(Using the print feature in your browser will print the sermon without the navigation menu on the left.)
Nicodemus was lost. He did not know what to think of Jesus. Obviously, he would have been criticized and persecuted by his fellow Pharisees for openly speaking to Jesus. So, he came to Jesus in the dead of night. His language is not full of faith. He is literally and figuratively in the dark. “Rabbi,” he says, “we have known that from God you have come as a teacher.” A teacher, a systematician. Someone who teaches a system, a way of living or believing. But one of many. “A” teacher. That's how Nicodemus and the Pharisees thought of Jesus. “Because no one is able to perform these signs which you are doing unless God might be with him.”
God might be with Him. You might be a prophet, a great preacher, a great teacher. No more, no less. Jesus becomes just a good fellow, a godly man, a great teacher, someone on God's team, someone to help you though the here and now, one among many choices in history. But note that Nicodemus fails to see that Jesus is not just “from God” or “with God”. He is God. The eternal Son of the Father. Only through the Son of God and Son of Man is there light and life. Nicodemus and the Pharisees were in the dark as to the identity and work of the true God, even though enough was revealed to them in Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets.
They are not the only ones in the dark. I followed the television show “Lost” for the last six years. The characters on the show were miraculous survivors of an airline crash on a deserted tropical island. The crash survivors all had problems in their past, and the show seemed to be about how the survivors worked to overcome their past sins and hurts, becoming better people on the island for the sake of helping each other survive their predicament.
I was thinking that the island they were trapped on was a depiction of hell, because they never could leave, and the worst possible circumstance always happened to the characters you liked on the show. Of those characters who did good things and made good choices, not one was ever saved. There was no grace. Good people were always killed off or disappeared on the show. Other good people on the show were only left to suffer some more until they, too, received the same fate.
But, upon watching the finale of the show this past week, we found out that the creators of the show were actually depicting the false doctrine of purgatory. The survivors, it turns out, had not survived after all. They were all killed in the initial plane crash. All along, the makers of the show let us find out, the show was about how these people were earning their way into heaven in a middle world, a second chance world, or what I as a theologian would call “purgatory” where these people were being purged of their previous mistakes and hang–ups in life.
When the characters on the show died on the island, they came out of a dark, dreary night, like Nicodemus, but not to the presence of Jesus Himself. They all met up in a well lit church and the presence of their friends from the island and the plane crash. But of course, it was clear, they had all earned their way in. They had done enough good things to overcome past foibles and sins and mistakes. One character, who had not overcome his past evil deeds, remained outside in the dark of the purgatory and did not enter the church. But the characters who had done enough good were escorted out the back door of the church into a bright light. End of show.
On one of the windows of the church that no one could miss were symbols of all six major world religions. The producers were telling viewers: salvation is attainable on your own, no matter what god you believe in, because you'll get a second chance in purgatory to make things right and be purged of your past sins.
What a colossal waste of time. A Lutheran pastor was duped into watching a show about purgatory — and a universalist purgatory at that. I'm disappointed but not surprised. “Lost” is aptly named. It was an example of the darkness of this world, how lost people truly are. Sin and the devil tell people through our culture that they can save themselves, and that they will get multiple chances to make things right, and that it does not matter if you know the one true God or recognize Him. There are many paths to the same heaven.
This was Nicodemus' problem and the Pharisees' problem: they believed there was a path to follow to climb one's self up to heaven. They believed that God was their teacher, their grand Rabbi in the sky, who gave them a system by which they could save themselves. They did not see the true God revealing Himself in Jesus Christ, coming down to save them.
Jesus has the darkness of this world pegged. He said to Nicodemus, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19–20)
This darkness shows in our lives. It is more comfortable for sinners to remain in the dark. The sinful flesh we have all inherited from our first parents hangs on and tempts you and causes you to choose to stay in the dark, to stay lost, to stay outside the Church. You and I will regularly decide to follow our own idol gods, to try to save ourselves from our sin and from death, instead of turning to the light of Christ.
Don't believe me? How many of your fellow Christians could be here right now but are not, and how many times have you skipped being here when you should have otherwise been here to receive God's gifts given freely in His Son? To not be here at the Divine Service is to deny that the Triune God is working through His Word and Sacraments to bless, nourish, forgive, and preserve you.
How many of us are not joyfully and freely giving back to God our first fruits for the sake of the world and our community hearing the Gospel, in church and school? To not joyfully give God our offerings is to deny that all things belong to the Triune God first, that He has given them to us as blessings for the sake of His Kingdom.
How many of you are not regularly taking the opportunity to daily study God's Word at home, or weekly here at church when offered? To not do so is to deny again that the Triune God is at work building saving faith in Christ through His Word for your good.
The darkness is great. All men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All men deserve the wages of sin — death. You fall short. You deserve to die. You are of the darkness, incapable of saving yourself, lost without someone providing light, help, a solution and rescue. And there are no second chances. Brothers, what shall we do?
We heard the answer in last Sunday's Pentecost sermon by Saint Peter: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.” (Acts 2:38–39)
Jesus said the same thing to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, He cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” There, Jesus reveals to us the Trinity, this Trinitarian faith of all times and places that saves us. The Son speaks. The Spirit is cleansing and sanctifying in Baptism. The Father is reconciled to His children in His eternal Kingdom. We must be born from above, by God's grace, of water and the Spirit. By the power of the Spirit, we live baptismal lives in the light of Christ, free of the darkness — lives of repentance and forgiveness.
To shed more light on God's true work in our lives, Jesus also says this: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” Jesus identifies Himself as the eternal Son who was sent by the Father in human flesh, incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. He came for a purpose: to be lifted up for the salvation of those bitten by the serpent of sin. God reveals Himself most clearly on His Cross. Here, the Father lifts up His Son on the cross as the offering for the eternal life of all believers.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”
God the Father sent His Son not come to condemn the world, but to save it. Not to give you a system to strive after, only to measure you up at the end and see you fall short. Not so that you can take a second chance to make things right in some purgatory. No! God came down to save you. And He still does. He comes from above into your life, to give you eternal life with God the Father by giving you the rebirth of water and His Spirit in Baptism. He comes even today as He came to Nicodemus, shedding light on our darkness, enlightening us with His Spirit, rescuing us from sin and devil, gathering us who once were lost unto Himself, putting His own Triune Name upon us, making you one with Him in His Body. This is done in His Body, the Church, where you are baptized, absolved of your sins, fed with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.
God does this despite all the times when we have fallen short of God's holy Law. Despite all the times when we have tried to cling to the darkness of sin. Despite all of the unhappy times. Despite all of the angry moments. Despite all of the disappointments that have come from ourselves and from others. Despite all of the failures to love God and neighbor. These all have been washed away by the blood of the Son of God.
In the catholic faith revealed in the Scriptures, the Triune God reveals Himself to us as the one who loves us, who shows us undeserved, no stings attached, grace and mercy, and so pays the debt for our sin. The Son of God has done good for us, in our place. His story, His accounting concerning His saving deeds, is accounted to us as our story. In Jesus, one with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you will be accounted as having done good, and so, you will enter into eternal life with Him.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
( TOP )