(Homiletical surgery performed from 2008)
When the sun went down over Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the real learning and application of what went on in the classroom begun. Guys would flock to the dormitory lounge or a nearby watering hole to discuss God’s Word and how it might apply to our future situations as pastors. Some of my classmates thought they had everything figured out. They had all the answers to every possible situation they might face. Others were scared to death of what might happen.
These late night seminary discussions are reminiscent of Jesus, Nicodemus, and their late night doctrinal discussion in John chapter three. Nicodemus is a Pharisee. He knows God’s Word well. Nicodemus says, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. No mortal man can change water into wine. No mortal man is born of a virgin mother. No mortal man can discern the heart and soul as Jesus does.
Jesus quickly gets to why this Pharisee is here: Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Many Bible translations use the phrase “born again”. When we hear “born again”, we think of Baptist revivals and Billy Graham evangelistic meetings. People come forward to the preacher and give their life to Jesus. Their personal testimony of a private salvation event between themselves and God becomes public when they “get themselves baptized”.
Here is the heart of the matter between Jesus and Nicodemus. Being born from above is not a decision. You can no more decide to be born from above as you can decide when you wish to pass through the birth canal. Just as there is much mystery in how human beings are wonderfully made in their mother’s womb, there is much mystery in being born from above.
All this misunderstanding about being born from above stems from a misunderstanding about how the Holy Trinity works. Scholars spend entire lifetimes examining the inner operations of three Persons in one God. We put young children through hours of Biblical instruction before they receive the Lord’s Supper. Most of that instruction focuses on the Holy Trinity: how God the Father created the heavens and the earth by speaking it into being, how God the Son redeemed the fallen world by His death and resurrection, and how God the Holy Spirit keeps the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church with Jesus Christ in the true faith. Yet after months of tireless training, children and adults alike have so many questions. Even pastors and seminary professors throw up their arms and say, “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”
How can these things be? They can be because God says so. It sounds like a non-answer answer, but it’s the answer we’re given not to understand but to believe. The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds begin: I believe, not “I know” or “I comprehend”. Jesus teaches Nicodemus: we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. When we want to comprehend how God works rather than believing God works in the ways He promises to work, we are Nicodemus. Jesus also says No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. It’s not given to us to understand the complete knowledge of all things pertaining to our salvation. When it comes to the Holy Trinity, outside of what is revealed to us in Holy Scripture, we throw up our arms and say, “It’s a mystery.”
Our God saves. Everything the Trinity does is for our own benefit. When we are born from above, the Triune God puts the Divine Name upon us in Holy Baptism. God brands you not with a white-hot branding iron but with cool water. There was water at our first birth from our mother’s amniotic sac. There is water springing from the wells of salvation bringing us into the life of the world to come.
Our God saves. He puts salvation in our mouths under bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper. His True Body and True Blood strengthen our faith and keep us steadfast as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death here and now. In the Communion rite of the Roman Catholic, the priest holds the Body and Blood of Christ before the people and says, “Let us proclaim the mystery of faith.” Maybe there is something to that phrase. We can’t explain how bread and wine are also Christ’s Body and Blood. We believe it. We believe that these Holy Things are for our highest good. We frequently receive these Holy Things because we frequently sin and need the medicine of immortality that cleanses us from all sin.
The Christian faith is a mystery that cannot be solved by Scooby Doo or Sherlock Holmes. It is a mystery that is believed. It is put in our ears, poured over our heads, put in our mouths, and lived before the world. We are wrapped up in this mystery to all eternity because God chose us to be His precious children. How can these things be? Thanks be to God they are.
Media Vita In Morte Sumus 