John 3:1-17 

For years, the opening of "The Wide World of Sports" television program illustrated 
"the agony of defeat" with a painful ending to an attempted ski jump. 
The skier appeared in good form as he headed down the jump, but then, for no apparent reason, 
he tumbled head over heels off the side of the jump, bouncing off the supporting structure 
down to the snow below. 

What viewers didn't know was that he chose to fall rather than finish the jump. Why? 
As he explained later, the jump surface had become too fast, and midway down the ramp, 
he realized if he completed the jump, he would land on the level ground, beyond the safe sloping 
landing area, which could have been fatal. Surprisingly, the skier suffered no more 
than a headache from the tumble. To change one's course in life can be a dramatic 
and sometimes painful undertaking, but change is better than a fatal landing at the end. 

This is the problem Nicodemus is having. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he is facing a fatal landing 
if he does not change directions. But Nicodemus knows only one way and that is the way of earth. 
It is the only way that any of us knows. Suddenly Jesus appears on the scene and begins 
speaking of Heaven, of being Born Again. Nicodemus hears the words "You must be born again," 
but he is confused. So he asks, "How can a person go back into his mother's womb and come out again?" 

It is surprising to us that Nicodemus is so confused. He's a religious leader and should understand spiritual 
lessons but somehow he feels he has missed some crucial truth. And, there is a reason he is going to Jesus. 
He has an inkling that Jesus might be able to provide that missing important detail. 
Nicodemus has somehow been headed in the wrong direction and now he must change his course. 
This he knows but Nicodemus seems hesitant. He seems uncertain about making such a drastic change. 
Why? What makes this remarkable man slow to take Jesus at his word? What is confusing him?

1. First, Nicodemus was a religious man.
2. Secondly, Nicodemus was a powerful person.
3. Third, Nicodemus was a man of pedigree.
4. Fourth, Nicodemus was an educated man.

---

I am reading a theology book for laypeople called Theology Brewed in an African Pot 
by Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator.  He has written a very accessible theology book 
using the classic novel by Chyinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, as a starting point 
for understanding African theology.

He also tells his own story of being a 16-year-old convert and trying to understand 
what the catechist was trying to teach them. The chapter on the Trinity is entitled 
"The Mad Preacher and the Three Persons in One God."  The Mad Preacher refers 
to the reaction to the first missionary who tried to explain the trinity to the Africans in the novel.

Orobator makes the point that when we try to make the trinity a mathematical problem 1+1+1=1 
that we get into trouble. The trinity is a symbol of relationship, rather than "a roadmap 
of the inner workings of God."  The mathematical approach does not articlulate the reality that God is one, 
God is fullness and God is present with us.   As a symbol, the trinitarian formulation points to something beyond itself.

He then suggests an image familiar to Africans as a possible metaphor for the Trinity: Obirin meta.  Here's what he writes:
"In Nigeria, the Yoruba people have a compound name for a special kind of woman: Obirin meta.  
Obirin  means "woman," and meta  means "three."  When you put the two together, 
the name designates a woman who combines the strength, character, personality 
and beauty of three women.  Obirin meta  is a woman with many sides, a many-sided character. 
She is a multifunctional woman of unmatched density and unbounded substance.
   
"Anyone familiar with the daily struggles of life in Africa would have met such women 
at some point along the busy streets of Africa's bustling towns and cities or into rugged paths 
of its hamlets and villages. I have met quite a few. I think of a mother who could balance a big pot 
of water or a basket of produce on her head, with a baby strapped to her back, 
trying to make it home on time to prepare dinner for the whole family, taking care of all the needs 
of the family, and being a mother to all. In the midst of all these tasks and chores 
she might even be carrying another baby in her womb. It takes a special kind of woman 
to do this--it takes Obirin meta..
  
"...Obirin meta  describes a woman who combines largeness of heart, strength of character and depth of wisdom and insight..."
"...How do we name God from the inside and from the outside? ...
"The character Obirin meta gives us a way to name and understand God without alienating ourselves 
from God or preferring to go and tap our afternoon palm-wine, like Okonkwo (a character in the novel by Achebe).  
Theologically, that is, talking aobut God, it would not be out of place to think of God using the symbol of Obirin meta. 
What would this kind of God look like? Not a majestic high God enrobed in terrifying inapproachable light. 
Rather, Obirin meta allows us to form the idea and open up to the experience of a God who combines many sides, 
many personalities, many realities, many relationships, and many qualities at the same time 
and as the one the same God.  Another way of putting it is to say that Obirin meta symbolizes 
the abundant and radical open-endedness of God in God's self and in our encouter with God."

