Sermon for May 30, 2021 Holy Trinity Sunday House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Isaiah 6:1-8; John 3:1-17 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

I was camping with some friends out in the Utah desert at Bryce Canyon National Park--a place as otherworldly as you can find. The canyon is filled with rock formations known as “hoodoos”--spires of rock pointing to the sky, coming in all kinds of shapes and sizes, and in colors from red to brown to orange to white.

In that otherworldly spot of earth, we happened to experience something else otherworldly, because we were there during the park’s annual Astronomy Festival. Bryce Canyon is one of the best places in the world to see the night sky. On a moonless night the stars are so bright and so numerous, you begin to realize that God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah was more magnificent than you ever imagined, that their descendents would be “as numerous as the stars in the sky.”

You stand under those stars, and in the middle of the night feel as if a new day is already dawning because the stars are so bright. The park ranger tells you, “hold out your arm, and put your fingers a pea-width apart, and look up at the sky. In that little speck of the universe there are 10,000 galaxies, and in each galaxy there are 10,000 stars.” It’s simply hard to wrap your mind around it. All you can say is “oh, wow” as you are caught up in wonder and awe at something so mysterious and untouchable.

And that is like the feeling the prophet Isaiah might have felt when he saw a vision of the Lord surrounded by angels. In his vision, these otherworldly angels simply called to one another basically saying “oh, wow”--”Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, the whole earth is full of his glory.”

And then Isaiah, being overwhelmed by God’s holiness, starts to think of his place in the universe and to reflect on his own life, and right away he realizes how inadequate he is to serve a God of such holiness. “Woe is me!” says Isaiah. “I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among people of unclean lips. I don’t deserve it, but even so, I’ve been given this gift of seeing the Lord with my own eyes in all glory and holiness. And here this God is forgiving my guilt and blotting out my sins, and allowing me to start anew and be a messenger of his grace.”

God is holy because God is so completely greater than Isaiah, or you, or me, or anyone else who has ever lived. God is so completely greater than anything we can understand. God’s grace and forgiveness that are available to us when we turn to him come from a place that is deeper than anything we can imagine. All you can say is “Holy, holy, holy” because any other words would simply fall short. And that is one way we experience the one God.

The knowledge and understanding that we have of this one God is the equivalent of going to Lake Michigan and using a cup to take one scoop out of the lake. That’s it; that’s all we can handle. That’s all we get to know, if we’re lucky.

Now juxtapose this vision of Isaiah with the story of Nicodemus, from John’s gospel. Nicodemus came to find Jesus in the middle of the night because he had questions about God--just like we have questions about God. Maybe Nicodemus came at night because the stars were lighting up the night sky, and he was struck by wonder, awe, and praise at the great mystery and majesty of God’s creation. Nicodemus had questions about God and he believed that Jesus was a teacher who had come from God, and who performed signs and wonders that could not be done apart from the presence of God.

The answers Jesus gives Nicodemus leave him more confused, or at least with more questions than he had thought of before. This experience of God through Jesus Christ is still greater than anything we can fully understand; but with Jesus, the holiness, the mystery, the wonder of God is all there right next to you. Not only far away in the heavens, or millions of light years away at the farthest reaches of the universe. But right there with Nicodemus. With Nicodemus, we have in Jesus the presence of a God who is close at hand, who you can talk to, and bring your questions to, and listen for--and from him know a love that comes from a place that is deeper than anything we can imagine. And that is another way we experience the one God.

With Jesus, it’s like that one scoop of water out of Lake Michigan, representing our limited knowledge and understanding of God--this time that one scoop is offered back to us by the holy and mysterious God, and it is enough, because we are able to take a drink and have our thirst be satisfied.

But why? Why would a God who is so holy, and completely beyond our understanding--why would this God come near to us in Jesus Christ? Why would this God accept us with all of our faults and inadequacies, and teach us the way of following Jesus? Why would this God listen to the cares that are heavy upon our hearts? Why would this God welcome our seeking and questing for faith, hope, and mercy in a hard, unforgiving, and often cruel--yet still beautiful--world?

Why? Because God so loved the world. It all comes back to the love of God, an unconditional love that is that is the very foundation of creation; the foundation of the world, and each life within it. And the Spirit of this God of love ties everything together in grace and mercy by moving within us, giving us the faith that lets us be “born from above”. The Spirit of God moves over the face of the earth to bring forth renewal and hope out of loss and despair. The Spirit of God even moves out to the edge of the universe, continually creating more of it, because that is the nature of love--to always reach out, in generosity and goodness.

This one God, whom we as Christians know and experience in different ways as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--one God in three persons--this one God loved the world by giving his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.

As we come before God’s amazing grace, mercy, and love--which is so far beyond us that we can never fully understand it, yet at the same time is so close to us that we don’t have to fully understand--all we can do is be caught up in wonder, awe, and praise as we cry out with all God’s creation: “Holy, holy, holy!” Amen.