Points of Clarity (John 3:1-16)

 I must say, it is with special pride that I see Payton, Riley, Katie, and Brady presented here before the Church to be confirmed this Sunday.  As you know, it was during the latter half of their first year of confirmation that the COVID pandemic broke out.  It was this pandemic that presented so profound a disruption to the daily life and rhythm that allows each and every one of us to continue to be formed in the faith. 

During this time the Church has been faced with many decisions.  Whether to worship in person, or through electronic broadcasting.  Whether to hold our social gatherings, bible studies, and faith formation classes, or to place these things on hiatus until such time as “safe conditions” allow for us to gather. 

And so Payton, Riley, Katie, and Brady, you and your families have been presented over the last year with the task of setting priorities.  You have each chosen to gather with your fellow members of the body of Christ to form and confirm your faith.  Every week I had the opportunity to see your consistent devotion to your faith.  We have studied the doctrines of the Church as explained in the Small Catechism, and we have discussed how to confess the core tenets of our faith.  It has been a source of joy and encouragement to me to see your faces week after week as your faith has grown and developed. 

One of the great pleasures I have had is to read your sermon notes.  These have provided a window to me where I can see you interact with God’s Word as it is proclaimed to you.  In these sermon notes you have written those things from the sermons that have made an impression on you personally.  I have read observations like the following:

“No matter what, I know that God loves me.  He ceaselessly cares for me.  Even when I am not thinking of Him, He is thinking of Me.” 

“Jesus’ death saved us from death.” 

“I have hope that Jesus will come back.”

“I know that even though we sin, God calls us saints.”

I have been touched by your words, and I am proud to see you here today as you are confirmed in your faith.    

Confirmation is an ancient rite within the Church.  The purpose of confirmation was to catechize adult converts in the doctrines and teachings of the Christian faith.  And so, the rite of confirmation has always been at its heart, a process of clarification.  The goal has always been to confirm in the believer the object of his or her faith, and the hope that they possess.  The process of catechesis is to instruct the confirmand and bring them to a point of clarity around which their life will revolve. 

It is fitting that we join together to confirm these young men and women today on Trinity Sunday, a liturgical holiday committed to clearly confessing the Christian faith in exacting detail through the recitation of the Athanasian Creed. 

And it is even more fitting that the text of today’s lesson be the passage of John’s Gospel containing perhaps one of the most beloved of all verses in the Bible.  Since the earliest days of the Church, John 3:16 has always been one of the most copied, and most quoted verses in all of scripture due to the sheer clarity in which it proclaims the gospel.  It is this passage on which we meditate today. 

The passage begins with Nicodemus, a member of the ruling council of the Jews, coming to Jesus by night seeking clarification.  “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” 

The implicit question being asked in this statement is, “Who are you and why have you come?” 

Since He came into the world, the world has always attempted to define who Christ is, with varying theories.  Some have said He was a moral teacher in the line of Jewish Rabbis.  Others less disposed to a favorable view of Jesus Christ claim that he is a charlatan or a mad man or worse.   

Nicodemus here suggests the former of those views, that Christ came as a teacher, meant to clarify for the Jewish people the meaning of the Jewish law contained in the Torah, and nothing more. 

To understand why Nicodemus had this view of Christ we have to understand something about the Jewish view of salvation in that day. 

In Jesus’ day many Jews believed that salvation was to be found in the keeping of the Law.  They believed that they were the chosen people and had been privileged to receive God’s laws at the hand of Moses.  To them salvation was worked by carefully observing those laws.  They depended upon their own faithfulness and piety to create a right relationship with God, and they hoped that their works would bring them eternal life. 

In visual terms, Jews like Nicodemus believed that salvation was a process of climbing to God.  Their view of salvation was akin to hiking a mountain trail, and that Jesus came as a coach to cheer us along the way, and to correct us when we stumble along the path.  Incidentally, many people today still hold the same view of Jesus Christ. 

