This Sunday I am back at St Gabriel’s Church in Popley, where I just know I will receive a warm welcome. You are welcome to join me at either the 9.15 or 10.30 am service.

If I said to you that I had been visited by Seraphs, the highest ranking angels of all, one of whom had taken a hot coal and placed it against my lips to purge me from my sins, I think you might well be concerned for my well-being. If I explained that it was a vision you might look at me askance, and if I said that actually it was a dream you might just shrug your shoulders, after all we all have strange dreams. If I, as a vicar, then went on to say that it was an important passage in the Bible you might well ask me to explain what on earth was going on, and I’m not sure that I can!

Or, how about, if I told you that I had re-entered the womb in order to be born again, covered in the mucus and membranes of a new born, but fully formed, just as I am? You might think that I had been to some ‘new agey’ retreat centre where I had been encouraged to get in touch with my primal self, in a ritual of self-discovery. You would be within your rights to ask me to explain myself and may even have words with the bishop.

Or if I stood before you this morning and declared that I was ‘undead’, or ‘controlled by a spirit’ I wouldn’t be surprised if you headed for the door.

The thing is, all of the above come directly from the Bible and indeed from the set readings for today. Our faith is not an easy one to understand or to explain at times and yet the message of Jesus is the most simple of all:

God loves you

God loves us so much, that despite the mess we make of things, Jesus came to be with us and to show us the way to love and care for each other, and to be re-united with God. Simple, right? In the words of Hillsong‘s What a Beautiful Name,

You didn’t want heaven without us
So Jesus You brought heaven down
My sin was great Your love was greater
What could separate us now

Brooke Ligertwood and Ben Fielding,

However, it is not easy or simple for us to comprehend the magnificence of heaven, or the awesomeness of God, and so God has to resort to codes and images to help us understand. It’s a bit like that with the Holy Trinity. How could we, the people of God who struggle to follow and worship faithfully the one God in a monotheistic religion, comprehend the Holy Trinity? Where does Jesus fit with Yahweh, and what or who on earth is the Holy Spirit? It’s Trinity Sunday everyone, time for us to delve into the mysterious and inexplicable.

So, Isaiah is a Prophet in the 8thC BC, a respected wise man whose ministry lasts 40 years, and who is advisor to two kings of Judah, Ahaz and Hezekiah, during a time when the country is threatened by neighbouring Assyria. Isaiah speaks of peace in the protection of God, whilst also calling out some of Judah’s political and religious affairs. Being a Prophet isn’t an easy job. It takes humility in a position of power, and confidence in the message that has given to be shared. In today’s rather fantastic passage we see both these features in Isaiah.

Isaiah knows that he is not worthy enough even to stand in God’s presence; in the face of the purity of heaven where there is no sin, no hatred, no judgement of others, Isaiah recognises his own unworthiness, his own impurity. He is not ejected from the heavenly realms, however, rather he is transformed by the Seraph’s strange actions. The heat of the burning coal eradicates the filth from his tongue: no gossip can issue forth from these lips, no slander, or reckless anger. These lips are purged clean and Isaiah is ready to take on the role of speaking on behalf of God. When the voice of the Lord says, ‘Whom shall I send?’ Isaiah, without hesitating, puts his hand up. Our human nature is good, it was fashioned on God’s after all, but it is damaged, marred, polluted. Isaiah has his nature restored by heaven itself.

‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unlcean lips, and I live among people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’

Isaiah 6:5

A man comes to Jesus in the dead of night. Not just any man, Nicodemus is a leader of the Jews, a Pharisee, a member of the Jewish Council, and his fellow leaders are unhappy with Jesus’ teaching; they will plot together to have him removed, they will work together with the Romans to have him accused of blasphemy, and eventually sentenced to the most brutal of deaths. Jesus will be viewed as blasphemous to the Jewish leaders because he is identifying himself as God and there is only one God, he refers to himself as the Son of God and takes on titles which were reserved for Caesar. To be seen communicating with Jesus and treating him with the respect of a rabbi is dangerous for the young leader. Those who followed ‘Messiahs’ and joined in with uprisings would find themselves in the same mortal danger as their leaders. Nicodemus is a man of faith, and yet he dares to consort with one who makes claims that are sacrilegious.

