Born to be Adopted

The Holy Trinity – May 26, 2024

Isaiah 5:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17

It’s interesting to listen to the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus in our gospel for today. We don’t know for sure why Nicodemus gets this so wrong. Did he have his mind made up about what Jesus was going to say? Was he not listening to Jesus? Or was he so caught up in the present-day world that he was unable to grasp what Jesus was trying to tell him? The answer most likely is all of the above. Jesus was talking about being born of the Holy Spirit (from above) and Nicodemus was thinking about being born again. This same confusion seems to predominate even today. You sometimes see it on billboards that one must be born again. But we need to be careful here since the writer of the Gospel of John has carefully crafted these words, melding what Jesus said to the theology of the Johanine community.

Paul, on the other hand, speaks of adoption. He tells us we were adopted not in order to fall back into the flesh but to be led by the Spirit. In the end, John and Paul are trying to express the same thing – that God, through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, has called us into a personal relationship with God. By talking about being born from above as John, or about adoption as Paul, we are reminded that it is God who initiates this relationship. In fact this has always been true. God is the one who approached God’s people and gave them the covenant. God is the one who called Isaiah and made him worthy by touching a burning coal to his lips.

So many times we forget this and think it is by our own doing that we have become God’s people. It’s easy in today’s world to fall into that thought. We are constantly told this is true about life, that we are what we make of ourselves. That, of course, is a lie. We have been formed by a whole community of people and our station in life is determined more by where we were born and luck than by anything else. Although those who are wealthy or hold powerful positions might tell you differently. There is one thing that is different, you know that Jesus did the difficult work.

We have been made the children of God, cleansed by the water of baptism and filled with the Holy Spirit – a free gift from God. There was nothing that we had to do or even could do to receive this gift. Now, born and adopted by God we get to be God’s people. Do not jump to conclusions here, even though it is a gift, it may not always be easy. Paul reminds us that we still may suffer. We are still in the world but not of it, as Luther would say. When we suffer we do not do it alone. We suffer with the whole body of Christ and together as this community. Because God has made us God’s own, we are able to face the challenges of our daily lives.

On this feast of the Holy Trinity let us reflect upon the God who gave up his only son to die for us so that we may have eternal life. You have been made the children of God by a gift of immeasurable worth – washed in the Waters of Baptism and nourished at this holy table. As a child of God you are made whole in all of your life. Live in the waters of adoption that come from above.