John 3:5-8 The Holy Spirit blows all over the world

5 Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Here, the Greek for the word for spirit and for wind is the same. Jesus is speaking to a man extremely well versed in scripture. In some Old Testament passages speaking of the coming Messianic Kingdom water represents the Spirit (Is. 44:3-5) and wind or breath represents Spirit (Ezekial 37:9-10). Nicodemus should have recognized these clues about water and wind as referring to the coming Kingdom. Indeed Messiah was standing right in front of him.

In verse five the original text says we must be born of water and wind--the translators make it "the Spirit" as a guess from the context. This is a crucial lesson on understanding what we read in various versions of the Bible; it is never a direct word for word translation. The translator brings his/her personal beliefs to the table and makes judgment calls on every passage. The concept of presuppositions is never more crucial than in the translation itself. Perhaps more important, this double meaning in the Greek was intentional by the author---it can indeed be interpreted both ways, and nuances of both meanings add to the overall message here.

In John 3:5-8 we have Holy Spirit flowing silently, "blowing" wherever Holy Spirit chooses to blow. This is huge since this group of verses does not state that accepting Jesus is the way to be born again, rather, Holy Spirit "blows wherever it pleases." The last phrase, "so it is with everyone born of the Spirit" really intrigues me. Verses 5-8 seem to indicate a concept of election---that God blows on whomever He wills. In the concept of election who would God leave out? Time and time again scripture says God loves ALL. He would not leave anyone out. Even if one of a hundred strayed from the wind, scripture says God leaves the 99 and seeks out the stray. Jesus told Nicodemus that he could not tell where the wind/Holy Spirit came from or where it was going---the priests and pharisees could not dictate or discern who would be saved.

The wind blows over all the earth. All earthly creation, every man and woman, is bathed in wind everyday. This becomes so common that we ignore it. So it is with Holy Spirit; we all are blessed with the constant breath of God, yet we must be "hear" and honor the Source.

God, please grant us the ability to feel and bask in the breath of Holy Spirit.