Wind of the Spirit, new Birth

(Jn 3:7-15)

Life in the Spirit proceeds by new Birth, not according to a progress marked by mechanisms, skills, or instruction booklets.

The Light interrogates, for a different dimension - where (giving way to a reversal of ideas, faces and perspectives) our whys cease to accumulate frustrations.

Nicodemus controlled any stagnation or progress by comparing them to the wisdom of the things of God on the basis of ancient expectations [or clubs].

But not infrequently our growth proceeds by leaps and bounds - not even according to natural intelligence. Let alone the spiritual life.

It is not enough to practise and get along with ideas of fathers or à la page, nor to remain in agreement with normal, external intentions.

We should empty ourselves of unreinterpreted memories, of habitual domestications; of cerebral, disembodied, external, albeit ancient or 'current' theories.

Assimilating other people's knowledge and acquiring already expected expertise is not infrequently junk that blocks true developments - those that belong to us.

Unfortunately, in religious life we often proceed automatically, and there seems to be no need to allow ourselves to be saved or surprised by events.

At best one exposes oneself to a few breezes.

In the adventure of Faith - which disorientates - the Father's Project and the Son's Work do not unfold in a reasonable manner, but in the motive of the disproportion of Love.

The Spirit's unit of measure is different from that of agreed customs, or the latest fashion.

Its impetus is elusive Wind, 'visible' only in ecclesiastical and personal effects, stripped of junk.

The Secret is "from above" (v.7): off the scale. It lurks in the unpredictability of crossroads, surpluses, new creations.

This nourishes what were once perhaps shadow sides of the true 'Pharisee self'.

Even as a complacent man of God, perhaps remarkable - which, however, did not find its full place in reality.

Life does not proceed by arguments to boredom: it protrudes or pales.

For us too: one can frequently hold the Eucharist or the Scriptures in one's hand and not realise that the road already taken can give rise to illusions of spiritual doctoring.

Access to the Kingdom does not come from being Adam-sized: "being flesh" and "things of the earth" (vv.6.12).

The threshold comes from what the encounter with Christ works in those who follow him - and are introduced into community or prophetic life as a regenerated son.

The late redaction of John reflects symbols and realities of Christian baptism, which was already widely experienced at the time.

E.g. in the Letter to Titus, the 'sacrament' itself is referred to as 'rebirth'.

Jesus speaks to Nicodemus of the essential elements of the gesture: water and the Spirit - which is the Newness.

In the Spirit, water no longer has only the negative function of purifying or removing a burden, i.e. removing sin in the sign of washing.

The water of the ablutions that runs off becomes precious and effective: it must be assimilated for growth, to create life - which now not only cleanses or suffocates.

The Birth in water and Spirit speaks of new existence after having produced a Void that takes us elsewhere...

Not so much in refreshment and quiet peace, but in the unpredictable that often throws everything upside down - even decisively.

The new Genesis is not bound to any law: like an intimate Creation.

Mysterious reality, inexplicable, but infallibly leading to completeness - although it can be very fast, instantaneous; completely indeterminable, especially in comparison to normal devout adherence.

It is Action outside of all purpose and process: a bit like the reality and workings of the Wind itself.

The pious man knows that human existence has no meaning outside of God, but he finds it hard to imagine the sacred depth of his heart - and the richness of his own face, so foreign to earthly prejudices.

In order for us to understand the Birth from above, from v.11 the evangelist abruptly switches from the first person singular ['I' of Jesus] to the 'we' that embraces the community of Faith.

The reference is first and foremost to the 'new' non-Jews, coming from pagan religiosity and culture.

Our ecclesial task is to live, proclaim, and represent a decisive enrichment of human life. So much so that it verges - especially in communion - on the divine condition ("things from heaven": v.12).

For the understanding of all this, there is a lack of any point of reference, because sharing is personal and creative, always unprecedented; impossible to chisel into moral or even ideal casuistry.

Life, coexistence, and Gratuity do not willingly submit to worldviews, ideologies, sophistications, or reassuring schemes.

