Trinity (John 3)

     “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” From the Gospel according to John, chapter 3, verse 3.

     In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

     In today’s Gospel, Nicodemus and Jesus ask each other questions, Jesus makes puzzling remarks, almost, it seems, to frustrate and confuse Nicodemus, and all of this is meant to lead to a new experience and a new understanding of God. A few centuries later, this new experience came to be called ‘Trinity’, a word created by Tertullian in the early third  century. Leading up to the word, behind the word, as it were, is experience, the experience of Jesus in his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. We are included in that experience. ‘Trinity’ is more than a word or a phrase, a ritual expression in which we bow politely in our ceremonies, is more than a subject in a library catalog pointing the way to rooms full of dusty books of theological speculation and ecclesiastical statements. Rather it is a reminder of who Jesus is, and who we really are. The word points to awareness, awareness of our true nature. Jesus points to our true nature, and his, in today’s Gospel.

     “Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night.” Why “by night?” What does “night” mean here? At the very least, of course, it means actual darkness in the literal sense. And, in an obvious, literal way, Nicodemus is traveling at night to avoid being seen, especially to avoid being seen in the company of Jesus. And nighttime darkness in those days was nearly total. If there were no moon, the only light someone on the roads would have would be the light he was carrying himself, and perhaps the light of the stars. And evidently Nicodemus succeeds; there is no suggestion that anyone has seen him or objected to his travel. 

     But there is another kind of darkness. There is the darkness before Creation, when “darkness was on the face of the deep” in Genesis. There, darkness was full of possibility, the possibility, and then the actuality, of something new coming into being, out of the “deep”, that is, out of the nothingness that precedes the universe. So we may think of the darkness out of which Nicodemus approaches Jesus, as a darkness of possibility, a possibility of something totally new, something that had not been before, some new understanding, some new awareness. Nicodemus represents all those who willingly expose themselves to the danger and possibilities of darkness, in order to encounter something new, something unheard of, something, or someone, divine.

     Nicodemus tells Jesus, and us, who he thinks Jesus is: “a teacher sent from God,” and he gives his reason: “no one can do these signs…apart from the presence of God.” Nicodemus perceives that God is present in Jesus. God, in the person of Jesus, is present in the darkness which Nicodemus willingly entered. The divine darkness is leading to a new understanding of Jesus, which, in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls the “kingdom of God.”

     Jesus confirms Nicodemus’s understanding when he says, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” In other words, Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he is correct in describing him as a “teacher who has come from God.” The rest of the reading is a working out of what that means, since it becomes clear right away that Nicodemus doesn’t grasp the implications of his own understanding. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he, Nicodemus, has indeed seen the kingdom, but Nicodemus hangs up on the phrase, “born from above”. It confuses him, because he doesn’t get past a literal understanding of it, and Jesus has to lead him carefully through a little dodge-and-weave, to get Nicodemus to the point where he can hear a fuller explanation of the meaning of the kingdom, which is really a fuller insight into the nature of God. We have only the main points of the conversation, but there is enough to lead us to a deeper understanding of the kingdom. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he already gets it, but he needs to get past the words “born from above” by experiencing a broader meaning for “born”, a meaning that takes him beyond the facts of human birth, to a new kind of birth beyond the limits of earthly life.

     Jesus says, “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” We remember the “spirit of God hovering over the waters” in Genesis. We remember the Spirit descending on Jesus at his baptism. There is a new kind of birth, a new creation, in the kingdom. The result is a new kind of being, a new kind of person. Jesus describes this new kind of person when he says, “the wind 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.” In other words, there is freedom, mystery, unpredictability in everyone who is born of the Spirit. Freedom, mystery, unpredictability, are signs of the kingdom, and of the nature of God. Jesus himself is that freedom, mystery, and unpredictability, as we all are, in fact. When we recognize them for what they are, we see the kingdom, we see God. That is what it is to be born of water and the Spirit. Nicodemus asks Jesus, “How can these things be?” Jesus came to help Nicodemus see “these things”, to see that he too can be born of water and the Spirit, and Jesus reminds us of this too.

     Spirit, we remember, means breath, life. And water, of course, is life. So to be born into the kingdom is to be born into life, and life itself is the kingdom, because the Spirit, the divine breath, is present in all things.

     And what a life it is. “So must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life”. This is usually taken to be a reference to the Crucifixion, but it is not only that. The Son is “lifted up” by his awareness of the kingdom, and he lifts us up with him. The Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are not remote from us in some divine abode; they are with us, infusing us with their life at every moment. That is the nature, the meaning, of the Trinity. ‘Trinity’ is our word for the life of God, a life in which we participate. ‘Trinity’ is our word for our experience of the kingdom.

      “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

      In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.