Be Led by the Wind

Gospel: John 3: 7-15

Boaters and kite fliers are well-versed in today's lesson on the wind.  It is useless to ask where it comes from or where it goes.  It is even more useless to resist it.  The wise person adjusts her sails, redirects their course, and alters the kite position in order to take advantage of the wind.  For to resist the wind and insist on our own way will lead to destruction; it is the resistance, not the wind itself, that causes ruin.  

The same is true in our life with God.  It cannot be understood in terms of origins or where it will lead.  We cannot map it out logically or through reason any more than we could in a marital relationship, for love has reasons that reason does not know.  To resist God is as futile as resisting the wind, for to resist God is to resist love - we close ourselves off from God's love and we fail to love others.  It leads to our ruin and the ruin of other people.  

Nicodemus could not understand.  He came from a tradition of argumentation to understand God and God's plan through law.  But if God is love, then it cannot be measured by reason or framed by law.  It is a wind that blows where it wills and is folly to resist.  Nicodemus will be led by love to a place he never imagined - to a crucifixion, to a grave, and to a life beyond.