The key to understanding is only the mystery of "the Son of Man" [v.13: point of union of the two kingdoms] who has already experienced that world."Son of man" is man in the divine condition - the true and full development of the divine plan for humanity, as fully grasped in the total self-giving, glorified on the Cross (vv.14-15).

Moses' sign of salvation for the healing of the insidious people acquires its full meaning in such a proposal that impregnates the path of each one; the indestructible life, the very Life of God.

Not: aroused who knows when and how... but which we are privileged to be able to experience already here and now, living in the supreme Sign of the Free.

Stripping away the junk of petty wiles and filling it with the exuberant Otherness. Wisdom, fulfilling.

Not simply "eternal life", but "Life of the Eternal" [v.15 Greek text].

Personal life - that in all spheres disseminates unknown energies, clears the gaps of routine, grasps new synchronicities.

Here the Crucified One who gives communion is the elevated point of light that attracts and shifts our gaze, transcending thoughts and customs that cloud us; around whom we gather as new children and brothers.

To internalise and live the message:

What do you think your Births were? Were they the fruit of reassuring domestications, or did you have to empty them out and rethink them?

Are you still heading in the direction of the wind of the ancient fathers, or are you unfurling your sails in the direction of the Wind of the Spirit, which tosses up your securities, even group or fashionable ones?

From sign of condemnation to sign of redemption

Eternal life has been opened to us by the Paschal Mystery of Christ and faith is the way to reach it. This is what emerges from the words addressed by Jesus to Nicodemus and reported by the evangelist John: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:14-15). Here is the explicit reference to the episode narrated in the book of Numbers (21:1-9), which emphasises the saving power of faith in the divine word. During the exodus, the Jewish people rebelled against Moses and God, and were punished with the plague of poisonous serpents. Moses asked for forgiveness, and God, accepting the repentance of the Israelites, commanded him: "Make a snake and put it on a pole; whoever after being bitten shall look upon it and remain alive. And so it was. Jesus, in his conversation with Nicodemus, reveals the deeper meaning of that salvation event, relating it to his own death and resurrection: the Son of Man must be lifted up on the wood of the Cross so that whoever believes in Him may have life. St John sees precisely in the mystery of the Cross the moment in which the royal glory of Jesus is revealed, the glory of a love that gives itself entirely in passion and death. Thus the Cross, paradoxically, from being a sign of condemnation, of death, of failure, becomes a sign of redemption, of life, of victory, in which, with a gaze of faith, one can see the fruits of salvation.

[Pope Benedict, homily 4 November 2010].

Eternal life was opened to us by the Paschal Mystery of Christ and faith is the way to reach it. This is what what emerges from Jesus' words to Nicodemus in the Gospel of the Evangelist John: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (Jn 3:14-15). The explicit reference to the episode narrated in the book of Numbers (21:1-9) highlights the saving force of faith in the divine word. During the Exodus, the Hebrew people rebelled against Moses and God and were punished by the plague of fiery serpents. Moses asked for forgiveness and God, accepting the repentance of the Israelites, ordered him to “make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live”. And so it happened. Jesus, in his conversation with Nicodemus, revealed a more profound significance of this event of salvation, referring it to his own death and Resurrection: the Son of Man must be lifted on the wood of the Cross so that whoever believes in him may have life. St John sees precisely in the mystery of the Cross the moment in which the real glory of Jesus is revealed, the glory of a love that gives itself totally in the passion and death. Thus, paradoxically, from a sign of condemnation, death and failure, the Cross becomes a sign of redemption, life and victory, through faith, the fruits of salvation can be gathered.

[Pope Benedict, homily 4 November 2010]

6. The identity of the Son of Man appears in the dual aspect of representative of God, herald of the kingdom of God, prophet calling to conversion. On the other hand, he is the 'representative' of men, whose earthly condition and sufferings he shares in order to redeem and save them according to the Father's plan. As he himself says in his conversation with Nicodemus: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (Jn 3:14-15).

