June 18, 2000 Trinity Sunday

John 3:1-17 Romans 8:12-17 Isaiah 6:1-18

While our friends from India travelled around California on business, they left their 11 year-old daughter with us. Curious about my going to church one Sunday morning, she decided to come along. When we returned home, my husband asked her what she thought of the service. "I don't understand why the West Coast isn't included too," she replied. When we inquired what she meant, she added, "You know, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the whole East Coast."

(Ann Spivack in Reader''s Digest)

In the dead of night a Pharisee comes to speak to Jesus, Rabbi to Rabbi. But Nicodemus does not get the hoped for theological discussion about miracles. There is no exchange of learn-ed ideas between two scholars. Something larger, bigger than academic categories of debate has been put on the table. "No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above," Jesus says. But an adult surely cannot be born twice over, asks Nicodemus? Jesus confounds him even further. This is a birth that cannot be done by human activity, ingenuity, or cleverness. It is of the Spirit, it is an activity of God, of a God who cannot be contained in the boxes of theological, scholarly classifications. He is like the wind, which blows seemingly at random.

Wind cannot be held or controlled. You cannot even guess at its origin, or where it is going. It cannot be contained or classified because you can't grab it and hold it and study it under a microscope.

So, Nicodemus, this birth from above is not a re-entry into the womb for a second birth. It is a work of grace, intimate, powerful, full of hope, full of new life. And yet, even disconcertingly, no human agency can manufacture it, no one can say it's the work of his or her hands, or of one's intellect or philosophical reasoning. Most profoundly, it is an act of love, of a love of such proportions that it can only be done by Someone greater and mightier and loftier than any man, woman or child. Out of the majesty and glory of this Being, the tender touch of his love descends deep into the very heart of the beloved's existence. This is God at work, working most intimately, lovingly in our souls yet he is One who is greater than any category we can give him. God cannot be squared away into neat and tidy boxes that we can manage. He cannot be contained by the confines of our limited understanding and experience.

To grasp such a God we can only bow humbly before his self-revelation as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We receive, as historic Christianity has done for centuries, what we learn of him in our Scriptures, reformulated in our Creeds, and known by faith in the life of the disciple and follower of Christ. We are to know him as God - majestic, awesome, holy, beyond us and above us and around us, and, by grace through faith in his Son, in us. This is only as he does it, as he gives of himself, as he comes to us, into the smallness of our existence, and brings to birth and life the tenderness of his life-transforming love. We know this because he loves the world so much that he gave his Son to come amongst us, live with us, minister to us and die amongst us as one of us, yet also as the Son of God raised to new life. Herein lies the revelation of God's heart, open to us to enter in by faith and receive that birth from above that stirs and renews us in a way that nothing we could ever do could ever accomplish.

The majesty reaches out to the earthy; the sublime, if you will, to the ridiculous. God does not remain isolated in his unfathomable holiness, that quality of his character which is like none other, and so completely unattainable by human agency. Because of his mercy, through his heart-rending work on the cross, we are not overcome, not destroyed by the sheer purity of his holiness. The more we grasp this seeming contradiction, the more we are filled with awe of the true character of our God, the more we will be amazed and thus appreciate the wonderful intimacy of his compassionate touch in our lives.

It is not either/or but both /and. Yes, he is a great and awesome God, and he is the God who, in and through his Son Jesus Christ calls our name, who knows us and cares for us and loves us like no-one else can or ever will. And it is by the work of His Holy Spirit that, very directly, into your heart and mine, he pours the love of his heart, the love of God the Father. And miraculously, before such holy grandeur we can rest and be at peace, and know deep within the belly of our souls, the joy of belonging to God as a daughter, as a son, all as his children, members of his family.

His love and care reaches out into our lives. But it doesn't guarantee that he will function according to our ways, and fit into our pre-conception of how he will deal with our needs.

William Willimon, the Chaplain at Duke University, tells of a woman who, with her family had begun to attend his church. Quoting him, he says, "She attended our church when her family vacationed at the coast. She said she had begun attending our church a number of years before because it was the only church on the beach where a black person could feel welcomed. This pleased me. She had had a difficult life and had experienced first hand oppression, tragedy, and hate. One summer she arrived with her family and, when I visited her, she told me the previous year had been tough. Her beloved husband of many years had died a terrible, and painful death. Her only son had been incarcerated after a sleazy banking deal went bad. Now she had taken in her two little grandchildren as her sole responsibility, even though she was now getting on in years.

As I visited her, I felt this overwhelming sense of futility. What would become of her now? How could she hope to overcome her difficulties?

Yet she, expressing faith born no doubt out of years of struggle and pain, said to me, "I know God will make a way for us. I've found that when I've reached out, he'll be there. Not always when I wanted him, but always when I absolutely needed him. He doesn't always come on time, but he always comes. I'll make it, with his help, yes I will."

Without thinking I exclaimed, "How can this be? You've got these two children, huge financial problems, your health isn't great. After all you've been through?"

How can this be? It was my learned, "Tish, tish, old lady. You've got to face facts, be realistic."

But how did I know? How could I be so sure that that woman's calm, confident trust, trust affirmed in so many places in scripture, was stupidity? Maybe she is right. Maybe God's life-giving abilities can't be contained in my little box labelled "POSSIBLE" next to the big one called "IMPOSSIBLE"?

Maybe she is right. The wind blows where it will."

As it did in the life of Isaiah, the wind blew in unexpected ways. Overwhelmed by the holiness and glory of God, he calls out, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" Instant death did not come, but the mercy of God reaches out and sears his forgiveness into Isaiah's soul. Isaiah is moved to the core of his being, leaving him with a willing heart to respond to the Lord's call, "Here am I; send me!" Because of who God is , and because of God's response to his sinfulness, Isaiah is able to surrender his life to a purpose higher than his own. Because Isaiah is able to recognize his shortcoming, his sin, and admit it before God, he is able to receive the gift of life, the gift of God's mercy which, like nothing else becomes the foundation for his response to God and is the motivation for his life of service.

This vision of God is the basis upon which everything else exists, and it gives us the right perspective on all that we are and do. It prevents us from simply carrying on in our own strength and wisdom, doing only the possible. To move forward in the faith, and in our life in Christ, and in the life and ministry of the church, let us capture a fresh vision of God, awesome, holy and mighty, the God of the impossible, so that we can be captured by the mercy and love of God as the foundation of our existence and the motivation for our service. Such a vision will move us to live in him and know that we are his, and stir us to be his church, to serve him and minister in his name, by his power and to his glory, like nothing else will.

Let the cry of our hearts then ring from our lips: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen.