Eucatastrophe From The Trinity

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the third chapter.

Now, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the

Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, How can these things be?

Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and we bear witness of what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.

If I had told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the

Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. This is the gospel of the

Lord. In the name of Jesus, amen. Have you ever heard the term eucatastrophe?

It's a term created by none other than J .R .R. Tolkien. It's a weird term, but I think it has some great theological significance.

A eucatastrophe is this sudden turn of events in a story that ends up in, well, the salvation of the hero.

But it's usually in a way that is completely unexpected, not seen or hoped for at all.

A great example of a eucatastrophe, although I'm going to go outside of the Tolkien canon here for this, would be the very first of the

Star Wars movies. When I was growing up in 1977, Star Wars came out, I actually saw it at the

Grumman's Chinese Theater when I was nine. I think

I had just turned ten. Well, no, no, I was still, I just turned nine. So I saw it at Grumman's Chinese Theater, and I gotta tell you, as a nine -year -old kid watching

Star Wars for the first time, it blew me away. It was an absolute, it was a story that just gripped you, and I didn't know what to call,

I didn't, what do you call the golden robot guy and the little cute robot? We didn't know what, we didn't use terms like C -3PO and R2 -D2 because that hadn't seeped into the culture yet.

But as the story goes, you guys know the story of Star Wars, the evil empire and the Death Star and Darth Vader and all that kind of stuff, right?

But as the story goes, the galactic rebels are trying to fight the empire and destroy that Death Star, which has the ability to destroy an entire planet, and you know how the story goes.

But at the very, near the very end, you have the final scene, at the last battle, you have all these tiny little

X -wing fighters going up against the Death Star, and all they gotta do is, well, go down this trench and then hit an exhaust port the size of a, what, a wombat or something like that?

I don't know how big those things are, but apparently it's not hard if you're driving a T -38, but that's a whole other story.

But so, as it goes, wave after wave of the rebels come down the trench, and they get destroyed by the evil empire through laser fire, and most notably,

Darth Vader. Because Darth Vader, of course, he's in a TIE fighter, and he's got two wingmen protecting him.

He's doing the killing all himself because he's, well, wise in the dark ways of the Force. But our hero,

Luke Skywalker, he goes down the trench in this last of the last waves that can do it.

He loses one of his wingmen immediately, who got hit, and then his other one got destroyed by Darth Vader.

And Darth Vader's about to take the shot and kill Luke Skywalker, and thus perishes the entire rebellion.

And what happens? Out of nowhere, the Millennium Falcon, the

Millennium Falcon shows up. And don't, don't, don't, don't mock me for this, because Han Solo is a jerk, right?

Han Solo, you know what? He's too much like me. He cares about himself. He cares about money.

He cares about saving his own skin. When he had the opportunity to join the fight proper, he took the money that he got for saving

Princess Leia, like some kind of mercenary, and off he went and disappeared. Somehow he had a crisis of conscience, and we don't even see it.

And just as Luke Skywalker is about to be blown away, he fires a shot, takes out one of Darth Vader's wingmen, and his other wingman careens into him.

Darth Vader goes spinning off into space. He takes the shot. The Death Star is destroyed. That's a eucatastrophe, right?

And it's something completely unexpected, a turn that results in good.

But here's the thing. When we confess today that we are by nature sinful and unclean, we have to recognize that when it comes to God, the

Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each and every one of us knows full well we are absolute slimeball criminals who are desperately and horribly condemned by God's law and deserving of no grace from God at all, none whatsoever.

And this idea that God has shown up in human flesh is not exactly good news for rebel sinners unless there's something good to be heard from him, because we all know that we deserve

God's wrath. And so I would note both our Gospel text and our Old Testament text are filled with concepts that kind of fit into this concept of the eucatastrophe.

Let's look at our Gospel text first, if you would. Our Gospel text, again, I always refer to this as the

Nick at Night passage, but I want you to consider a little bit more of the story. Let's dig a little deeper into this narrative, shall we?

Because our text begins, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus. Pharisees.

Are these people who follow the Old Testament religion properly?

Not at all. There are no Pharisees in the Old Testament. We know their history.

They rose up during the intertestamental period, and they are rank heretics. They deny sola scriptura.

They came up with this idea that God on Mount Sinai didn't give Moses one

Torah, you know, like the written one. He gave him two. And the second one was this oral tradition that they were the keepers and guardians of.

Jesus calls down on the Pharisees the harshest of woes in Matthew and says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, your whitewashed tombs.

And you'll note the Pharisees played an instrumental role in the crucifixion of Christ, and we heard in our gospel text over the past couple of weeks that they do not know

God's word at all. If they knew God's word and kept it, they would love

Christ and they would be like Abraham and things like this. So Nicodemus, already you have to sit there and go, this guy isn't sound in his theology.

In fact, neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David, or any of the prophets of the

Old Testament followed the religion of the Pharisees. So much so is that the case that modern

Old Testament scholars today refer to the religion practiced by the prophets and the patriarchs as Yahwehism.

So that it can be distinguished from the Judaism of today, which is the direct descendant of the

Pharisaical religion. So this guy is a bad guy, all right?

If Christ were doing his ministry today, Nicodemus might be, well, a mega church pastor.

He might be somebody like Brian Houston or Phil Pringle or Rick Warren, right?

He's not sound in his theology. He's a twister of God's word. He's very popular among the people so much he's even a ruler of the

Jews. And this man came to Jesus by night. Oh, we're going to slink up to Jesus in the middle of the night.

You don't want to be seen with Jesus during the day. You're going to have to have a conversation with him at night so that the cover of darkness is protecting you from your own other heretics, right?

And I have to ask the question, what did he expect would come of this conversation?

What was his intent? What was his goal? And so he comes to Jesus and he begins with kind of buttering

Jesus up. And do you think for a second Jesus needs you to sit there and tell him how wonderful he is or things like this?

Oh, Jesus, you're the best thing ever, right? And Jesus, oh, it's about time he figured that out, right?

My sinful flesh would probably like a compliment or two like that. But Jesus doesn't need them at all.

So he says, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with them.

Who's this we that you're talking for here, Nicodemus? And so you know that he's from God, really, but you're coming by night rather than being seen with Jesus in the day.

Huh. What's going on here, Nicodemus? So Nicodemus has figured a few things out.

He's kind of sorted out, did the math and go, hmm, I don't know, Jesus might be from God. But in Nicodemus' case, if Jesus is really from God, as he thinks, is that good news for Nicodemus?

No, not at all. And so Jesus like doesn't even play the pleasantries game.

He gets right to the point. And the first thing Jesus says to him is, amen, amen,

I say to you, unless one is born on Othen, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Whoa, slow down there,

Jesus. Let's have a little coffee and some, you know. What do you think about the weather, you know, right?

None of the pleasantries. And then Jesus, you don't know, I did not translate the word again as again.

The Greek word is anothen. Now, the reason why we're going to stick with anothen for a second here is because in Koine Greek, anothen has two potential meanings, flip a coin, it's one or the other.

One could be again, and the other is from above. And I would note exegetically,

Jesus isn't talking about being born again. He's talking about being born from above, which is what it means to be born again, by the way.

But you'll note there's a little bit, I mean, this is Koine Greek, how do they do Hebrew wordplay in Koine Greek, right?

And so he says, unless one is born anothen, I think he's saying from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

And he's looking right at Nicodemus going, dude, you ain't born from above.

You're a rank heretic. And so Nicodemus, he's befuddled by this, and he says, well, how can a man be born when he's old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Yuck, what on earth is going on here?

Is this what Nicodemus expected from this conversation? But is this what

Nicodemus needs from this conversation? It's not what he expected, but it's what he needs.

Well, Jesus is never missing an opportunity to teach even somebody who is believing in a false god.

That's what the Pharisees believed in, who have engaged in a form of idolatry that is actually worse than the pagans because they use the same names that the

Bible uses for God and claim to worship the same God while worshiping a god of their own invention.

If you remember, long ago we put together a sketch called the Build a God Sketch, right?

Some guy goes into a shop in order to build his own deity, and actually it's a woman.

She builds her own deity, and this deity affirms same -sex marriage and would never judge anybody except for evil men and things like this.

And at the end of it, she gets to name her deity. So what's the name of your deity? I think I will name her

Jesus, she says. Idolatry comes in many forms, including forms that use the same language, the same words that we use, but they don't mean the same things.

That's what's going on with the Pharisees. So Jesus here doubles down. Amen, amen,

I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Was Nicodemus baptized by John the Baptist? No, of course not. So Jesus here makes a baptismal reference, and the evangelicals go, no!