---

Preachers tie themselves into knots trying to explain what all this means. Some explain that the Trinity 
is like a three-leaf clover. Others point to H20 in its three incarnations as water, ice, and steam. 
One Trinity Sunday I found a lumpy envelope on the hood of my car. Inside was a Three Musketeers 
candy bar with a note that read, "All for one and one for three! Happy Trinity!" All I know for sure 
is that if human beings are created in the image of God, then a) God is wonderfully diverse, 
and b) we are more alike than we think.

Meanwhile, I do not know why we hold ourselves responsible for explaining things that cannot be explained. 
Perhaps the most faithful sermon on the Trinity is one that sniffs around the edges of the mystery, 
hunting for something closer to an experience than an understanding. What, for instance, 
is the sound of three hands clapping?

(by Barbara Brown Taylor)

---

When we as preacher employ Trinitarian ways of speaking, speaking of God in all three persons, 
we enrich the ways people have of relating to God. So for instance in relation to our John 3 text, 
we could say something like the following in a sermon: "Just as God was at work 
when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and healed those bitten, 
God is at work today in Christ through the Holy Spirit. On this day Christ says to you from the cross, 
“I take the sin out of the soul, the venom out of the snake-bite, the toxin out of the sting, 
the poison out of the remarks, the anxiety out of the confusion, the anger out of the heartache, 
the bitterness out of disappointment, the contamination out of the relationship, the fear out of faith, 
the greed out of the greedy, the hunger out of the hungry, the need out of the needy, and the mortality out of death itself.”

---

Some folks defend their own difficulty with Christianity in terms of the Bible not mentioning the Trinity. 
True, the Bible does not use the word Trinity. Neither does the Apostle's Creed, though its both its structure 
and confession is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Rather what we find in the Bible are ample references 
to each person of the Trinity. Among the most common textual references to the Trinity, 
dating back not least to the Second Helvetic Confession of 1561, are Luke 1:35, "The Holy Spirit 
will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born 
will be holy; he will be called Son of God"; Matthew 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and John 15:26, 
"When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth 
who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf".

---

The Trinity is a difficult topic on which to preach, in part because it may seem to respond 
to no felt need on the part of the congregation. The preacher can be seen to be scratching a spot 
that is not itchy. Instead of addressing a felt need, preachers might speak about the Trinity 
because the people "need to know" certain things about the Christian faith. However a felt need is here, 
if we listen to our people. They express a need to know God, to know that God cares, to know that God 
is not a mere voyeur of human pain but actually is involved in human affairs, and that what we see around us 
is not all there is. Any one of these can be the basis for speaking of Trinity, and can help transform 
what might be a dull lecture into what is experienced as a vibrant and relevant Word of God.

---

While we Western Christians tend to describe the
Trinity using a triangular model, the Eastern Orthodox
folks use a circle.  Icons often show the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit sharing a meal around a table.

The term they use is perichoresis, which literally means
"dancing around," reflecting the image of Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost as three dancers, holding hands and
dancing in mutual joy, mutual service, mutual love.
They live with, in and through each other, in an intimacy which we cannot begin to describe without
using inadequate words, or begin to understand, without faith and belief, and, indeed, with that
Community dwelling within us in the person of the Holy Spirit. 
The Spirit, like God and Jesus, does not operate
independently from the other two persons, nor does
she exist apart from the other two persons. 
It is, as I often say in my prayers, a Holy Community.

---

The story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, a great philosopher and theologian who wanted so much 
to understand the doctrine of the Trinity and to be able to explain it logically. One day as he was walking 
along the sea shore and reflecting on this, he suddenly saw a little child all alone on the shore. 
The child made a whole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup, came and poured it 
into the hole she had made in the sand. Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came 
and poured it into the hole. Augustine went up to her and said, "Little child, what are doing?" 
and she replied, "I am trying to empty the sea into this hole." "How do you think," Augustine asked her, 
"that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?" To which she replied, 
"And you, how do you suppose that with this your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?" 
With that the child disappeared.

---

 

God of second chances, who is patient with our confusion and who leads jus into greater understanding 
if only we have ears to hear and souls willing to search, grant that we may be born anew each day into hope, 
born anew each day into joy, born anew into your realm. When we become legalistic in our living, 
teach us the language of forgiveness. When we become concrete in our thinking, lift us into the ways of your Spirit. 
When we become stuck in religious patterns that lead us away from you, bring us back to living faith. 
May your grace become the context of our days. Amen. 

