The Wind

Holy Trinity Sunday

John 3:1-17

"The Wind"

3:1 ¶ Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

2 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."

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

4 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?"

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

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ’You must be born anew.’

8 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 every one who is born of the Spirit."

9 Nicodemus said to him, "How can this be?"

10 Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?

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

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

13 No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up,

15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

17 For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen

Wind,wind, wind, it is something we feel, something we cannot see, but we can see the affects of it as it blows the trees, as we feel it blow our hair around, as it blows on a hot summer’s day giving us some relief from the heat.

I just read a story from the Best Seller books of Reader’s Digest entitled, The Courtship of Peggy McCoy and it deals with wind. Let me explain.

Peggy is a retired navy nurse and lives on the coast of Maine. Her hobby, her obsession is sailing. Each day she takes her sailboat out for a sail. She loves it. She has learned how to read the wind, how to make her boat go so that it catches the wind just right. As I read about her sailing experiences, you could almost feel the wind coming out of the pages of the book as she sometimes fought with it, as she allowed it to catch her sails and take her out onto the water.

Jesus speaks about wind in our gospel lesson this morning.

He says, "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 every one who is born of the Spirit."

Jesus is describing the wind and using it to help Nicodemus understand the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is like the wind, we cannot see it, we don’t know where it goes, we cannot even explain how it works, but we know it is there. In the same way, the Holy spirit is there in our lives, we cannot see it, we don’t know where it goes, and we cannot even explain how it works, but it is there, period.

When we were Baptized, we received the Holy Spirit. When you were Baptized, the pastor said," I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. "

And then later on in the service, the pastor says "the child’s name, "child of God you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever", and while saying these words the pastor makes the sign of the cross on the baby’s forehead.

At that point, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. and we have the rest of our lives to live in that Spirit and allow it to do it works.