“THE SON OF MAN LIFTS YOU UP”
Saint John 3: 1-15
The Feast of The Holy Trinity: 16 June Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
As my good friend, and eminent local theologian, Fr. Penikis correctly states, the Feast of The Holy Trinity is really the only great festival that is not specifically focused on an event in Christ’s life, but rather on a doctrinal truth that flows from Christ’s teaching.
But it’s still all Jesus!
Paul writes by God the 3rd Person “for in [Christ] dwelleth all the fulness of The Godhead bodily.” [Col. 2.9] The Godhead is the Holy Trinity. God in Three Persons, Holy, Holy, Holy!
What does this mean? It means what The Godhead reveals it to mean in Holy Scripture. That is, it means what Jesus reveals it to mean.
Pharisee was a term which referred to a particular sect of rigorous Jews that flourished in Jesus’ day. It was almost akin to one of our political parties. But it’s actually good that in our own day and age the term has come to mean “hypocrite.” Thus, we can do more than cluck our tongues and wag our fingers at the “evil” Pharisees which “put upon” our Lord. We can have The Law shove its unshielded mirror into our own faces and show us that we are the sinful hypocrites. We are the cowards that, like Peter, pretend we don’t know Jesus, when to admit such a bond, might cast us out of the comfortable zones we like to be found in. We are the ones that love to point out the other guy’s foibles, faults, and yes, SINS, while all the time maintaining our own good works and niceness.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He sat on the Sanhedrin. He came to see Jesus one night because he was afraid others might see him if he had done so during the daylight. But, in his defense, he came to Jesus. That’s more than most do…why even many so-called “Lutherans” don’t come to where The Lord is “for them” as often as they need to. Also, Nicodemus recognized that Jesus was both a great teacher—the presenter of truths—and a great man who did miracles of healing and power! One day he would confess Jesus to be THE TRUTH, to be GOD!
It’s not important what Nicodemus specifically “wanted” from the Nazarene Rabbi. He received the gifts that Jesus wished to bestow upon him.
Jesus is talking Trinitarian baptism for the forgiveness of sins and the regeneration/renewal of new life. Jesus is talking baptism even before He tells the “12” to begin doing so at the end of Matthew’s Gospel—right before The Ascension. There has always been Father, Son, + and Holy Ghost. The clues are all over the Hebrew Bible, from Genesis to Malachi. To constantly quibble that there is no precise “Bible verse” in the Old Testament that establishes the doctrine with the scientific precision that your “old Adam” is demanding, means that you are either a Bible idolater or a Calvinistic Pharisee.
“It is true, it is true,” says The Lord, that unless you are “born again” you cannot see the kingdom of God. Unless you are Baptized in God’s Holy and Triune Name you cannot be saved. Baptism is water comprehended in Christ’s Word—water actually and truly containing Christ and His forgiveness and life. Baptism requires faith, but the faith that it requires is given out in the very WORDS of Baptism. So yes, that little infant as it is being “watered” three + times; Jesus’d (Christed; christened) thrice, is given FAITH by The Holy Ghost to receive The Son in the action and Word itself. He who has the Son has The Father.
Nicodemus didn’t get it. Baptists today, well, almost every American protestant today, doesn’t get it. And your problem, which can become your sin, is that you don’t value, treasure, remember, cherish, and exercise your Holy + Washing the way you should: daily! Daily remember your Baptism. Daily say boldly: I AM BAPTIZED. I am Christ’s! By so doing you will be worshipping The Blessed and Holy Trinity—Whose Name you wear—the exact way God wishes you to.
No, you do not enter your mother’s womb a second time to be born in a purely fleshly way. But you are placed in and taken from the 8-sided womb of Holy Mother Church that you might be cleansed in an even greater Red Sea than the Israelites ever were; (The Blood and Water of Jesus) and placed into the New Testament family of The Father’s children.
The 3rd Person of The Godhead, The Wind of The Trinity, the Holy Ghost, bloweth where He chooses. That is, wherever Christ’s Name, Person, + and Work is proclaimed. Those born of The Word, The Second Person, by the Spirit’s washing in said Word, are made sons and daughters of God The Father.
How can these things be? Really? The Godhead Who creates the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing), Who sends The Son to take on flesh and blood from the Virgin and become Incarnate (Emmanuel), The Christ Who suffers, dies, and comes back to life to give you eternal life in His works of obedience, atonement, forgiveness, and eternal presence in The Word, cannot bring salvation by Water Baptism? Of course HE can, and HE does!
Moses may have ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Law but he did not ascend into heaven. Your Savior descended from The Godhead to be your Lord and God—The God/Man forever and ever. Moses lifted up the “Nehustan” the bronze snake on the pole as a “type,” and a coming attraction, of the only way peace and salvation are won. The Holy Ghost has caused human actors to write the true story of how The Father gave His only-begotten Son—to be lifted up high on Calvary, so that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Ah, Saint Nicodemus. He who once heard from the lips of God the Good Message, would in a few months hence be one to help take down Christ’s precious body…His crucified and dead body, from the Tree. He no doubt kissed with his own mouth that sacred head so wounded. But in three days He beheld The Living Lord once again—The Christ speaking Peace and giving Peace. Join Saint Nicodemus and all The Saints to receive that same Lord.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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