Love God, Serve People, Make Disciples
We have been bashed about by Storm Christoph this week, and now there is a clear but icy wind blowing in from snow-clad Dartmoor. Then there are the mists in the air containing the virus as it swirls around threatening to be breathed in.
When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, he was trying to help him see that he was bringing a new and different kind of reality to people, and he chose to compare it to the wind, which “blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going” [John 3:8]. Why describe new life like this?
To get to where he was as a ‘ruler of the Jews’, Nicodemus would have had to do a lot of careful planning. He would have had to follow traditions, set goals for himself and build a carefully prepared structure for his life. But a strong gust of wind can disrupt all our meticulously laid plans, milestones and expectations. Our path in life can become more like a shifting track in the desert than the signposted road we expected.
The world Jesus came into was rigidly controlled and structured- by traditions and by powerful rulers- in almost every aspect. What He brought was the challenge to adapt to new things and to be ‘blown’ into the unknown. To trust. The arrival of the Holy Spirit did so for the first Jewish Christians- “Who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” [Acts 11:17] says Peter after all the cherished traditions of his upbringing and culture had just been blasted away- and He continues to do so in our individual lives. However, this is no ordinary wind, following blind physical forces. Jesus would have known the verse in Proverbs which describes God as one “who has gathered the wind in the clasp of His hand” [Proverbs 30:4, Jerusalem Bible]. It was His hand, after all! The wind that blows, seemingly at random, is clasped by the hand of a loving God who also holds our hand. And He will never let go.
Loving God, you sent your Holy Spirit to blow into our lives and to take us where we did not expect.Lead us, as we trust in your care and goodness, ever closer to your light.Through Jesus Christ, who makes all things new. Amen
Dave Pitcher
