October 19, 2008 Sermon

John II
John 3:1-21

For the first couple of terms in seminary I feared I might flunk out. I used every technique I knew to keep up: study groups, regular library sessions for reading, going over class notes and making fresh summaries, gallons and gallons of coffee. I even used flash cards to teach myself theological vocabulary. Twenty-three years later if you were to say certain words that appeared on the fronts of those cards I can still recite what it said on their backs. For example: “Sacrament” - “An outward and physical sign of an inward and spiritual reality.”

The Gospel of John, chapter three tells us that a man named Nicodemus approached Jesus under the cover of night. Nicodemus sat on the Jewish High Council. He was a Pharisee. He belonged to the power structure. He had every reason to avoid Jesus, whom many Jewish leaders had labeled a trouble-making threat to their cushy position under their Roman masters. But Nicodemus could not stay away from Jesus. He wondered if perhaps this might not be the Messiah. He said that he recognized nobody could perform miracles like Jesus did without the sponsorship of God.

To which Jesus replied, strangely, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus did not understand. He wondered aloud about the physical impossibility of it all. And besides, he had said nothing about the kingdom of God. Or had he? Jesus amplified, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” With this mention of “water” Jesus referred to baptism, one of the two sacraments he instituted (the other being communion). With the mention of “Spirit” he refers to God’s Holy Spirit. In order to enter the kingdom of God we must experience rebirth through baptism, and rebirth through the Spirit.

As a sacrament, baptism is an outward and physical sign of an inward and spiritual reality. The water of baptism stands for something. It reminds us of, it enacts for us, cleansing. The water of baptism stands for deep cleaning. The water of baptism shows us that God loves us despite our sin. By the death on the cross of the same Jesus who spoke with Nicodemus, God washes away our guilt and takes us into the kingdom. He paid the price for our sin: death. The water of baptism symbolizes life snatched from death.

Dee was born one day before me. Like me, he rooted for the Indiana Hoosiers, the Cincinnati Reds and the Miami Dolphins. When we moved to a small city in Indiana so I could preach in the Presbyterian church there, we hit if off right away. When I hurt a family in the church that was special to both of us, Dee intervened and helped us reconcile. When he started to break up with his girlfriend I—among others—told him in no uncertain terms he needed to stay with her. Some months later, they asked me to perform their wedding.

Just over a year after that they asked me to baptize their baby. Tragically, I had to perform that baptism in his mother's hospital bed with water out of one of those little tan plastic pitchers. Their son was stillborn. There had been no warning. All the vital signs were healthy until delivery. I had walked the three blocks from the church to the hospital in the mid-morning just as I did every morning, completely unaware of the sadness that waited. Now, in seminary they taught me not to perform baptisms for deceased people. As an outward and physical sign of an inward and spiritual reality, you see, baptism did not actually save anybody. God saves—and God made salvation possible thousands of years ago with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Baptism is not necessary, not your ticket into heaven. God has already punched your ticket.

But they taught me a couple of other things in seminary, too. One lesson had to do with how to make pastoral decisions in the pain of the moments that come with life and death. They taught me that if I must err, err on the side of compassion. When a young couple who have just lost their baby ask you to baptize him, what do you do? I believe Jesus would do what I did: call for the water, ask the nurse to guard the door so no interruptions can happen, and perform the sacrament. If the Presbytery Police want to come after me now, let them come. Baptism stands for the love of God that washes us clean from our sin. Baptism stands for the cleansing given us freely by Jesus, who met with Pharisees, reached out to Samaritans, broke God's laws to teach God's truth, and so forth. And baptism brought a little peace to a grieving couple.

Baptism is just a sign. But what a sign! It shows us that when we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior he sees us as clean—though we sin. Being born of the water therefore means receiving the gift of forgiveness. We do nothing to earn that gift, but God offers it all the same. Praise God! Accept the gift. Receive the faith that saves by cleansing us with the power of Christ. Be born of the water. It will bring you peace.

Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born of Spirit as well. We know this refers to the Holy Spirit of God (and of Jesus). But Nicodemus did not appear to understand. Jesus elaborated, “You must be born from above. 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.” Nicodemus had one advantage over us. The Hebrew he and Jesus spoke used the same word for “spirit” and “wind”. Jesus made a play on that word to explain that the Spirit of God behaves like the wind: wild, unpredictable, invisible and yet powerful. We cannot control it. We can only let it blow. To be born of the Spirit means to accept the power of God. It works on us. It works through us. We cannot see it, not with our eyes, but when we accept that it is working its reality becomes a foregone conclusion.

If being born of the water means accepting the cleansing Jesus has accomplished for us, being born of the Spirit means accepting the power of God working in and through us. In my view, this church stands on the edge. We could fall off. We could let the economy and the finances of next year's budget and the new building overwhelm us. We could quail at the task of continuing to work to minister in the name of Jesus. We could lose our faith in the power of God's Holy Spirit to work through us.

Or we could turn again and again to that same Spirit, asking for the faith and the ability to press forward to the future we believe God has in store for this community of faith. I believe God has shown us a vision of what we can do—with God's power, not our own—in the near future. I see homeless people sleeping in our new building when the thermometer outside has plunged below livable. I see young children learning how to worship Jesus. I see adults studying scripture together. I see our youth group growing, bringing more and more teens into contact with what God is doing through their peers, making them want that Spirit working in their lives, too. I see this church giving significant support to local missions, especially by working hands-on in the housing area now that so many of us have sharpened our building skills. I see people who hurt and do not even know why that ache dwells in their guts praising God together in our worship services. Others have seen God calling us to establish a food pantry and to start a men’s ministry.

We have all heard the Good News of the Gospel, which Martin Luther said was summarized in one verse of the Bible: “For so God loved the world he gave His only Son, that everyone who believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.” But many do not know that Jesus went on to link that gift of salvation with faith: “Those who believe are not condemned.” Being born of water and of Spirit means accepting the gift of faith. It means knowing that God loves us though we sin. It means accomplishing works beyond our own power through the power of the Spirit. But it all hinges on faith, on accepting the gift of belief in Jesus. Be born of water and of Spirit. Believe in Jesus as the Son of God.