Blowin’ in the Wind – John 3:1-17

The Gospel of John is filled with stories that appear no where else in the Scriptures.  They are the ones that seem to fill in a lot of the gaps in the story and are the ones that deal with the deeper theological issues that arose with the coming of God in Christ.

While the presence of the Holy Spirit was something that was ever present in the days before the coming of God in Christ, the prominence of the Spirit does come more to the fore in this time.  Before this, people spoke of the Spirit of God in the same way that we might speak about anyone’s spirit – a way of explaining a person’s manner or temperament. In the Psalms, it would be a way of speaking about the heart of God.  Of course, we need to remember that the Hebrew tradition could speak of different parts to the human person or of God without really seeing any appreciable difference between the parts. No one part could exist without the presence of the others. This is why the resurrection of the body is so critical in the Jewish and Christian tradition.  We cannot truly exist in spiritual form alone. We need to be recreated by God in a way that reflects our first creation. No where does it exactly say what that new creation will look like but we know that it will be a continued union of our body, mind, and spirit.

In our passage today, Jesus speaks with a Pharisee named Nicodemus who comes to him under the cover of night.  This man had witnessed some of the events in Jerusalem when Jesus entered the temple and he had heard Jesus’ words.  Even though Jesus was not popular with the ruling religious bodies, this Pharisee knew that there was more to this man and had a sense that what he was witnessing was something that was beyond the scope of a normal human being. He still did not believe Jesus to be the Messiah or the Son of God but he did recognize that what Jesus was doing would never have been possible except God was with Him.

Nicodemus’ opening words reflect what many in Jerusalem were saying. But what these signs and teachings truly would mean in the life of the people was not yet fully evident. Jesus’ reply, however, seems to come right out of left field. He neither acknowledges nor denies what Nicodemus has said. Instead, he tells him that a person must be born anew if that person is to see the kingdom of God.

The mystery of our future life with God has ever been with us.  To try and wrap our heads around the concept would leave us in as much of a quandary as it did Nicodemus – and maybe that’s the point.    The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus understood that his life with God was as a result of his creation by God and he was a believer in God because he had been born into the faith. For him there was no question about who he was. I am also sure that in his mind his birth as a Jew was enough to ensure that he would see the kingdom of God. But Jesus was speaking to him of a birth through the Spirit of God.

While we can clearly see the first birth, the birth of water which is our birth into this world, the second birth, the birth in the Spirit is harder to detect.  It is not a birth that announces itself well in advance and even when it comes, we can’t always pinpoint the moment when it occurs and yet there is no doubt that it is real to those who by faith accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and see him as the Messiah sent by God to die for their sins and raised to new and eternal life.

And that is the point Jesus is trying to get across to Nicodemus. Everyone is born of water because we are all born into this world but those who accept the gift of new life given through the death and resurrection of the Son will be born of the Spirit of God.  That birth will fill them with a sense that life has begun anew and while they will not physically re-enter their mother’s womb, they will feel that they have been borne from the womb of God, the Holy Spirit – which is commonly referred to in the Old Testament as the female part of God.

And this new birth is a gift of God to all who will receive Jesus not because they are born to this faith, not because they have been faithful adherents to a set of laws or commandments; but because they have heard the words that Jesus speaks in verses 16 and 17 and those words have entered into the deepest part of them and triggered in them a new beginning, one which will no longer be bound by the physical constraints of birth or death, one that will no longer be bound by laws or commandments.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life; for God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him.

Years ago I participated in an ecumenical course which culminated in a baptism for the Holy Spirit. Many of those present received the gift of tongues and were filled with the Holy Spirit.  One senior gentleman from our congregation did not receive the gift of tongues.  While others around were experiencing this gift, it might have been an occasion for him to believe that he had not received the baptism in the Spirit but no, that was not the case.  He said to me,” Even though I did not receive the gift of tongues, for the first time in my life, I feel that I have been baptised.”

The movement of God in our life is a mystery. The moment when that movement comes we may never be able to mark but when it is there, it fills our spirit and our life in a way that no other can.  My prayer is that all of us will experience such a movement of God and whether we can mark that moment in time, let us never forget to mark it as we live our lives in expectation of the coming kingdom of our God. AMEN.