Wind
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:8
Jesus describes the transforming presence of God to the inquiring Nicodemus using the metaphor of wind. The Hebrew word for wind- ruach- is the same word used in speaking of breath and spirit. Those words are, in fact, interchangeable in the way Jesus is speaking of wind: The breath of God blows where it chooses..; the spirit of God blows where it chooses.
Wind is an apt metaphor for God’s presence. It is ever-present, even when it seems to be still. It is unseen; we know the wind’s presence only by its feel and by the results of its having blown. And it is utterly and completely beyond human control.
January 10, 1975. For ten hours that day, northeast South Dakota was besieged by one of the biggest and most ferocious blizzards on record. We were living at that time in a house given to us to use by an Indian woman who was not able to live there. It was a government-home, as they were known, built cheaply, according to minimal standards. Our new baby, Joshua, was just 3 months old. And for ten hours that day, from early morning until late afternoon, we watched a continuous 60 mph wind blow snow and ice sideways.
The house became colder and colder as the day progressed. We blocked off the side of the house being pummeled by the endless wind by placing a mattress in the doorway to that part of the house and hanging blankets over it and all the other places cold air and snow were blowing in. The rooms on that side of the house all had little snowdrifts in them after several hours of the storm, from snow blowing through crevices in the cheap windows. Later, I found a 50 lb. sack of potatoes I had stored in that part of the house to be frozen and ruined. The house creaked and moaned. The electric lines were down, the long driveway was impassable, and the road that ran in front of the house was impossible to discern. All we could see outside was the white rush of snow slamming into and around the house. It was the only time I’ve ever been in a place where the wind was life-threatening and, indeed, several people did die that weekend, trapped in their cars, or frozen when their roofs blew off- which is exactly what I had spent that day fearing most.
I’ve also stood on hill near that house in the summertime. It was a hill overlooking miles of bluestem prairie grasses, where one could watch the wind blowing those grasses like waves in a brown/green ocean. Native prairie grasses grow three to six feet in height and are anchored by equally long root systems. They have adapted to the winds and flourish in the winds.
Both winds that blow there, winter and summer, form somewhere high over the arctic regions of Canada. In the winter, they rush toward the warm air masses in the South, and in the summer they are pushed, in far gentler manners, by the warmer air forming over the Great Lakes.
Wind is powerful, life-giving, and, at the same time, when humans are in the way of it, living in ways they are inadequately protected from it, destructive. Wind, thus, became the perfect metaphor for Jesus to use in speaking to Nicodemus. Aligning himself with the ruach of God, as Nicodemus was by being near to Jesus, Nicodemus had the opportunity to be given life, to be born from above. Away from the protective haven offered by Christ, Nicodemus could miss the eternal, life-giving opportunity being provided by God’s ruach.
We know that Nicodemus left that encounter with Jesus, undecided and still confused by what he had heard. But we also know that he was one of the men who courageously stepped from the hostile crowd gathered around the dead body of Jesus on the cross and removed that body, lovingly, to a place they had prepared for Jesus to be entombed. Somewhere between that first and second encounter with Jesus, Nicodemus had both experienced and absorbed the breath of God across his life. Perhaps it was during the gentle warm breezes he felt as Jesus spoke during his sermon on the mountain. Perhaps it was during the harsh winds which blew down and across the courtyard of Pilate’s palace as the crowds turned their backs on the Messiah who stood silently in front of them. We don’t know for sure when and how Nicodemus was transformed or where exactly he was born from above.
But, then, as Jesus said, that is not for us to know, is it? It is only for us to be ready to experience it for ourselves, however it may blow over us. It is only for us to live in expectation of it, wherever it may come from. And it is only for us to respond to it, even though we do not know where it may take us.
Jesus describes the transforming presence of God to the inquiring Nicodemus using the metaphor of wind. The Hebrew word for wind- ruach- is the same word used in speaking of breath and spirit. Those words are, in fact, interchangeable in the way Jesus is speaking of wind: The breath of God blows where it chooses..; the spirit of God blows where it chooses.
Wind is an apt metaphor for God’s presence. It is ever-present, even when it seems to be still. It is unseen; we know the wind’s presence only by its feel and by the results of its having blown. And it is utterly and completely beyond human control.
January 10, 1975. For ten hours that day, northeast South Dakota was besieged by one of the biggest and most ferocious blizzards on record. We were living at that time in a house given to us to use by an Indian woman who was not able to live there. It was a government-home, as they were known, built cheaply, according to minimal standards. Our new baby, Joshua, was just 3 months old. And for ten hours that day, from early morning until late afternoon, we watched a continuous 60 mph wind blow snow and ice sideways.
The house became colder and colder as the day progressed. We blocked off the side of the house being pummeled by the endless wind by placing a mattress in the doorway to that part of the house and hanging blankets over it and all the other places cold air and snow were blowing in. The rooms on that side of the house all had little snowdrifts in them after several hours of the storm, from snow blowing through crevices in the cheap windows. Later, I found a 50 lb. sack of potatoes I had stored in that part of the house to be frozen and ruined. The house creaked and moaned. The electric lines were down, the long driveway was impassable, and the road that ran in front of the house was impossible to discern. All we could see outside was the white rush of snow slamming into and around the house. It was the only time I’ve ever been in a place where the wind was life-threatening and, indeed, several people did die that weekend, trapped in their cars, or frozen when their roofs blew off- which is exactly what I had spent that day fearing most.
I’ve also stood on hill near that house in the summertime. It was a hill overlooking miles of bluestem prairie grasses, where one could watch the wind blowing those grasses like waves in a brown/green ocean. Native prairie grasses grow three to six feet in height and are anchored by equally long root systems. They have adapted to the winds and flourish in the winds.
Both winds that blow there, winter and summer, form somewhere high over the arctic regions of Canada. In the winter, they rush toward the warm air masses in the South, and in the summer they are pushed, in far gentler manners, by the warmer air forming over the Great Lakes.
Wind is powerful, life-giving, and, at the same time, when humans are in the way of it, living in ways they are inadequately protected from it, destructive. Wind, thus, became the perfect metaphor for Jesus to use in speaking to Nicodemus. Aligning himself with the ruach of God, as Nicodemus was by being near to Jesus, Nicodemus had the opportunity to be given life, to be born from above. Away from the protective haven offered by Christ, Nicodemus could miss the eternal, life-giving opportunity being provided by God’s ruach.
We know that Nicodemus left that encounter with Jesus, undecided and still confused by what he had heard. But we also know that he was one of the men who courageously stepped from the hostile crowd gathered around the dead body of Jesus on the cross and removed that body, lovingly, to a place they had prepared for Jesus to be entombed. Somewhere between that first and second encounter with Jesus, Nicodemus had both experienced and absorbed the breath of God across his life. Perhaps it was during the gentle warm breezes he felt as Jesus spoke during his sermon on the mountain. Perhaps it was during the harsh winds which blew down and across the courtyard of Pilate’s palace as the crowds turned their backs on the Messiah who stood silently in front of them. We don’t know for sure when and how Nicodemus was transformed or where exactly he was born from above.
But, then, as Jesus said, that is not for us to know, is it? It is only for us to be ready to experience it for ourselves, however it may blow over us. It is only for us to live in expectation of it, wherever it may come from. And it is only for us to respond to it, even though we do not know where it may take us.
posted by D.Barry Weber at 9:17 AM
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