And we just go, yeah, that's what it is, just get over it. This is a reference to baptism. Being born of water and the

Spirit, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Are you saying that water baptism is one of the means by which

God causes people to be born from above? Yup, that's what I'm saying, and I say it because Jesus said it.

And so this unbaptized heretic needs to now understand he needs to be baptized.

He needs to be born from above. And then Jesus makes it clear. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.

That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. You have not been born of the

Spirit, Nicodemus, you've been born of the flesh, and you're thinking in fleshly terms. Isn't it interesting that when I said the word anothen, you went immediately to being born again.

You're thinking in fleshly terms there, and the reason why is because you haven't been born from above. Jesus says, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born anothen, from above.

The wind blows where it wishes. You hear it sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Huh. This conversation is definitely not going the way

Nicodemus thought it would. But I would note something here.

This conversation isn't going the way I thought it would either. I deal with heretics on a daily basis.

I consume copious amounts of heresy, and I gotta admit, there's many times when I'm listening to somebody blaspheming our holy

God and twisting up his word that the thing that I see is red and I want

God to smite them. Why isn't Christ smiting this guy? Why isn't he calling woes upon him or destroying him with sulfur and brimstone from heaven?

Why is he talking to him like there's any hope for this fellow to be forgiven of his idolatry?

Nicodemus, his mind is blown, how can these things be? Next part.

Jesus is going to give him a rebuke, and believe me when I tell you, this is a full -on chastisement. Nicodemus asks the question, how can these things be, and Jesus sees the opportunity here and goes, are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don't understand these things?

The implication is, you should. You have no right to be teaching in Israel if you don't understand these things, which means you don't understand the scriptures, do you,

Nicodemus? Amen, amen. I say to you, we speak of what we know.

We bear witness of what we have seen. But you do not receive our testimony, and there it is.

Has Jesus ever spoken a lie? This isn't at the very, very, very beginning of Jesus' ministry.

Jesus has been teaching for a little bit, and they have been hearing him, and you know what? They know full well,

Nicodemus said it with himself, we know that you're from God, then why aren't you accepting the testimony of Jesus? Why aren't you confessing him as the

Messiah? Why are you slinking into the dark to come and visit him and have a conversation with him?

You don't receive our testimony. You're not believing the truth. You're resisting it.

If I had told you earthly things, Jesus said, and you do not believe me, how? How can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

And that's a catechetical question, if I've ever heard one. Third article of the Creed, I believe in the

Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my

Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit. And there it is, how?

How can you believe? How can you believe unless the Spirit gives it to you?

You can't. And there's the crux of the matter. This isn't the conversation

Nicodemus bargained for, but it's the one he needed. And then Jesus says this, no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the

Son of Man. And the implication is this, Jesus is basically saying no one has ever ascended into heaven and come down with the knowledge of what is spoken in heaven except for me.

I come to you. I've descended from heaven. I am here to speak the truth. I'm given words by God the

Father himself that you are commanded by Moses to believe. And if you reject, you will be held accountable.

If you knew the scriptures, you'd know this, Nicodemus. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the

Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. And there it is.

There's the eucatastrophe right there. Jesus makes reference of his own crucifixion.

A few weeks ago, we used this text to talk about being snake bit. And what is Christ saying to Nicodemus?

Oh, poor Nicodemus, you have been bitten by the serpent, the ancient dragon himself, Satan, and his venom is still running through your veins.

Look to me and you will be saved and you will not die. Because as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,

I am going to be lifted up. I am going to be crucified in your place and I am going to die for your blasphemies, your idolatries, and all of your sin,

Nicodemus. Look to me, believe in me, and you will live. And you will live and not only that, you will have eternal life.

Put away the Talmuds, the Mishnas, the tradition of the elders. Look to me. And then he says these words, for God so loved the world.

He what? He loves us?

Have you noticed that the world is going nuts? It's losing its mind.

I don't know if this is the end of the world or just some kind of cycle that happens in human history. The days ahead are going to be bumpy.

But I can already tell you, there are certain people, when I see their names on the news, I roll my eyes and my gut just goes bleh.

I don't like them. Dare I say it, I like borderline hate them.

And I hate the evil that they're promoting and the things that they are doing. But have you stopped to think that this heretic didn't get that from Jesus?

He got the eucatastrophe. God so loved the world.

You, everyone you hate, the people you like, the people you tolerate, they're the harder ones by the way.