(by Sarah M. Foulger)

---

 

St. Augustine, one of the most astute thinkers the Christian Church has ever produced, 
was walking along the seashore one day while pondering the doctrine of the Trinity - 
Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. He seemed to hear a voice saying, "Pick up one of the large sea shells 
there by the shore." So he picked it up. Then the voice said, "Now pour the ocean into the shell." 
And he said, "Lord, I can't do that." And the voice answered, "Of course not. In the same way, 
how can your small, finite mind ever hold and understand the mystery of the eternal, infinite, triune God?" 

Many Christian churches will be celebrating today the doctrine of the Trinity. It is one of the most prized truths 
of the Christian faith. "God in three persons, blessed Trinity...."

(by King Duncan from Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com)

---

 

One rainy Sunday afternoon, a little boy was bored and his father was sleepy. 
The father decided to create an activity to keep the kid busy. So, he found in the morning newspaper 
a large map of the world. He took scissors and cut it into a good many irregular shapes like a jigsaw puzzle. 
Then he said to his son, "See if you can put this puzzle together. And don't disturb me until you're finished." 
He turned over on the couch, thinking this would occupy the boy for at least an hour. To his amazement, 
the boy was tapping his shoulder ten minutes later telling him that the job was done. The father saw 
that every piece of the map had been fitted together perfectly. "How did you do that?" he asked. 
"It was easy, Dad. There was a picture of a man on the other side. When I got him together right, 
the world was right." 

A person's world can never be right until the person is right, and that requires the miracle of new birth. 
Don't you dare stop asking God for the experience of new birth until you can shout from the housetops, 
"Through Jesus Christ, God has fundamentally changed my life!" 

(by Bill Bouknight from Collected Sermons, www.eSermons.com)

---

 
After his grandfather’s death, Donald Hall, once the poet laureate of New Hampshire, 
went into his grandfather’s attic and found many, many boxes, one of which was filled 
with short pieces of string. The box was marked in an old hand: STRING TOO SHORT TO BE SAVED. 
He was astonished. The box of string had caught him completely off-guard. And from his off-guardedness 
and unguardedness, he was able to write a beautiful poem. 

The poem states the obvious: his grandfather had saved the string that was too short to be saved. 
If you have ever felt like you were a string too short to be saved, you can begin to come to know 
what it means to be accepted by God, in Jesus Christ. 

God will save us all in a great attic. Nothing is ever lost to God. Nothing. Not a single dead child. 
Not a single person who dies in a traffic accident. Not a single person who drowns in the floods of a hurricane. 
Not a single woman who dies of breast cancer. Not a single homeless person. Not an estranged spouse. 
Not a wayward child. No one is lost to God. 

We will each appear too short to be saved many, many times in our lives. And God will still save us.
 
(Author Unknown)

---

 
A number of years ago, I read a newspaper account of a speech given by the president of a well-known university 
to a group of influential businessmen and civic leaders. The president told of a recent experience which he, 
his audience, and the newspaper reporter found humorous. The president was shopping during the Christmas season 
and happened to pass by a Salvation Army volunteer, standing by a “donation kettle” and ringing a bell. 
As he paused to make a donation, the woman volunteer asked this educator: “Sir, are you saved?” 
When he replied that he supposed he was, she was not satisfied, so she pursued the matter further: 
“I mean, have you ever given your full life to the Lord?” At this point, the president told his audience, 
he thought he should enlighten this persistent woman concerning his identity: “I am the president 
of such and such university, and as such, I am also president of its school of theology.” 
The lady considered his response for a moment, and then replied, “It doesn’t matter wherever you’ve been, 
or whatever you are, you can still be saved.” 

The most tragic part of this incident is that both the seminary president and his audience actually thought 
his story was amusing. One can imagine that if Nicodemus had been confronted by this Salvation Army volunteer, 
he would have thought — and said — just about the same thing as the university president. 
Nicodemus is the “cream of the Jewish crop.” One dare not dream of having life any better than he has it. 
He is a Jew, a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin (the highest legal, legislative and judicial body of the Jews), 
and a highly respected teacher of the Old Testament Scriptures. Can you imagine being Nicodemus 
and having Jesus tell you that all of this is not enough to get you into the kingdom of God? 
Yet this is precisely what Jesus tells Nicodemus. If a man like Nicodemus is not good enough for the kingdom of God, 
then who is? 

