Mt. Horeb Lutheran Church in Chapin were lovely hosts this weekend, and their online worship is wonderful at making sure everyone has the words.

Nicodemus Visits Jesus

3 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ² He came to Jesus^[a] by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”^[b] 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶ What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You^[c] must be born from above.’^[d] 8 The wind^[e] blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

¹¹ “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you^[f] do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.^[g] 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.^[h]

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

¹⁷ “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The Bible gives us lots of images for God. God appears as a rushing wind, a burning bush, a baby in a manger, a Spirit hovering over the waters of creation. Some of them are mighty and majestic, like a voice so strong it shatters the trees and a God so big that only the hem of his robe fills the whole temple. Sometimes the Bible shows us a God who breathes life into us, who meets us as a friend making breakfast by a campfire. These different pictures come throughout the Old and New Testaments, and things were fine. Until God came in person, in Jesus Christ. Jesus really caused people trouble.

Like Nicodemus, for example. Jesus really caused Nicodemus trouble. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He was a leader of the Jewish people, but not a priest. Think of the Pharisees more like permanent council leaders. And his problem is this: He thinks Jesus might really be God. Like any good Jew—and he is a good Jew—Nicodemus knows the central creed of Judaism. Adonai Elohenu, Adonai ehad. The Lord our God, the Lord is One. And if the Lord is one, how can Jesus be the Lord, too? And what is this Spirit he’s talking about?

That’s what brings Nicodemus to talk with Jesus in the middle of the night. If he relies on what his brain knows, this itinerant rabbi should make no sense. But his soul feels differently. God is doing something here. God is in Jesus. Jesus is God.

So Nicodemus comes to talk to Jesus. But he still doesn’t understand him. Jesus says something about being born from above of water and the Spirit, and then Nicodemus seems to disappear from the story altogether as John shifts completely into theology mode, saying:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

John leaves us, the readers, to stand next to Nicodemus in wonder. John leaves us to ask questions right alongside this faithful Pharisee. We wonder who this Jesus is and what it means for us. Over the first few centuries of the church, God’s people—pastors and laypeople, writers and thinkers—wrestled with who Jesus is. The answer they came to was the Trinity.

God is God. God is the Father, Son, and Spirit, three persons, coequal in majesty and power, honor and glory. There are several lovely descriptions of how the Trinity works. We know that it does, because all the pieces fall into place when we understand God this way. But it’s hard for anyone to wrap their mind around fully. God is, and should be, too big for God’s creations to understand. Even the word Trinity, meaning three in one and one in three, had to be invented for the occasion.

What the early Christians came to understand is that Nicodemus had it right on at least two counts. God is One. And Jesus is God, alongside the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Because God is Three in One and One in Three, a few things are also true.

First, Jesus really is fully God and fully human. He’s not pretending on either count. Jesus—God the Son—really is born and dies, and he really has the same created human flesh that the rest of us deal with. And Jesus really is the one who presided over creation alongside the Father and the Spirit, the one with power to conquer death, the one who saves our mortal souls and redeems all creation on the last day. If Jesus isn’t human, he doesn’t know what it is to be one of us, and if Jesus isn’t God, then he doesn’t have the power to save us. Jesus is fully both, and therefore he can accomplish our salvation.

Second, this means that God is relationship. At the very core of who God is are three people who are also one person. We are literally made by relationship for relationship.

When God says in Genesis that it is not good for the human to be alone, God isn’t just talking about marriage. It is not good for us to do life alone. We are meant for friendships, families, communities, neighborhoods. (Whether your particular HOA is holy may vary.)

We are not more like God when we are independent. We are more like God when we are together. All of human history, from creation and the fall right up through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is God trying to bring us back into relationship with God and with each other. God is still working on that, because it seems that we are not good at being good friends and neighbors.

We could look at this big picture, at the history and the current state of wars and rumors of wars. We can and should spend some time on this Memorial Day weekend remembering the pain and loss that our brokenness has cost. Wars and conflicts take real human lives. The take homelands and crops. They change the world, mostly for the worse. We can pray and work for a world that is at peace.

We can also look at this with a smaller perspective. Where are the places in your life where relationship is hard? Where can we grow more into the image of God?

I think, for a lot of us, one of the hardest parts of being together is the struggle between independence and dependence that goes on in our souls. It’s there all through our lives. When we’re two, we may not be able to talk or walk well yet, but we are going to do things BY OURSELVES. We aren’t tall enough to see around chairs, but darn it, we are going to try life alone.

As we get older, we keep fighting the same battle. We think we can do things ourselves, but we need each other. This morning, I imagine that most of us arrived in vehicles we didn’t make with our own hands, wearing clothing sewn or knitted by someone we have never met. We might have bought them ourselves, fair and square, but we don’t have the skills we would need to live alone.

Maybe you’ve experienced your dependence on others when your body hasn’t behaved well. You’ve gotten injured or sick or slowed down some. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like asking for help. It may take me 20 minutes longer or I might risk falling over on my already wobbly ankle, but I will make my own soup or empty the dryer. Maybe you’re all better about that than I am.

But think about this: our bodies were never made to live forever. Part of our human nature is having bodies that get hurt. We aren’t all tall enough to reach the top shelf or flexible enough to reach the floor and get back up. We were meant to take care of each other. This isn’t a flaw in God’s design. It’s a feature. God built us to take care of each other, and yes, to need each other.

God made us—God made YOU—because God wanted to be with us, to be in conversation with us, to spend time with us. God is three in one and one in three, forever in relationship with himself and choosing to be in relationship with us forever. We might be like Nicodemus. We might not understand everything just yet. We might know just enough to be curious and to trust that God is doing something.

So we keep showing up where we know God is. We keep talking with people who help us focus on what Jesus is up to. We keep listening for the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our world. We need people who will let us help them and we need people who help us, even when we’re being stubborn about it. God—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—loves you. God has created you, redeemed you, and made you holy, all so that you can be with God forever. That’s what God does because it’s who God is.