John 16 12 I have much more to say to you, but right now it would be more than you could understand. 13 The Spirit shows what is true and will come and guide you into the full truth. The Spirit doesn’t speak on his own. He will tell you only what he has heard from me, and he will let you know what is going to happen. 14 The Spirit will bring glory to me by taking my message and telling it to you. 15 Everything the Father has is mine. This is why I have said that the Spirit takes my message and tells it to you.
John can often be a very difficult Gospel to understand, that is why we do not talk about it a lot. But all of John can be summed up by saying God loves us, and all of us who choose to do as Jesus asked us to do – to take care of others and help the poor, the hungry, those who need us – are loved by God.
Everyone is loved by God, but those who do things to help others understand God’s love better than those who only want things for themselves.
John 3 There was a man named Nicodemus who was a Pharisee and a Jewish leader. 2 One night he went to Jesus and said, “Rabbi, we know that God has sent you to teach us. You could not work these miracles, unless God were with you.”
3 Jesus replied, “I tell you for certain that you must be born from above before you can see God’s kingdom!”
4 Nicodemus asked, “How can a grown man ever be born a second time?”
5 Jesus answered:
I tell you for certain that before you can get into God’s kingdom, you must be born not only by water, but by the Spirit. 6 Humans give life to their children. Yet only God’s Spirit can change you into a child of God. 7 Don’t be surprised when I say that you must be born from above. 8 Only God’s Spirit gives new life. The Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants to. You can hear the wind, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 Jesus replied:
How can you be a teacher of Israel and not know these things? 11 I tell you for certain we know what we are talking about because we have seen it ourselves. But none of you will accept what we say. 12 If you don’t believe when I talk to you about things on earth, how can you possibly believe if I talk to you about things in heaven?
13 No one has gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from there. 14 And the Son of Man must be lifted up, just as the metal snake was lifted up by Moses in the desert. 15 Then everyone who has faith in the Son of Man will have eternal life.
16 God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. 17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them!
The Sunday after Pentecost every year is called Trinity Sunday. That is the day we stop to think about how we as Christians understand our relationship with God.
The early Greek Christians wanted to explain everything. The Hebrew Christians were happy with seeing God in social action and including everyone in God’s love, but the Greeks wanted to understand how God existed in the world and how God related to people.
They decided that there were three ways of seeing God: as the parent who created and loved everyone, as Jesus who lived as a person and taught everyone he met, as as the Holy Spirit who was the feeling of love and hope. This was still one God, just experienced in different ways.
John 16 12 I have much more to say to you, but right now it would be more than you could understand. 13 The Spirit shows what is true and will come and guide you into the full truth. The Spirit doesn’t speak on his own. He will tell you only what he has heard from me, and he will let you know what is going to happen. 14 The Spirit will bring glory to me by taking my message and telling it to you. 15 Everything the Father has is mine. This is why I have said that the Spirit takes my message and tells it to you.
When Jesus left, he promised that the Holy Spirit would come to the people. Last week we celebrated the feast of Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit filled the people with so much energy and excitement they felt like they had flames bursting out of their heads.
This week the scripture reading shows how Jesus explained a bit more about the Holy Spirit to his closest followers. The Holy Spirit would speak to their hearts and minds instead of their ears, and explain more about the world God wanted to create. Jesus told his friends that the Holy Spirit would give the same message that Jesus gave, and the same message God gave, because they were all the one God. They were not three different gods.
This is what Christians call The Trinity. It is how we understand that God created us like a parent, AND God came in human form as Jesus, AND came again in the form of the Holy Spirit. We have a relationship with one God who came to us in three different ways because God wants to be important to us.
The Barefoot Evangelist 