It is a clear proclamation of the passion, which Jesus repeats: "And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly, and be reproved by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and then be killed, and after three days rise again" (Mk 8:31). Three times in Mark's Gospel (cf. Mk 9:31; 10:33-34), and in each of them Jesus speaks of himself as the "Son of Man".

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 29 April 1987]

When we look to the Cross where Jesus was nailed, we contemplate the sign of love, of the infinite love of God for each of us and the source of our salvation. The mercy of God, which embraces the whole world, springs from the Cross. Through the Cross of Christ the Evil One is overcome, death is defeated, life is given to us, hope is restored. This is important: through the Cross of Christ hope is restored to us. The Cross of Jesus is our one true hope! That is why the Church “exalts” the Holy Cross, and why we Christians bless ourselves with the sign of the cross. That is, we don’t exalt crosses, but the glorious Cross of Christ, the sign of God’s immense love, the sign of our salvation and path toward the Resurrection. This is our hope.

While we contemplate and celebrate the Holy Cross, we think with emotion of so many of our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted and killed because of their faith in Christ. This happens especially wherever religious freedom is still not guaranteed or fully realized. It happens, however, even in countries and areas which, in principle, protect freedom and human rights but where, in practice, believers, and especially Christians, encounter restrictions and discrimination. So today we remember them and pray for them in a special way.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 14 September 2014]

(Jn 3:1-8)

Jn introduces the Gospel passage with the highly representative Jewish leader, insisting on the imperfection of believing in prodigies that only grasp the outward side.

On the contrary, it seems to emphasise that the devotion-show so coveted by religious leaders only arouses deviant expectations and ambiguous hearts (2:18-25).

In the fourth Gospel, the notable represents precisely the Jews intrigued by the figure of Jesus [called Jews because they were related to the Judaizers of the first communities].

Some of them question themselves and do not silence the questions, but remain perplexed - because they are educated to other messianic, peremptory and clamorous expectations.

In fact, they cultivated the whole issue concerning the Kingdom of God (vv.3.5) in an approximate and conformist manner.

In addition, Jesus teaches that all speculation does not bring good results for life in the Spirit.

Our profound experience is not generated from what woman and man devise or do for God, from their possibilities - as assumed in ancient religions.

We must rely on the Grace that enters the scene, overturning petty hopes - in this way, not relying on our own measures, skills and dexterity; nor on thoughts, as established as they are inadequate.

The new Rabbi makes it clear that to understand the Mystery one must shake off the outer book of the Law, and embark on an experience of ideal and practical transmutation, like a Birth - alongside a regenerating Agent.

Christ prompts Nicodemus to make the leap from normal traditional devotion, with its reasonable intentions and expectations, to the adventure of Faith that grasps, dreams and maps out the future, surpassing the habitual chain of expectations.

One does not understand the Newness of God according to common knowledge, starting with the patriarchs - or by reading it in the watermark of a normative, albeit sharable.

The new order of existence is superior to all dexterity, restraint, and resilience. That which is born from the flesh is, however, subject to all boundaries.

Vice versa, the path 'from above' creates a new personality, thanks to which we are enabled to correspond perfectly to the Calling by Name, which propose itself again wave after wave in an increasing and dissimilar manner.

Recreated by the indestructible Life that Comes, we too are enabled to generate something similar to the same Nature that gives birth to us. As sparks somehow conforming to the divine: similis sibi similem parit.

Precisely: the too normal is unable to redefine the codes of a new look, and of the inconceivable space of unknown love.

What does not coincide with the inherited ideas is actually activating the new developments.

What is contrary to established customs, or fashions, is preparing another world, a different person, another trail to follow.

The Kingdom is not set up: it is welcomed - because it always throws us off guard.

The relationship with the God of religions usually comes up with static and reassuring recipes, but the experience of Faith in Christ convinces “by Way” that each stage must instead correspond to another genesis.

Indeed, the thorny trials are all called to a leap of over-nature; to sprout again.

Birth in the Spirit does not happen once and for all: only then will living not be a reward, nor perishing a punishment.

For we have become like a Wind.

