THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD

SERMON PREACHED BY FR. TONY NOBLE ON JUNE 11, 2006

John 3:14 "He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man."

Trinity Sunday! And the readings today are almost bizarre. The epistle does refer to three persons whom we know as God the Trinity. But what of today's gospel? John 3 1-16 is a very significant story, concluding with the famous text of John 3:16. Jesus is visited at night by Nicodemus, a leading Jew and a Pharisee. This visit is at night because he doesn't want to lose his reputation as a respected Pharisee.

'Rabbi, we know you are from God.' We are not sure if he is flattering Jesus or just being diplomatic. But Jesus immediately sums him up. "You must be born again." A new start, Nicodemus, is what you need. How? Through Baptism - in the reference of being born of water and of the Spirit. Now Nicodemus was familiar with the baptism of John the Baptist, the baptism of repentance. But Jesus says that a baptism is needed which is different. A spiritual rebirth - and through this rebirth Nicodemus will enter the Kingdom of God. He just won't see it, he will enter it.

In other words, Nicodemus would have to have a personal experience. But he still cannot understand. It was surely too much for someone who was part of the Jewish religious system, a Pharisee? So Jesus speaks plainly. He tells Nicodemus that he is speaking of what he knows and what he has seen. In other words Jesus declares plainly that he is the Son of God who has come down from heaven. And he uses the familiar term from the Old Testament, Son of Man. So Nicodemus realizes he is not talking to just a teacher who comes from God - but the very revelation of Divine Truth. And also, by using the term 'Son of Man', the manifestation of what humanity is meant to be.

Jesus then talks about his death in terms of that mysterious event when Moses made the bronze serpent in the wilderness. When the Jews were in the wilderness and being bitten by snakes, God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and all those looking at it were healed.

That doesn't seem very logical, except that if you were Moses and heard God talking to you form the burning bush you would so anything that God said! So Moses made the bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and the scripture says: 'all who looked upon it were saved.'

In the same way Jesus says he will also be lifted up on a pole for the salvation of the world. The pole that Jesus was lifted up upon dominates every church. It is nothing else but the cross.

Having declared the way he was to die for the salvation of the world, Jesus then makes the wonderful statement we know so well: "God so loved the world."

As I reflected on the gospel I saw an interesting connection with the doctrine of the Trinity. It must have been quite hard for Nicodemus, a faithful Jew, to recognize that Jesus was the Son of God standing before him - the very revelation of the same God whom Moses encountered in the burning bush.

It must have been even harder for Nicodemus to understand all that Jesus was saying about baptism, and the kingdom, and being reborn. In the same way, I'm sure it seems quite hard for people to understand the doctrine of the Trinity - that God is a holy and undivided Trinity, and yet one God who is three persons.

We don't know if Nicodemus did accept that Jesus was the long waited-for Messiah. If Nicodemus did accept that, it would be the first step in believing in the Trinity. He had been raised to believe that God was the Creator, the Lord, just as Moses came across him in the burning bush. Jesus is saying that he comes from the same Yahweh, that he lives in heaven with the God of the Burning Bush. Jesus said to Nicodemus "No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man."

The truth of God can only be declared by the one who comes from heaven. For Nicodemus to accept that you, he would have to accept that God was more than person, The truth of God declared by the one who comes from heaven is seen by all of us in the life of Jesus. Isn't Jesus the one in whom we see the life of heaven set before us in terms that we can fully understand? Isn't he the one in which we see the very life of heaven -the life of God in human form?

So this is the God that Nicodemus encounters, but not in a burning bush. Nicodemus is experiencing the Trinity because he is experiencing the human face of God previously only known in the burning bush and on Mount Sinai. This human face of God tells Nicodemus that he must also experience God as a spiritual presence in his life - what we call the Holy Spirit.

All three experiences of God - the Creator, the Son and the Spirit - must be held together. Otherwise they are just three Gods. That is why we do believe in the Trinity - because we believe that although they are three experiences, three manifestations, they will always be just one God.

Three experiences of God:

v The transcendent God who lives beyond the world as its Creator.

v The human revelation and face of God in this world.

v The ever-present and active God, who is Spirit.

And the three together combine for a true understanding of God.

If God were just Creator - He would be distant, far removed from our affairs, a judging God.

If God were just Son - we would think of God solely in human terms, revealing that "God so loved the world" by what he did.

If God were just Holy Spirit - He would be a God who was just part of nature and conveyed through feelings, a feel-good sort of God.

You will recognize that many in our society, and in the church, actually do believe in only one of those manifestations of God. And often because they only believe in one, they see, no need for a Savior.

No - for an authentic Christian God, what we call the Catholic faith, we need all three.

And we need them united, equal and undivided.

And our experience of the Trinity tells us that there is only one response we can make:

to worship the Trinity. And we worship them in awe and love.