This is the clarification that Nicodemus seeks for Jesus to answer.  Is Jesus THAT teacher who merely comes to help the climber on his journey? 

Seems like a reasonable question, right?

Jesus, however, has a very unexpected answer.  He says that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he has been born again of water and Spirit. 

Nicodemus is justifiably confused by this answer.  How can someone be born again? 

This is precisely the point that Jesus intends to make.  You cannot be born again.  It is just as impossible for man to enter the kingdom by climbing to God as it is to be born again. 

We try to achieve salvation through our own effort and merit, yet the problem is that we stand before God condemned already.  Since the Fall of Man we have been corrupted by sin to such a degree that even our good works are tainted by sin.  They are worthless in the sight of God.  In other words, salvation and eternal life is a climb that is out of our reach. 

Salvation for us is not simply a mountain hike that we can complete with just a little more effort, or a little better teaching.  Rather, there is a vast chasm between us and God that far exceeds our ability to climb. 

It is this view of salvation that Christ seeks to smash so that we can know the way that God has established for us. 

Now that Nicodemus is thoroughly confused and distressed, Jesus addresses the original question:  Who are you and why have you come? 

Jesus answers, “No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.” 

In other words, Jesus didn’t come here to cheer you on your climb to the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus came down from the Father to carry you into the kingdom of God. 

The Jews thought that it was their initiative and effort which would grant them the privilege to enter the kingdom of God.  However, they had completely missed the significance of the promises handed down to them in the Garden of Eden, and through Abraham, and through the prophets. 

After the Fall of Adam and Eve through original sin, God delivered the first inkling of the gospel message given in His curse to the serpent.  God promised that one of the descendants of Eve would come and crush the head of the serpent. 

When Abraham received God’s promise to make him into a great nation, there was a greater promise embedded.  God assured us that through one of Abraham’s seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. 

In Isaiah the prophet we are given the promise that a suffering servant would come, and upon him the sins of all would be placed that we might have atonement with God. 

And in Daniel the prophet we are told of the one like a Son of Man who would come and establish an everlasting kingdom on earth.   

The promise was never that we would climb to heaven.  The blessing from the very beginning, even from the Garden of Eden, was that the Son of God, by whom and through whom all things were created, would descend from heaven Himself and become a flesh and blood man.  He would do so in humility, submitting himself perfectly to the will of the Father.  And when the fullness of time had arrived, the Son of God would be lifted up on the cross that all who look to him might be granted forgiveness of sins, and salvation from the power of sin, death, and the devil. 

Jesus, the Son of God, would become the very expression of God’s great love for us.  And it is here where we receive the perfect clarity of the gospel proclaimed by John.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.” 

Our hope does not lie in ourselves, who fail daily to attain to the perfect holiness of God.  Our hope lies in a champion who has bested our accuser Satan, and has declared victory over sin and death through his death on the cross, and the resurrection at the grave.  The prize he has won for us is forgiveness of sin and eternal life in fellowship with God. 

The answer to the question is that Christ is the Savior.  He came to bring us mercy and to carry us into the kingdom of heaven. 

Confirmands, if you have learned nothing else, learn the answer to Nicodemus’ question:  Who is Christ and why did he come?

The answer:  Christ is the Son of God and he has come to save us from our sin. 

Though others may be confused on who Christ is, the Church is here that the work of salvation in Christ Jesus will be proclaimed with clarity. 

In your Baptism, you were born again, of Spirit and Water, and in accordance with Christ’s Word of promise, forgiveness of sins and eternal life have been given to you. 

At the communion altar you will receive the true body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, crucified for you, that you have the certainty of eternal life with Him in the Kingdom of God. 

When you worship every word of the liturgy and every verse of the hymns will declare to you the comfort that you have in Jesus Christ, that he is your champion and Savior, and that you are His. 

Here in Christ’s Church, you will come to know that though we cannot climb to the Kingdom of Heaven, God has sent his Son to carry you into the Kingdom of God.  May this knowledge of who Christ is bring you comfort and peace that surpasses all human understanding.  Amen.