[Monday 2nd wk. in Easter, April 13, 2026]

(Jn 3:1-8)

Jn introduces the Gospel passage with the very representative Jewish leader, insisting on the imperfection of believing in prodigies. They only grasp the outward side.

Indeed, he seems to emphasise that the religion-show so coveted by the religious leaders called Jews, because they were akin to the Judaizers of the first communities, arouses only deviant expectations and ambiguous hearts (2:18-25).

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a prominent person, a leader among the early religious leaders, and even a member of the Sanhedrin [supreme court], which, however, recognises in Christ a messenger from God.

In the fourth Gospel, the notable represents precisely the Jews who were intrigued by the figure of Jesus. Some of them question and do not silence their questions, but remain perplexed - because they were educated to other messianic, peremptory and clamorous expectations.

Indeed, the authorities cultivated the whole issue concerning the 'Kingdom of God' (vv.3.5) in an approximate and conformist manner. [The expression so frequent in the Synoptics - 'kingdom of heaven' in Mt - is only found in this passage of the Fourth Gospel].

But it is only a point of support, because Jesus teaches that all speculations do not bring good results for life in the Spirit, which is not generated from what man devises or does for God, from his possibilities - as in religions.

We must rely on Grace, which enters the scene by overturning petty hopes - in this way, not relying on our own measures, skills and dexterity; nor on thoughts, which are as established as they are inadequate.

The new Rebbe makes it clear that to understand the Mystery we must shake off the outer book of the Law, and undertake an experience of ideal and practical transmutation, like a Birth - alongside a regenerating Agent.

Christ stimulates Nicodemus to make the leap from normal traditional religiosity, with its reasonable intentions and expectations, to the adventure of Faith that grasps, dreams and traces the future, surpassing the habitual chain of expectations.

One does not understand the Newness of God according to ancient knowledge, starting with the patriarchs - or by reading it in the watermark of a normative, albeit sharable, standard.

The new order of existence is superior to all capacities, all holdings and resiliences. That which is born from the flesh is in any case subject to too many boundaries.

Conversely, the path from above creates a new personality, by which we are enabled to correspond perfectly to the Calling by Name, which repeats itself wave after wave in increasing and dissimilar ways.

Recreated from the indestructible Life that Comes, we too are enabled to generate something like the same Nature that gives birth to us. As sparks that somehow conform to the divine: similis sibi similem parit.

Exactly: the too normal is unable to redefine the codes of a new look, and of the inconceivable space of unknown love.

It is not a question of changing banners, or 'cutting something' and mortifying oneself more. Rather, integrating and shining, changing beliefs.

What does not coincide with the inherited ideas is actually activating the new developments.

That which is contrary to established customs, or fashions, is preparing another world, a different person, a new calling (in the same personal vocation), another trail to follow.

It is no longer the God of religions, everything still and always to be achieved with arrangements, agility in the smallest details, and chiselled rhythms, accumulating merits according to clichés.

The Kingdom is not set up: it is welcomed - because it always bewilders us.

So it cannot be predetermined: it is impossible to set it up on the basis of our genius, muscles, virtues, perfections. We receive Him as a free gift and without 'due' prerequisites.

The God who comes without warning calls us to listen, to know what is unbelievable - to allow ourselves to be saved in an unthinkable way, then to be taken by surprise by the facts that Providence brings.

And there to stay, until the next news.

Jesus invites Nicodemus to scrutinise the reality of the soul and the events as a global sphere, of overall energies that draw together in paradoxical synergy, to recover the opposite sides - all of them useful.

Innate forces that are activated by attunements and reciprocal ways, making themselves infallible guides: cosmic outside and acutely divine within us.

The recoveries that Jesus makes through the quality of life of his own and of the communities generate in the one who is in the 'night' of doubt (v.2) an initial search and dedication, but they do not arouse active Faith.

In short, one does not understand God from arguments, but from the experience of involvement wave after wave; recreating, from the accepted Gift of one's own history, in the sign of the times.

