The Second Sunday of Lent

"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 NRSV)

It is a windy morning, the rains have poured down through the night and the temperature is higher now then when we retired last night. In the words of my people, "This can't be good." Time and experience combine in such statements of understanding, the weather is a good teacher and the folks around here are apt pupils.

This day, in the prescribed lectionary text of John 3:1-17, a Pharisee named Nicodemus comes to Jesus trying to clarify what it is he 'knows' and what it is he does not 'know'. Jesus manages to completely change the context by opening the scriptures and their meaning to Nicodemus is ways his teachers of the law never could. Like a fresh wind of the Spirit, Jesus unexpectedly blows through all of Nicodemus' preconceived notions and traditions and opens him to epiphanies he could have never imagined receiving as he made his way to Jesus that night.

Isn't that, at least in part, what we pray for each time we enter the sanctuary in worship. It is not, it can not, always be purely about being comforted or made comfortable with life as we are accustomed to experiencing it: Sometimes we really need, need, to pray for the Spirit to rush through our hearts, our souls, our comfort zones, and disquiet the easy answers, the traditional ways, the pat responses.

Like the warming breezes of a Winter's morning, Jesus opens His arms to those who dare to receive His embrace. It may be a scary and troubling step to take, especially when we cannot be certain where the winds of the Spirit will blow in birthing new life, yet it is a step every one of us must take if we are to live in the life with which God blesses all people. Sometimes where we are 'just doesn't feel right', sometimes the winds blow with incredibly force and intention and we are given grace to see what the winds of the Spirit are birthing. Regardless, we are invited to live in the inbetweenness of the already, but not yet, of the Kingdom among us, walking with the One who shows the way, trusting in the One through Whom the Spirit blows.

Walk in the Spirit this day and revel in the changing winds of God's mercy and grace for you.

Church Sign for the Week:

When violence is the

means of expression,

pain

is the only word heard.