In  nomine . . .

"Do not be astonished that I tell you, 'you must be born from above.' 

The wind blows where it wills 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." 

 

 

I recall being deeply moved as a child, by the 1940’s movie,

“A portrait of Jenny.”

A haunting opening sang, “Where I come from, nobody knows,

and where I’m going, everyone goes.”

It was, I now realize, a version of the Brigadoon story, about the town &

the young woman that show up on earth for a single day every 100 years.

 

That song plays in my mind whenever

Jesus’ words to  Nichodemus,

“The wind blows where it wills 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 born of the Spirit.”

 

I also share Nichodemus’, questions, “How can this be possible?”

What does it mean to be “born of the Spirit?”

Now there is a practical Christian response to that question -

“Be baptized – and confirm that Baptism as an adult.”

That “answer” gives us the “how to” but not the “what.”

 

What is being ‘born of the spirit” like?

What differentiates it from the results of several good night’s sleep,

from walking out into a beautiful day,

or from the high of being newly “in love?”

 

Two things come to my mind.

The first is dependability – Unlike the usual behavior of “the Spirit”

Baptism is dependable,  it can be institutionalized – as in,

“Mother Susy, when is the next Baptism?”

Jesus, of God’s goodness, has promised to always BE THERE

in the sacrament, no matter how awake to that presence we happen

to be as the baptism happens.

Baptism’s birth by the Spirit is permanent, unchangeable,

and eternally solid.

It leave us rooted in the power and permanence of God.

 

The other thing, which comes forcibly to mind, is that Baptism stays - 

unlike the Spirit, “which blows where it will ,

but we do not know where it comes from or where it goes. “

The sacrament of Baptism assures us that the Spirit has come to,

and has promised to stay with this person.

 

However, the solid certainty of Pascal candle and font,

can be mishandled and misunderstood.

It is way too easy – and way, way too common,

for us to understand the presence of the Holy Spirit in Baptism

as a one-time, permanent solution

to a future lifetime of non-awareness of the Holy Spirit’s presence, as in,

“Get Baptized and you will always be ‘right’ with God.”

(The flip side of this notion is, “Those who aren’t baptized, won’t go to heaven.”)

But that isn’t what Jesus says here.

Jesus says, “don’t be surprised when I tell you

that you must be born from above.

 “The Wind blows where it will, you hear the sound it makes, and you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

 

God’s Spirit is not in our control.  It blows into us as we are born

from it in Baptism – but that does not mean that we are free to ignore

the Spirit’s presence and its demands elsewhere in the world.

And it does not mean that we are free to ignore the Spirit’s presence within ourselves or within other people  - baptized or not.

Ignoring the Spirit’s presence is sin, plain and simple. 

 

But how and where do we look for this spirit from above when it is not “dressed up” in the sacraments of the Church?

How do we recognize it when it blows through the world,

into our faces, or through our lives?

 

That is harder, because awareness of the presence of God

of the Holy Spirit, of the Christ (all words for the same thing)

involves our SEEING,  our HEARING, our AWARENESS,

of the life-sustaining power which surrounds us, and

of which we are largely unconscious,

and, given our tendency to sin, toward which we are often hostile.

Most of us spend a lot of time avoiding God, not seeing or hearing God,

and yet we often don’t consciously realize that is what we’re doing!

 

Most of us also experience times when the veil seems striped off of life -

when suddenly everything stands out with startling clarity.

when we experience the everyday world differently.

Walking after a lovely snowstorm, a sparkling day at the beach,

a time you felt deeply loved, the day your child was born,

a Sunday when the same old service seemed so lovely you sat and cried

the day you woke up from a severe illness,

and realized you were going to be well again.

 

At those times we experience the usual world differently,

we become aware a dimension of power and beauty in the here and how

that we normally just don’t notice.

Suddenly, or gradually, the world seems brighter, even transparent.

We feel deeply connected to life and to those around us,

We know that we are part of all that are seeing,

that “there is a God”  we might say.

We suddenly KNOW that faith, hope and love are foundational realities,

 not ideas dreamed up by romantics or wishful thinkers.

In that sudden awareness, we are in the presence of the Holy Spirit.

 

 “It takes a lifetime of awareness, to realize that what is standing

before you is God.”

“It takes a lifetime of awareness, to realize that what is standing

before you is God.”

 

That was Jack’s quote last week, and it is the reality of today’s Gospel.

The wind, blowing where it will,

about which we know neither where it comes from nor where it goes,

that Wind is the Spirit, the glory, and the living presence of Almighty God.

 

It is always there, always blowing, for despite the way we talk about God,

“God”  (I AM) is a verb and not a noun.

God is action, living itself, not A Particular Life.

God’s active LIVING-ness makes it hard for us humans, because we can’t

see God, catch God or hold onto God.

And yet, we are called over and over again to come

to awareness of God’s presence,

to realize that what is standing before us is God.

 

Here we meet the beginning of the Story – the solid,

see-able, touchable, hold-on-to-able part.

God loved the world so much, that he gave Jesus, the Only Begotten,

to live among us. 

God’s Word became a human being within time and space.

God’s Spirit accepted being caged into a human body,

to be seen, heard, touched, smelled, even tasted,

so that we might become aware of God’s presence around us.

 

God offered herself in a human form, a human life, so that we,

having met a God-filled life in Jesus, might believe in him,

 and leaving behind the darkness of our sin and unbelief,

turn ourselves toward the light of God’s forgiving and renewing presence.

 

“It takes a lifetime of awareness, to realize

 that what is standing before us is God.”

It takes a lifetime of learning to listen, to see, to feel,

the reality that surrounds us every moment of every day in our lives.

To hear the Spirit as it blows where it will,

To accept that we know only dimly where it comes from,

And to trust that where it is going, everything goes.

 

It is Lent.  It is our time to look up at a man on a cross,

a time to truly see him,

a time to truly hear him,

a time to become aware of his presence in all creation,

and a time to understand that in Jesus,

the Spirit blew into time and space,

so that where Jesus has gone,

everything - and everyone –

may go.

In nomine . . .