The world will go on without us. Also, the reality of sin determines that human life on this earth will be very temporary indeed. The Bible teaches us to size up the matter with these words, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass.”2 And again, “Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; and let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.”3 Such statements should prevent us from making a very high estimation of ourselves. We are sinners and the Holy Spirit calls us to repent.

But, dear friends, the marvelous mystery of the mind and will of God is that He makes the very highest estimation of us. Or, put more accurately, He invests us with the highest value because He invests us with the very life of His Son. God makes the un-valuable priceless. God makes the worthless invaluable. He loves the unlovable. He does this not as an afterthought, but from the very start as part of the design of His creation. Creation is the first consequence of God’s love. Your life is not simply the result of biological forces that drive the continuance of the human race. You are not here by chance or happenstance. You are not a mere biological statistic. The Bible says, “All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.”4 And, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”5

Still, the love of God with which He has created us is only an image of the love with which He has redeemed us; and this too with an eternal love. We can hardly grasp the profundity of this truth, as described, for instance in Ephesians one, “He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.”6 On the cross Jesus Christ made us sacred objects of divine love. His blood shed there was more than a sufficient price to cover the sins of humanity. But His atonement was not generic. He died for the same unique souls He created. You are one of those souls. The Holy Spirit would have you know that “God so loved the world” means, “God so loved you.”

You are also one of the souls the Holy Spirit has gathered into this sacred entity called the church. Jesus makes it clear in His conversation with Nicodemus today that His life would be given for the sins of the world, but every individual person must be born of water and the Spirit. Spiritual life in baptism is not a generic thing either. The Holy Spirit calls you by name and bestows on you the name of God Himself. Just as every child in a family is unique, so it is in the household of God.

The reality of our unique existence within this mystical fellowship called the Christian church also has very practical consequences. We are something integral and complementary within this communion. There is a marvelous diversity here that God orders to achieve His purposes. He uses us to support one another and the greater mission of His kingdom in the world.
Your life is a living sermon. Even if you do not plan to, you are bringing a message to the community in which you live and the people with whom you interact. What do people learn from the witness you give? Others watch how we conduct ourselves publicly and privately. God uses these interactions as opportunities to show humility, give support, offer care, and uphold the truth. Satan, of course, seeks to poison our interactions, with falsehood and suspicion, cold-heartedness and arrogance. St. Paul says it tenderly and touchingly to the Corinthians, “You yourselves are…written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”7

Jesus Christ embodies the love of God. The Father sent Him to save, not condemn. He does this not with hollow words, but with deeds. His blood was shed. We have access to it at the Lord’s Table. His body was raised. He was vindicated in the Spirit’s power8. The same power will raise our bodies also. We will be freed from sin; freely to fully enjoy the life of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

+ In nomine Jesu +

27 May 2018
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt
Holy Trinity

1 John 3:16 2 Isaiah 40:6-7
3 Psalm 39:4-5 4 Psalm 139:16
5 Jeremiah 1:5 6 Ephesians 1:4-5
7 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 8 See 2 Timothy 3:16