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Posted At: 1:52am by Brent Kuhlman
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Festival of the Holy Trinity Trinity Lutheran Church
11 June 2006 Murdock, NE
+ Jesu Juva +
St. John 3:1-17
Adult Confirmations of Darcy Weston, Julie Ostdiek, and Brad Bornemeier
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” One God. And also three Persons. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Triune God. Three in One. Or One in Three. The Holy Trinity. The Name put on you in your Baptism. And so we’re in “Trinity” Lutheran Church today.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the only true God. There are no others. Darcy, Julie, and Brad will confess their faith in the Triune God today at their confirmations just as they did at their Baptisms.
Ever wonder what the Holy Trinity’s up to? No doubt lounges around in silk pajamas way up there. Lives in His heavenly mansion with many rooms for only Himself to enjoy. After all, God is God. So He roams around way up there and gawks at Himself. Stares at Himself in His bedroom mirrors and says: “Darling, You look marvelous!” He thinks deep thoughts. In depth thoughts only about Himself. About how magnificent He is. Doesn’t need to communicate with anyone. Totally self-absorbed. In love with His glorious self. Enjoys Himself in forevermore bliss. Immovable. Cut Himself off from the world. Set apart from the world’s calamities and miseries. Is that what the Holy Trinity’s up to? Is this the God Darcy, Julie and Brad will confess today? How about you?
If so, then He’s a God who sleeps and snores. He’s like a deadbeat dad who’s drunk, totally polluted, passed out on the floor while the baby fatally falls headlong down the stairs. If your God is like that, then He is most selfish. Lives only for Himself. And then He’s not real. Instead, He’s a God who doesn’t care one bit about Darcy, Julie, Brad and Trinity congregation. What sort of God is this who doesn’t want anything to do with you? Who doesn’t care for you? He is a most miserable and worthless God. Would you want to stand before this kind of God as Judge on the Last Day?
Now if Darcy, Julie, and Brad pull a Nicodemus, this is what they’ll do: climb the beanstalk and peek their heads through the clouds to look for God Giant and His Giant God Fee Fi Fum Kingdom. After all, God’s way up there keeping to Himself. Right? So off you go. Sneak in with Nicodemus to talk with teacher from God Jesus. Maybe Rabbi Jesus can help us get way up there to the pipe smoking Giant God in His Hugh Hefner red silk pajamas with white cuffs. Take a look way up there! Poke your heads through heaven’s clouds. But I have news for you: You won’t find anyone! That’s right, you’ll see nothing! Nobody! Why?
Because God Jesus isn’t way up there! He’s way down here. He lies in a crib and Mary’s lap. Because God Jesus takes on flesh and speaks with Nicodemus in the middle of the night. We don’t go up. He comes all the way down. “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man.” The Holy Spirit is way down here. Really present in the water of Holy Baptism giving new birth into the kingdom of God. “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.”
For our sakes the Holy Trinity comes down to the very depths of our lives. In the mud and mire of our world. Into all our miseries and calamities. So much so that His skin smolders. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.”
Into human flesh Jesus comes. Immanuel. God with us. Why? To die for you. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.” Behold, God! He’s with us in the world. Revealed for all of us to see. Hanging dead on the Cross. For you and for your salvation. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” You’re saved because He’s risen from the dead. Ascended to lord His Kingdom of God death over us in the water of Baptism with His Spirit. He’s in the bread and wine of His Kingdom of God on the earth Supper. He comes into our mouths. Into our hearts. As your Savior.
For you to believe in. “Everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” “That whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
The Holy Trinity lives not for Himself. He lives only for you! The Father has created you. All of His creation is for your benefit. The Son, Jesus Christ, has died for you. All your sin is forgiven. Satan is crushed. Death has been put to death. The Holy Spirit holies you and new births you in the water of Holy Baptism.
What a God! What a Savior! That He cares so much for you to save you in the death of His Son. Not way up there. But right here in our midst. Good Friday’s Calvary. Easter Sunday’s Resurrection. Ascension Day’s Coronation. The day of your Baptism. Today at the pulpit and the altar. And then the same Savior on Judgment Day.
This is the one true God Nicodemus confessed openly when He brought seventy five pounds of myrrh and aloes so that he and Joseph of Arimathea could anoint and then bury God’s dead Body.
This is the way down here God that Darcy, Julie and Brad will confess in a few minutes. What joy! Happy Confirmation Day! In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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