When I was a freshman in college, I answered a knock on my door one evening and met three young women I had never seen before. They lived a few flights up in my dorm and they were making the rounds on behalf of salvation. They smiled warmly and spoke in gentle voices and invited me to participate in a weekly bible study they were holding in their room. I didn’t even need to think about it; I said yes. It was like God had opened the door and said here you go.
I went to the bible study, and at first it was very nice. These young women radiated warmth and love, and I appreciated the things I was learning. But then suddenly one day it changed.
We were in our usual space, sitting on the floor together reading the scriptures and then the leader turned to me and asked me when I had been saved. I didn’t know how to answer that question. I was a Lutheran, we didn’t talk that way. When was I saved? What an absurd question. But when it became clear I didn’t have the answer, they pounced.
It was imperative for me to be born again, they told me. And if I were born again, I would know that I had been born again. There was no gray area in this business of being saved. I either was or I wasn’t. They were telling me that it was becoming pretty clear that I wasn’t. They told me that if I did not accept Jesus and be born again, I was most certainly going to hell. They said this in the sweetest way imaginable.
I left there in tears that evening, in fear and confusion. Because I had loved Jesus all my life. I had been taught that I am saved by grace alone, through faith alone. There was nothing I needed to do to earn it; indeed, there was nothing I could do to make it happen. God had already done this amazing work through Christ’s death and resurrection. I didn’t think a born-again experience was going to happen to me, and I knew I couldn’t fake it. Yet the certainty of these girls unsettled me, and I was afraid.
I understand why Nicodemus was disturbed by this talk of being born again. Because, to him that night, it seemed quite impossible. How can a grown man go back into his mother’s womb? How can anyone be born a second time?
Nicodemus got stuck on a few of Jesus’ words and couldn’t get unstuck. “How can this be?” he says. It’s possible Nicodemus didn’t even hear anything Jesus said after that. He seems to fade away into the night.
How can this be? Well, I could ask that question about a whole host of things, particularly on Trinity Sunday. When I think about Isaiah and the Seraphs, and the Lord God upon a throne before him. When I think about that live coal being pressed to his lips. When I think about the Spirit of God blowing where it will blow and somehow touching us, enabling us to be born from above, as Jesus says, I wonder: How can this be?
When I think about God loving the world so much that God gave his only Son so that we may not perish but may have eternal life. That God sent the Son not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him, I wonder: How can this be?
I don’t have the answer to these questions.
When I think about the words of the scripture saying that God sent the Son for us and for our salvation, and that the Son sent the Spirit, whom he calls the Advocate, so that we would not be alone, I do wonder – how can this be? When I ponder the presence of God as creator of all things, the one who was present before the beginning of time, making beauty and meaning out of chaos, I wonder – how can this be? When I consider God as being incarnate, born of flesh to live and teach and heal and die for our sake to overcome death for us all, I do wonder – how can this be? When I think of God being present in our midst now, as Spirit, intangible, elusive, but powerful, I wonder – how can this be?
I don’t know how this can be. These are strange and mysterious gifts. And it is certainly not for us to determine how and when these gifts are received. Nicodemus walked away into the night without an answer to his question, just as lost as he had been before. He didn’t receive what he had come for, what he had asked for.
Isaiah didn’t ask for the gift that was given to him. As far as we know, he wasn’t asking for anything at the time. He was just minding his own business when the Lord and the heavenly entourage appeared before him, calling out to one another with words of praise, filling the room with smoke and noise and trembling. A seraph touched a burning coal to Isaiah’s lips and said, “Your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” He didn’t ask for this gift.
The wind blows where it chooses; you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with the Spirit of God.
Isaiah did not ask for this gift, but the gift chose him. And when the Lord called out, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah said, “Here I am; send me.”
The Spirit blows where she will and how she will. And I wonder: Did the Spirit blow on Nicodemus? It didn’t seem so, as he skulked away into the shadows. But here is something else we should know about Nic.
Sometime later, in Chapter 7, we read that Jesus goes to the temple in Jerusalem and begins teaching, saying some very provocative things. The Pharisees watching become very agitated and want to have him arrested. But Nicodemus, who is himself a Pharisee, speaks up. We have not heard him speak since he said, “How can this be,” but now he speaks to the gathered Pharisees to urge restraint on them. Nothing bad happened that day, and perhaps it was because of Nicodemus’s words.
Again, Nicodemus disappears. We hear nothing more about him – until after Jesus is crucified. In Chapter 19, there is a man named Joseph who asks permission to take his body down from the cross. He arranges to have it taken to a tomb. And Nicodemus, who first came to Jesus under cover of darkness, brings a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloe to give his body a proper burial.
Did the Spirit blow over Nicodemus? Perhaps. We don’t control how any of this works.
So often it seems that the Spirit blows over us, surprising us, and moving us in a new direction – a direction of service, a direction of forbearance, a direction of love. Sometimes the earth shakes and the angels cry out and the Lord says, “Whom shall I send?” Maybe looking right at you when he asks the question. And you answer, “Send me!” and everything is changed.
Sometimes, you get blinded by the light on the road to Damascus like Paul did. And then you hear Jesus speaking to you. And everything is changed.
But other times there are gentle brushes – or nudges. Sometimes there are moments of confusion or surprise … questions that won’t let go – until the moment when you know you have to answer. Like Nicodemus when he spoke to the Pharisees in a critical moment; when he came to the grave bearing compassion and a lavish supply of myrrh and aloe.
The gifts of the Spirit are strange gifts. But somehow, they empower us to do the work of God in this world, which we know from the words of John chapter three, is the work of love.
I never had the kind of born-again experience that those girls in my college dorm wanted me to have. But I know that, in the years since then, the Spirit has worked in surprising and powerful ways in my life. No Seraphim and burning coals. Sometimes more questions than answers. Perhaps I am more like Nicodemus than Isaiah.
The gifts of the Spirit are strange, indeed. Let us be grateful for these strange gifts that empower us to do God’s work on earth.
Let us be grateful for those who stand up and say, “Here I am; send me.”
Let each of us listen for the call of love in our lives.
Photo by Helena Hertz on Unsplash