He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him,

Jew, Greek, slave, free, rich, poor, Republican, Democrat, whether they be a

Marxist or a Nazi, whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

They will not get what they deserve because Christ got what they deserve for them so that they can be pardoned and forgiven and have life.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, including Nicodemus, including you, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

And did you notice that in this text, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they're all mentioned.

They're there. Christ is a Trinitarian. Could you believe it? Of course he's a Trinitarian.

He's the second person of the Trinity. It's all right there if you just see it. In other words, all three members of the

Trinity love you and do not wish for you to perish. All three members of the

Trinity are involved in your salvation. God sending the Son, the Son bleeding and dying for you, the

Holy Spirit testifying of Christ, convicting of your sin, raising you from the dead, filling you with his spirit in the waters of baptism.

You all have been born from above. Always and again

I hear people when I talk to them and they say, so what do you do for a living? Believe me, the temptation is to say,

I'm a photographer. That would be an easier conversation.

But no, the question comes up and I'll say, I'm a pastor. I haven't been to church in decades.

Why? If I showed up in a church, the lightning would strike the building and God wouldn't be pleased to have me there.

That's what people think. Many of you have sinned enough to know that you felt that way about having a particularly bad week where it felt like the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh got the better of you and licked you 50 ways from Friday.

But don't, don't believe for a second that Christ is here to condemn you. He's not.

He's here to forgive you. He's here to heal you. He's here to assure you of his love, his grace, and his mercy.

You bring your sin, you confess it to him, and you will leave with eternal life in your hands.

That's how rich the love of God is. It truly is a eucatastrophe. Consider our Old Testament text in this regard as well.

This text is hilarious if you just learn how to read it a little slower and kind of think through the details.

Because you'll note that when we read the scriptures, sometimes we get texts that are super compressed, right?

Remember those zip files that you had to use when you used dial -up modems, right? You had to just uncompress them a little bit.

Work with me here. More eucatastrophe. It says this, in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah writes,

I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

When you read the scholars on this, many scholars will argue Isaiah was a priest, and that this probably occurred while he was serving inside of the temple as part of his duty at this time.

And so imagine, if you would, you're just going about your normal business. You're doing what you do on the daily business, right?

There's Dwayne Clevin with 5 ,000 monitors in front of him, monitoring all the things that he monitors, all the numbers and the things like that.

And then, blammo, you're right in the presence of God. How is that any different than somebody dying suddenly?

It isn't, if you think about it. One minute you're going about your business, next thing you're right before Christ. Oh, hello there.

Didn't see that coming, right? So poor Isaiah, he's doing his priestly duties, and next thing you know, all of a sudden, he sees what's really going on.

He sees the throne of God, the one we were reading about in Ezekiel in the opening chapter. He sees the train of God's robe filling the temple, and then this happens.

Above him stood the seraphim. I love the fact that the ESV doesn't translate the word seraphim.

You sit there and go, is that a title? What is that? Well, in Hebrew, the word seraph is just your normal Hebrew word for serpent.

That's what the word is, seraph. If you remember the fiery serpents from Numbers 20, they are the nechashim seraphim, right?

So there's snakes in heaven? Well, there's a little more than that. They have legs and feet, and they have wings.

What do you call a snake with wings and feet? A dragon. And it's from this text that many biblical scholars argue that maybe, just maybe,

Satan is one of the fallen seraphim. He was in the very presence of God. He's described as exceedingly beautiful in the book of Ezekiel, right?

So we know he's a fallen angel. Was he of this type? Maybe, just maybe. And in the book of Revelation, it talks about Satan as both that ancient serpent and the dragon, and it just kind of uses the terms interchangeably.

So in the throne room of God, there are dragons? That's kind of cool. But they're dragons, right?

So the seraphim, they each had six wings. With two, he covered his face. With two, he covered his feet.

And with two, he flew. And one called to another, Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, Yahweh, Sabaoth, holy, holy, holy.

Why three holies? Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And then they declared the whole earth is full of his kavod, of his glory.

And with that proclamation of these dragons singing to each other in the heavenly throne room, the foundations and the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called.

The house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me. I'm lost. I'm a man of unclean lips.

I dwell in the midst of a people of... He's in full panic attack. He's having a PTSD moment. He's triggered, right?

This is a full -on meltdown. And what is he completely aware of? I'm not holy.

