John 3:8 (paraphrase of Jesus to Nicodemus conversation) unless someone submits to the original Creation, the wind hovering over the water creation of Genesis, (the visible moved by the invisible), it is not possible to know the Kingdom of God. The wind blows this way and that, you hear it but you have no idea where it comes from or where it is headed. That’s the way it is with everyone that is born from above, by the wind of God, by the Spirit/Breath of God.
I like to think of that quote like this: it’s not possible to experience, interpret, or find the Kingdom of God (Peace and Rest of the New Life) without the God given ability by the Spirit to embrace the Kingdom delivered by Christ Jesus. There is no other Way– He is the Way to enter that Kingdom. Jesus is the interpreter of God’s purpose and plans. Without the Spirit of Christ (Jesus) coming to define and describe those purposes and plans we will not have the ability to see the fullness of His True Kingdom.
Something has always intrigued me about a windy day, either a summer wind or a winter wind. I can’t always say they’re comforting or ‘feeling good’ days. Some are disturbing like tornado days or blizzard winter winds. As a kid I to liked to climb up in a small tree and let the summer rain storm blow and rock the tree back and forth. Well, enjoyed it until I heard the first clap of thunder. Still today I will go out on the front porch and sit on the swing. I like a summer storm come blowing in and watching the clouds roll in on the front of cooler weather. I’m still attracted to the trees swaying and their sound in the side yard near the house.
One of my favorite biblical chapters referencing the wind is found in John 3. So many things are in that chapter that catches my attention. There we learn about the Spirit, about Love, about Eternal Life, about the Kingdom of God, all compacted into just a few Scriptures. In that chapter, Jesus and Nicodemus meet in the middle of the night. That’s significant because Nicodemus was a Jewish Chief Priest and it would not have been wise for a person of such a position to be seen with Jesus in the light of day. (Nick came in darkness just as we all do when first meeting Jesus.) Interestingly, this chief priest did, without hesitation, immediately acknowledge that Jesus was from God the Father, was God’s representative without ever having to be convinced by Jesus.
Early in their conversation, Jesus begins sharing how the Spirit of God is like the wind. ‘The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. (John 3:8) We typically put so much effort into our plans and strategies, but often they rarely work out the way we dreamed, we rarely see things go as exactly as we planned. Sometimes we see our plans crushed and many times we actually see things turn out much better than our plans. A growing trust in the Father’s love opens the door for us to live by the Spirit’s leading. That confidence frees us to respond to the spontaneity of what’s happening around us rather than simply forging ahead with only our plans. The Gospel is a buffer for when things don’t go just as we had expected. Responding can be hard sometimes, but every time (because of having a great confidence in Him) our responses can be freeing, can be a treasure. I’d go so far as to suggest that the plans I made as a young man preparing for my personal ‘journey’, well, those never turned out at all as I had imagined. Trusting in the Gospel will, as promised, set us free to respond every day, to move with the Spirit in a faithful manner, both in the good days and the not so good ones. It’s our choice. As Jesus shared to Nicodemus, the Spirit life sometimes requires us to be moved by the wind rather than responding by simply resisting the unplanned each and every time. As my wife knows only too well, I like change and welcome the gospel mysteries we’ve discovered in those changes over the years.
To me, there’s no such thing as ‘no faith’. Everyone believes something. Everyone has confidence in something. I get a kick out of people that say they have no faith. Even the person that does not believe in the Creator has a faith in a non- creator. For those who have heard the Gospel only two things are possible, you either have Faith in Father/Son/Spirit or you have faith in ‘no God’. I sometimes think, given the order, complexity, and science of this life; it takes more faith to not-believe in God than it takes to believe in God. If you don’t believe in God your faith is sheltered in ‘no God’. Ignoring the complexity, ignoring the invisible, looking the other way is pretty risky in my book. For some people, a science book can be their Bible. Although the biases found in many science books today make those books even more suspect. I don’t know a true Agnostic. Some people claim that but by default. Actually, what they really fall into is that they do believe but they believe in something as simple as: creation’s order was made out of disorder. That takes a lot of faith!
The Greek word for Spirit is defined as breath, literally to blow, and it’s the source of all Life. Adam was the first of that lineage. The first thing we all do is take a breath immediately upon birth. Jason Gray wrote a song, “The Sound of Our Breathing” that identifies each of us say the name of God at that very first moment of our life. The moment we exhale for the first time literally we speak the Biblical name of God.
‘Cause the name of God
Is the sound of our breathing…
In Him, we live and move and have our being
We speak the name as long as we are breathing
Pneuma Hagion is the Greek name for what happens when God’s breath falls on us. Pneuma is the Greek world for blowing. (We get our term pneumatic tire from that word.) Pneuma Hagion is the Holy Spirit of God, which is His Spirit, His gift of Life to us. In Acts 2:2 a rushing mighty wind delivered that upon those present. In Acts it’s referenced as ‘the promise of the Father, power from on high’. We can have confidence in that Spiritual wind/blowing. We may not know how or when but we can find comfort from knowing He’s the breath of Life Giver and He is always present in our lives. Personally, I’m not always fond of some of the things we, as a family of believers, experience in our daily lives, but I’m confident, I’m peaceful, about the Way of God.
We will be tested, challenged by life to ‘labor to believe’. (John 6:29) The first thing that happened to Jesus upon being descended upon by the Holy Spirit was the temptation to not believe. We must trust that He ‘is for us, not against us,’ trust ‘taste and see He is good,’ trust that while we were still sinners ‘God loved us so much that He gave His begotten Son for us,’ trust that He ‘never forsakes us.’ Literally in the original language the emphasis on that ‘never forsakes us’ is appropriately translated: He never, never, never, ever, ever forsakes us.
One of the most freeing things we can experience in this Gospel is trust. I sometimes think we are never really free until we learn to trust. It’s a bit akin to Mr. Shadrach, Mr. Meshach, Mr. Abednego’s confidence in Daniel 3: confidence that He would deliver them. John 8:32 reminds us The Truth will make us free. That ‘free’ word is specific to a manifestation, a verifiable Truth, experienced in our lives. Trusting Him in all things will make us free, freer than we have ever been. There is a Peace that that trusting in Jesus’ Word blesses us, it’s a freedom and peace beyond our understanding.