Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Feb 9

9 February 2020

Text: John 3:1-21

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

“You must be born again,” says Jesus.  There are a lot of people who use the term “born-again Christian” to mean that the person is a real Christian, not like the phony ones who live like the heathen.  In this definition, the focus is on the Christian and his external works.  It comes to mean a higher-level of Christianity, a kind of “super-Christian.”  And it is usually accompanied by a strong sense of emotion and zeal.  But is this what Jesus is talking about?

If that’s the meaning, why does Jesus bring up water and the Spirit: “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”?  At this point, Nicodemus, who has come sneaking around at night to talk to Jesus, doesn’t really understand.  It is a mystery.  But Jesus will resolve the mystery after His resurrection when He empowers the apostles to “make disciples” by “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  Disciples are born by the Word, not made by works.  They are born again “by water and the Spirit.”  And Jesus also says: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”  That belief is a component of, and gift of, Holy Baptism.

So being born again isn’t about emotions or being a “super Christian.”  It is about being born again “by water and the Spirit.”  The water is administered to the newly born-again Christian, and the Spirit – which literally means breath – comes from the spoken Word of God administered along with the water: the name of the Holy Trinity.”  The Sacrament gives you a real historical moment of rebirth, a supernatural event in time and space in which your faith lays hold of Jesus.

Dear friends, this frees you from thinking that your salvation depends on your emotions, your zeal, or your achieving a high level of performance as a Christian good-worker.  We do not perform good works to be born again, rather because we are born again, we are empowered to perform good works out of gratitude to God and love of neighbor.  Those who perform good works in order to earn “born-again” status are not doing these works out of love, but rather out of selfishness.

The Lord gave us the sacrament of Holy Baptism as a means of becoming a disciple of Jesus, by being reborn spiritually, and yet in a way that is physical and irrefutable.  Your new birth is as real and irrevocable as the water by which you were washed, as the pictures that were taken, and as the certificate that you were given.  The Sacrament is an expression of the Lord’s re-creative and redemptive love: “For God so loved the world, that He have His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.