Come, Holy Spirit!

 "Born Again"by  Lauren Wright Pittman, in the  Vanderbilt University Divinity Library.
The artist has granted permission for the non-commercial use of this image.

 Jesus said, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above (or born anew).’  The wind (or Spirit) 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 (or wind).” (John 3:6-8)

Jesus here presents the availability of the Spirit to his followers as being as simple, and yet as complex, as birth. A new birth, not one of this world, but one from above. One that can adequately be described as being like wind. We all recognize the wind, as assuredly as we know anything in this world. Yet who can understand the wind, let alone control it?  Jesus says that his Spirit-conceived followers will be like the wind.  Not unpredictable and flighty, but free, eternal beings, powered from elsewhere.

Canadian author W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen The Wind attempted to capture some of this meaning. The protagonist in the story becomes aware, by a sense of something he perceives as joy, that there is an unseen force guiding his life.  Much more recently, Netfix’s Manifest includes a cast of characters, some very dubious, who are seemingly being directed by some force to a goal that they cannot see.  This fiction hints at, but fails to capture, life which is born of the Spirit.

We are stuck in human bodies. But Jesus wants to recreate us as spiritual beings, eternal beings, even while we remain in these bodies.  But be aware—once you are recreated by Jesus, that is when the adventure begins, and you may never know where the wind of the Spirit may take you!  

Prayer: Come, Holy Spirit and, even now, help me to live the Spirit-born life that you have envisioned for me!