Link for recorded Sunday service,

https://youtu.be/jN1Cg8nnrzg

TRINITY ETERNAL LIFE FOR NOW AND ETERNITY

TRINITY – ETERNAL LIFE FOR NOW AND ETERNITY

We listen to this intimate moment 2,000 years after it took place. That’s incredible, isn’t it?
Initially, I feel kind of annoyed with Nicodemus. He has a position as a Pharisee, he is a
member of the Jewish ruling council. Yet on the face of it, the questions he asks of Jesus
seem so basic, even mocking. Like ‘How can anyone be born when they are old? Surely they
cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’. But the answers that Jesus
gives him are so rich and complex that we realise that Nicodemus’ questions can’t possibly be
stupid.
We are told that this conversation happened by cover of night. Perhaps Nicodemus was too
embarrassed or afraid of what other people would say. If this is the case, he is one of the most
relatable characters in the whole of the Bible. We’re all human, and we don’t like to feel
ignorant, or different from others. Sure, Nicodemus goes to ask his questions at night time out
of fear, but at least he asks them! I can’t count the number of times I have chosen to remain
silent when I wanted to ask a question or know more about something out of fear of
embarrassment. But Nicodemus trusts Jesus to answer his questions, even humbly calling him
Rabbi, despite the controversy that was surrounding Jesus at the time.

We read this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus on the day that we celebrate the
Trinity. The Trinity – our belief that God is one in three persons: God the Father, God the
Son and God the Holy Spirit. It is how God moves, relates, dances and presents Godself in
the world – always through the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Trinity
is an exquisite entanglement that flows back and forth. A demonstration for how we can live
together – different yet all part of the same life. Our relationships with others and the world
around us are tiny examples of the deep entanglements that exist in the world.

And God made these entanglements even deeper, and even more precious, as described in
possibly the most famous thing that Jesus said. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’.
This God – The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the same God whose voice causes whole
landscapes to change, so loved the world that he gave himself for everyone who believes in
Him. The eternal life promised by Jesus in this verse isn’t just for after our material bodies
pass away, but it is to do with the life we live now. This eternal life starts when we are born
again in Jesus, it comes through the presence of the Spirit. And if our spirits and our flesh are
intimately connected from the time of our birth, the eternal life that Jesus offers is made all
the more incredible when it is fully immersed in the mess and entanglements of our world