(by Robert Deffinbaugh from Jesus and Nicodemus)

---

 
First, we can say of Nicodemus he was a religious man. He clearly knew the Decalogue by heart 
and the Torah by memorization. In John's Gospel he is referred to not just as teacher but "the teacher", 
pointing to his religious pre-eminence. If anyone knew the truth about God and God's people, 
surely it would be this man. Yet, for all of his religiosity. Nicodemus was not a fulfilled man. 
There was an emptiness within him that religion had not filled. Master, I know all of the commandments, 
but there is something missing. 

It is possible to be a religious person and still miss the thrust of God's Word. Many years ago all of America 
watched as Alex Haley's Roots came to the television screen. There was one character that to me 
was particularly memorable. Ed Asner played the role of the old captain on a slave ship. He was a religious man. 
Each night he would close his door and read his Bible. The first night on the return trip 
some of the crew sent him a young slave girl to his cabin. He is incredulous and sends her away. 
On the following night they sent her again, and now he no longer yells how dare you. On another night, 
as he reads his Bible he hears the cries of the suffering on deck so he closes his door 
so he can continue reading his Bible. 

It is possible to be a religious person and be an unfulfilled person. A person without a cause. 
A person without a heart. "Master, I have kept all of the rules and forms and rituals of our faith, 
but something is missing. Tell me what else I must do to fill this void. 

(by Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com)

---

 
I remember growing up in the South, in cotton country, in the summer, before air conditioning 
became something almost every home had. Several of those summers I spent working on my uncle's cotton farm, 
down in the Mississippi delta, just outside of my birthplace, Cleveland, Mississippi. It was hot work, 
hard work, bringing in a cotton crop. It still is, but technology has made it a lot easier than it was back then.

When the crop had been tended for another day, the weeds chopped from between the cotton plants, 
in the evening everyone would gather on the front porch. We would rock and talk and laugh in a futile attempt 
to escape the ever-present heat and humidity. And sometimes, on a really good day, 
the leaves of the trees would begin to rustle. And the conversation would die down, 
and everyone would just sit back and enjoy the summer breeze, the gift of the breeze. 
We didn't know where it came from. We didn't know where it was going. But we knew it was there, 
because we could feel it.

You know what it's like to come in here on one of those Sundays when you didn't really want to be here, 
when your mind was somewhere else, and to be honest about it, maybe your heart was somewhere else, too. 
Then, during the worship service, in the hymns, or the prayers, or the communion service, or even in the sermon, 
something gets hold of you, some mysterious force that somehow lifts a burden from your shoulders, 
or helps you understand something that had been puzzling you. And your step is a little lighter 
when you leave than it was when you walked in. Now what was that? What brought that about? 
I don't know. Or maybe I do know, but I just don't understand.

(by Johnny Dean from The More I Understand, the Less I Know)

---

 
Life is unpredictable. Full of surprises. Often enjoyable. Usually endurable. Most all of them accidental. 
But here and there, providential. That's because God, too, is full of surprises. Ellsworth Kalas 
(one of the geniuses behind the Disciple Bible Study movement), writes: "I have lived in the world of religion 
since before I was born, and in this long period of observation (seventy years and counting), 
I have learned two things for sure. First, you can't box God in. And second, we are always trying to do so."
 
(by William A. Ritter from Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com)

---

 
Charles Shultz, creator and author of the Peanuts cartoon characters often conveys a Christian message 
in his comic strips. In one strip he conveys through Charlie Brown the need we have to be loved 
and through Lucy our inability to love one another. 
Charlie Brown and Lucy are leaning over the proverbial fence speaking to one another: 
CB: All it would take to make me happy is to have someone say he likes me. 
Lucy: Are you sure? 
CB: Of course I'm sure! 
Lucy: You mean you'd be happy if someone merely said he or she likes you? Do you mean to tell me 
that someone has it within his or her power to make you happy merely by doing such a simple thing? 
CB: Yes! That's exactly what I mean! 
Lucy: Well, I don't think that's asking too much. I really don't. [Now standing face to face, Lucy asks one more time] 
But you're sure now? All you want is to have someone say, "I like you, Charlie Brown," and then you'll be happy? 
CB: And then I'll be happy! 
Lucy: I can't do it! 
What Lucy can not do, sinful as she is, God does. What Charlie Brown needs, lost and alone as he is, God supplies. 
God loves you and is telling you today, "He loves you!" "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." 