I'm sinful, okay? And by the way, remember there's text in the scripture that talk about the fact that the unholy cannot dwell in the presence of the holy

God and that God usually, when the unholy shows up in his presence, laser beams fly out of his eyeballs and they get destroyed, right?

This is how this is supposed to go. And over and again, when I hear charismatics go, you know, last week

I had coffee with an angel and I was up in heaven and Jesus was walking me around and I saw Elvis and stuff.

I sit there and go, you are a liar, okay? Because there's no fear. Always and again, when you read in the scriptures, when human beings who are sinful come into the presence of a holy angel, the first thing the angel has to say is, do not be afraid.

Why? Because the human being is about to wet themselves. That's the reason why.

And so here, poor Isaiah, he is completely undone. He's about to go into the fetal position and start sucking his thumb because he's scared out of his wits.

I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. My eyes have seen the

King, the Lord of hosts. It doesn't get better yet.

What turns out to be the eucatastrophe turns out to be something terrifying if you just put it in slow -mo.

Slow this down for a second. Then one of the seraphim, you know, a dragon flew to me having in his hand a burning coal that he held taken with tongs from the altar.

So one of these dragons swoops down, goes to the altar, takes some tongs, grabs a coal, puts it in his hand and starts flying straight at Isaiah's face.

Tell me what you would do in that circumstance. Ahhh! Right?

There are no words at this point, just sheer knee -knocking panic.

He's going to destroy me with a coal from the altar. But here the eucatastrophe comes in.

And I've got to say this dragon probably said this, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away.

your sin is atoned for." Wait, what? I'm not gonna die?

You didn't, you're not here to kill me? Isn't that what

God is like? He experienced the terror of his sin and in a moment he got to see sin is not freedom, it's slavery.

Sin doesn't make us good, it makes us evil. It makes it so we can't stand in the presence of our

Holy God. But God didn't see fit to destroy

Isaiah. Instead, this wonderful seraphim grabs a coal, burning coal from the altar, and there is only one sacrifice for our sins and that's the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

And what does he do with it? He touches his mouth with it, he touches his lips. What a weird way to atone for somebody's sins.

Hmm, that sounds like something we're gonna do here in a minute, doesn't it? Brothers and sisters, the

Holy Trinity loves you, the Father loves you, the Son loves you, the

Spirit loves you. Christ has bled and died for your sins, he was roasted in the wrath of God on the cross, and now today those burning coals of Christ's body and blood will be hidden under bread and wine when we commune.

And when you hear me say these words to you, take, eat, this is the true body of Christ given into death for the forgiveness of your sins.

Think of it like that, coal touching Isaiah's mouth with the dragon smiling at him and saying, behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, your sin is atoned for.

It's not what we expected. There was no way to foresee this.

We couldn't see it because of the blindness of our sin, but our God is that good, he is that loving, he is that kind, he is that gracious, he is that merciful.

Today we will be confirming three compromise, Benjamin and Seth and Eden, and I cannot give you guys better advice than this.

Life is hard. You are not graduating from Christianity today.

You are graduating into the maturity of the faith as a full communicant member of Christ's body.

And note this, you're young now, and as difficult as you think life is, it's going to be a hundred times worse when you get older.

The temptations that you're going to face, the struggles that you will go through, the suffering that you will experience is worse than anything you can imagine.

This life has good in it for sure, but the good always comes with the other parts.

And in the midst of all of this, if you should stumble and fall, Christ loves you, and he's bled and died for you.

Do not run from church, do not run from the altar, do not run from the absolution, do not run from his word, run to it.

Because the thing you don't expect, the thing you think you're going to get from God is his judgment, but in this life he offers mercy, pardon, and grace.

So note then this, the great eucatastrophe is the crucifixion of Christ.

God loving the world so much that he gives his only begotten Son. I can't think of a more important thing to tell you as you are getting ready to be confirmed than to stay in this faith, keep believing in Jesus, note his kindness.

He didn't give the heretic Nicodemus what he deserved, he gave him forgiveness and mercy and the good news that there is pardon and peace in him.

And so as difficult as this life gets, Christ will never leave you or forsake you, and there is nothing that you're going to do where he's going to sit there and go, nope, well, that was too much.

He will always be ready to receive you in open arms and forgive you of your sins and bind up your wounds, just like he does that for all of us here, week after week,

Sunday after Sunday, year after year. In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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