Nicodemus acknowledges the signs and wonders that Jesus has performed as being heavenly. Is he there to get brownie points should Jesus really be ‘the one’ or is he looking for something else from Jesus? Whatever Nicodemus is seeking, Jesus tells him that he needs to do something extraordinary: he needs to be born again.

Being ‘born again’ is a phrase we have become used to . I have heard it used almost as an insult, ‘Oh those born again Christians, they think they know everything.’ I have also heard it used as a badge of honour, ‘Only those who have been born again are proper Christians.’ Neither are kind or particularly true. Yet Jesus does tell Nicodemus that he needs to be born again. He has been born into the Jewish faith and lived his Jewishness to the absolute letter, he hasn’t however lived his life faithfully to God. To do this he needs to be ‘born again’, baptised in the Holy Spirit, connected with God at a level that faithfulness and book learning cannot do. He needs to take a leap of faith and allow himself to go back to basics, back to the beginning before his academic understanding of God became so cultivated. He needs to become new and shiny again, new and vulnerable.

I am reminded of Russel Brand, the infamous celebrity and actor who has suddenly found Jesus, having been baptised by full immersion and making videos of how much this new faith delights him, consumes him. There are doubters, Brand seeks attention and his behaviour has not always been good. Is this just a publicity stunt, after all he has recently been seen with Tarot cards? What is he really looking for? What is Nicodemus really looking for? Jesus’ answer would be the same: don’t just follow me because I am attractive, fascinating, or even challenging; follow me because you want more of the kingdom and are willing to give up everything for it. Nicodemus is not willing (just yet) to do so. His understanding is not ready to conceive that Yahweh might also be Jesus and also that God welcomes a personal response, a relationship; that the Holy Spirit, is also God.

Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.’

John 3:5

Finally, the zombie reference comes courtesy of Paul, and I may have read ahead. Paul speaks often of dying to self and living to Jesus. It is the Spirit alive in him (not possessing him as I may have implied) which makes him ‘undead’. Although it is the nature of humanity to die, it is the nature of God to bring life, it is the nature of the Holy Spirit to create and re-create. Yes, it is in Jesus that we find redemption, and through redemption the purity which Isaiah could only find through the burning coals, however, it is the Holy Spirit which lives within us. The Holy Spirit which Jesus sent to be our helper and comforter and guide, the Holy Spirit which is God living within us.

for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Romans 8:12-17

So, the Holy Trinity, it is Trinity Sunday after all. I won’t try and simplify it to a shamrock, or an egg, or a Twix, or anything else which is one but made of three elements (as fun as they can be). The Trinity is a complicated doctrine to be understood by monotheistic standards. I won’t try to pretend that I understand it either. God Almighty, Yahweh, is God, the creator of the Universe, but Jesus and the Holy Spirit were there too. Jesus, is the ‘Son of God’, yet both were present at the beginning of time, however, Jesus is the member of the Trinity who was chosen, who allowed themselves, to be placed in the womb of a young, daring, faithful, and vulnerable woman. The Holy Spirit, also there at the beginning of time, was only visited individuals at key moments in time for specific reasons, such as implanting Jesus in Mary’s womb, but is now with people of faith all the time: living within us, drawing us closer to Yahweh, cleansing us from the sin that set Isaiah apart from the Seraphs in the vision, cleansing us by the power that Jesus, who died on the cross, manifested when he died.

If the role of the preacher is to simplify and clarify doctrine, then I feel I have failed you this time; if it is to enable you to ask more questions in order to deepen your own faith, then maybe I haven’t done so badly after all. Keep asking those questions and seeking answers.

However, no matter how tricky and complicated and confusing doctrine can be, faith in Jesus is actually quite simple: Jesus loves you, to death and back again.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

John 3:16