(by Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com)

---

All religions that I have ever known or can ever imagine are trinitarian in structure. And I use this term very deliberately 
for this is how I understand the Christian Trinity. There is, first of all, that ultimate referent known in supreme metaphors 
as power, person, state, or order, as nature, goddess or god, nirvana, or way. There is, next, some material manifestation, 
some person, place, or thing, some individual or collectivity, some cave or shrine, or temple, some clearing in the forest 
or tree in the desert where that ultimate referent is met and experienced. There is, finally, at least one faithful believer 
to begin with and eventually more to end with. But since there are always non-believers as well, some prior affinity 
must exist, as it were, between believer, referent, and manifestation. The spirit of referent and manifestation must already 
be present to the believer else why does one accept belief and another refuse it. There is always, in other words, 
a trintarian loop involved. For me, therefore, all faith and all religion, not just my own Christianity, is trinitarian in nature.

(by John Dominic Crossan from Who Killed Jesus, p. 215)

---

The Trinity is a unity of a special kind. It is a unity that is sought by humans in their community with each other. 
It is anticipated and foreshadowed in their love towards one another. It is experienced in the ecstasy of joy
and gratitude and in moments of mystical unity." "God wills to recognise and reflect the Divine Self in human community"

(by Jurgen Moltmann)

---

John Tennant, a contemporary of Jonathan Edwards, and who died faithfully preaching the gospel 
when he was twenty-five, identified eleven evidences of the regenerating work of the Spirit. 
I will adapt these for our attention [edits in brackets].

The understanding is renewed...a light from on high shines into it, whereby its natural darkness 
is in some measure dissipated, so that it [has] new apprehension of things.

He has a new assent, his understanding being enlightened to perceive the precious truths of Christ; 
he assents to them with a kind of [full certainty], in a lively, sensible manner.

His judgment is changed.

His estimate of things is changed.

His purposes are changed, he has vastly different designs from those he was [accustomed] to entertain 
and indulge before his new birth...In short, his purposes were for sin and self, but now they are for God 
and his soul, now he strives as much daily to get his heart and affections deadened to the world, 
as he did before to secure and advance his interest in it.

His reasonings are changed.

The will is changed. It has got a new bias and centre of its actings...He aims at God's glory in all his actions universally, 
and singly, the inclinations of his will bend toward God freely from an inward and powerful principle of life...
Furthermore, his will has new enjoyments.

The affections of the soul are changed.

The conscience is changed...now, when the soul feels the regenerating influences of the Holy Spirit, 
what a tender sense fills the renewed conscience! For what small things it will smite, 
rebuke and check the sinner! How strongly will it bind to duty, and bar against sin!

The memory; now is more apt to embrace and retain divine things than formerly.

Their conversation is changed. They were [accustomed] to be like moles groveling in the earth, 
now their mind and conversation are in heaven [Tennant, 275-285].

(by Phil Newton from Does 'Must' Really Mean Must?)

---

You can analyze, even over-analyze sailing, by breaking it down into the scientific principles involved. 
You can study the Beaufort scale of wind speed, the principle of lift which pulls the boat through the water 
rather than pushing it, the many kinds and purposes of knots, the charts with all their legends and hieroglyphics, 
and the intricacies of sail trim. All of those can make you a better sailor, but it's for nothing 
if you can't merely experience the joy and mystery of the wind on your face and your sail. 
Sailing can't be explained by the scientific principles behind it. It's a mystery. 
It was just this kind of mystery that Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus in John 3.

(by Mickey Anders from Windbourne)

---

I once read something called "Deal's First Law of Sailing." It goes something like this: "The amount of wind will vary inversely with the number and experience of the people you have on board the sailboat." And the second law is like unto it: "No matter how strong the breeze when you leave the dock, once you have reached the farthest point from the port from which you started, the wind will die."

Those who have the hobby of sailing can attest to the validity of these "laws." In fact, the art of sailing is a good analogy for the receiving of God's grace. While sitting in a sailboat, have you ever tried to make the wind blow? It cannot be done. Neither can you, by your own efforts, cause God's grace to come upon you. While sailing, you are entirely at the mercy of the wind (along with your skill at capturing it). You may capture the wind in your sails for a time, but it can disappear suddenly, leaving you stranded in the middle of the lake, and, if you do not have a motor, too embarrassed to ask for a tow. Sailing is a humbling experience. You may use the wind to take you where you want to go for a time, but it can shift directions without warning. Sailing makes you aware of your dependency.

That's Jesus' message in John, Chapter Three. You cannot capture the grace of God, you can only receive it. God's Spirit moves where He wills, and the birth from above is just that: from above. It is the work of God's Spirit within us, not something we do for ourselves.

(by Donald B. Strobe, www.Sermons.com)

---