We must lay aside the reassuring certainties of the normal religious catechism, and open heart and hand to the reality that comes like a tide - not to put us on the defensive, but to ride it.Throwing ourselves into the life of the Spirit retrieves us, but it supplants and overrides the organisation of the settled synagogues; it is not within the reach of complacent mechanisms or impersonal balances.

At most we understand its intrinsic course - the fullness of humanisation, in the creaturely plan - not its Origin and Goal.

Humanity, in its voluntarist plan and even in its good intentions, is unable to solve the real problems. It cannot give itself salvation; only manners - initiating at the same time processes of communion and individuation.

This is the new restlessness and the 'night' of questions that we, like Nicodemus, experience, practising teaching and works according to the norm - which do not convey a sense of fullness of being, indeed despite great promises seem to attract precisely sadness.

It is the Spirit of oneness that dominates the chaos, that shapes heaven and earth, and takes possession of the eminent characters of the First Testament, prompting them to perform actions in favour of the emancipation of the people - acting with contagious power.

But resting "as a dove" - a figure of a force no longer aggressive - on Jesus in Baptism (Jn 1:32), he initiates a new Creation, the reconciled Man, capable of fulfilling his vocation.

Of course, what characterises this Wind is freedom, not control. 

It acts energetically on us, but we do not act on Him. We cannot affect it. Only set the sails according to its direction, and look at it with new eyes.

Even in difficulties, the Gift of the Spirit prepares us for another Birth. Then the Word of Jesus announces an upheaval that goes to the root of the common pious life.

The relationship with the God of religions usually comes up with static and reassuring recipes, but the experience of Faith in Christ convinces "by Way" that each stage must instead correspond to another genesis.

Indeed, thorny trials are all called to a leap of supra-nature; to germinate again.

Birth in the Spirit does not happen once and for all: only then will living not be a prize, nor perishing a punishment.

For we have become like a Wind.

To internalise and live the message:

Do you accept the surprise? Do you feel it as a revelation of the Spirit's action? How do you react to the novelties that the apostolate proposes? On what occasion have you perceived that you are born again?

The Gospel presents to us a person by the name of Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem who sought out Jesus by night. He was a well-to-do man, attracted by the Lord's words and example, but one who hesitated to take the leap of faith because he was fearful of others. He felt the fascination of this Rabbi, so different from the others, but could not manage to rid himself of the conditioning of his environment that was hostile to Jesus, and stood irresolute on the threshold of faith. 

How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of his Church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a "sign" that will touch their minds and their hearts! 

Today, as then, the Evangelist reminds us that the only "sign" is Jesus raised on the Cross:  Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign. Through him we can understand the truth about life and obtain salvation. 

This is the principal proclamation of the Church, which remains unchanged down the ages.
The Christian faith, therefore, is not an ideology but a personal encounter with the Crucified and Risen Christ. From this experience, both individual and communitarian, flows a new way of thinking and acting:  an existence marked by love is born, as the saints testify.

[Pope Benedict, homily 26 March 2006]

1. Nicodemus said to him: "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother's womb a second time and be born again?" (John 3, 4).

Nicodemus' question to Jesus expresses well the restless wonder of man before the mystery of God, a mystery that he discovers in his encounter with Christ. The whole dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus reveals the extraordinary richness of meaning of every encounter, even that of man with another man. The encounter is in fact the surprising and real phenomenon by which man comes out of his original solitude to face existence. It is the normal condition through which he is led to grasp the value of reality, of the people and things that constitute it, in a word, of history. In this sense it is comparable to a new birth.

In John's Gospel, Christ's encounter with Nicodemus has as its content the birth to the definitive life, that of the Kingdom of God. But in the life of every man, is it not encounters that weave the unexpected and concrete fabric of existence? Are they not at the basis of the birth of that self-awareness capable of action, which alone allows a life worthy of the name of man?

In the encounter with the other, man discovers that he is a person and that he must recognise the equal dignity of other men. Through significant encounters, he learns to know the value of the constituent dimensions of human existence, first and foremost those of religion, family and the people to which he belongs.

2. The value of being with its universal connotations - the true, the good, the beautiful - presents itself to man sensitively incarnated in the decisive encounters of his existence.

In conjugal affection, the encounter between lover and beloved, which finds fulfilment in marriage, begins with the perceptible experience of beauty embodied in the 'form' of the other. But being, through the attraction of the beautiful, asks to express itself in the fullness of authentic goodness. That the other be, that his good be realised, that the destiny traced out for him by the providential God be fulfilled, is the living and disinterested desire of every person who truly loves. The desire for lasting good, capable of generating and regenerating itself in children, would not be possible if it did not rest on truth. The attraction of beauty cannot be given the consistency of a definitive good without the search for self-truth and the will to persevere in it.

And going on: how could one be a fully realised man without the encounter, which takes place in the depths of oneself, with one's own land, with the men who have built its history through prayer, testimony, blood, genius and poetry? In turn, the fascination for the beauty of the homeland, and the desire for truth and goodness for the people who continually 'regenerate' it, increase the desire for peace, which alone makes the unity of the human race viable. The Christian is educated to understand the urgency of the ministry of peace by his encounter with the Church, where the people of God live that my predecessor Paul VI defined '. . . an ethnic entity sui generis'.

Its history has defied time for two thousand years now, leaving unaltered, despite the miseries of the people who belong to it, its original openness to truth, goodness and beauty.

3. But sooner or later man realises, in dramatic terms, that of such multiform and unrepeatable encounters he does not yet possess the ultimate meaning, capable of making them definitively good, true, beautiful. He intuits in them the presence of being, but being as such eludes him. The good to which he feels attracted, the true that he knows how to affirm, the beautiful that he knows how to discover are in fact far from satisfying him. Structural destitution or unquenchable desire parade themselves before man even more dramatically, after the other has entered his life. Made for the infinite, man feels himself a prisoner of the finite!

What journey can he still make, what other mysterious sortie from his inner self can he attempt, who has left his original solitude to go towards the other, seeking definitive fulfilment? Man, committed with genuine seriousness to his human experience, finds himself faced with a tremendous aut aut aut: to ask an Other, with a capital A, who rises on the horizon of existence to reveal and make possible its full fulfilment, or to withdraw into himself, into an existential solitude in which the very possibility of being is denied. The cry of demand or blasphemy: that is what is left!

But the mercy with which God has loved us is stronger than any dilemma. It does not stop even in the face of blasphemy. Even from within the experience of sin, man can always and again reflect on his metaphysical frailty and come out of it. He can grasp the absolute need for that Other with a capital A, who can forever quench his thirst! Man can rediscover the path of invocation to the Author of our salvation, that he may come! Then the soul surrenders to God's merciful embrace, finally experiencing, in this decisive encounter, the joy of a hope "that does not disappoint" (Rom 5:5).

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 16 November 1983]

There are people - we too, very often - who cannot live in the light because they are accustomed to the dark. The light blinds them, they are unable to see. They are humans who are like bats, which only know how to move about at night. And we too, when we are in sin, are in this state: we cannot tolerate the light. It is more convenient for us to live in darkness. The light hits us in the face, it makes us see what we do not want to see. What’s worse is that the eyes of the soul, the more they live in darkness, the more they grow accustomed to it, and become ignorant of what light is. One loses a sense of light through growing more accustomed to the darkness. And many human scandals, so much corruption, prove this. Those who are corrupt do not know what the light is, they do not know. We too, when we are in a state of sin, distance ourselves from the Lord and become blind. We feel better when we are in the darkness and we move about in this way, without seeing, like the blind, as best we can.

Let us allow the love of God, who sent Jesus to save us, enter into us, and may the light that Jesus brings (see v. 19), the light of the Spirit, enter into us and help us to see things with God’s light, with the true light and not the shadows that the lord of darkness gives us.

Two things, today: the love of God in Christ, in the crucifix, in daily life. And the question we can ask ourselves every day: “Do I walk in the light or do I walk in the darkness? Am I a child of God or have I ended up like a poor bat?”

[Pope Francis, from: St Marta homily 22 April 2020 (on Jn 3:16-21)]