You’ve
all heard the nursery rhyme:
Rock-a-bye, baby In
the treetop When the wind blows The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks The cradle will fall And down will come baby Cradle and
all.
Sing
it with me.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to start out my sermon with a lullaby. It’s already tempting, I know, to fall asleep once the sermon starts…some of you don’t need a sleepy-time song to push you any further down that road! When I “googled” this nursery rhyme, I visited 10 web sites that all praised the tune as a comforting song with which to send children off to sleep.
This is what else I discovered about it. According to The Great American Baby
Almanac, “The author… was reportedly a pilgrim who sailed on the
Mayflower. The Wampanoag Indians, who
befriended the colonists, carried their infants in cradleboards on their
backs. In nice weather, the cradles were
suspended from tree limbs so that passing breezes could rock the babies while
their mothers tended the maize and the beans.”
Certainly the melody is one that evokes the sentiment of a lullaby. And the vision of a breeze-gently-rocking-babies-to-sleep is also very comforting. But then the rhyme takes this twist toward the dark side with images that are anything but soft and settling. In fact, they’re nothing short of the stuff of nightmares. A baby sleeping at the top of a tree? A wind that goes from a gentle breeze to a bough-breaking blast? It’s almost like it was written by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the way it starts out sweet and ends up scary.
In some ways, I guess, it’s an appropriate description of how the wind works in our lives. We all know, some from personal experience, of the destruction it can cause as it blows from the hillside down to the inlet.
But we also know that the wind can be a blessing. It can rock babies to sleep; fill the sails of a boat; delight those who like to windsurf. It can turn windmills to make power, break winter’s grip with warmth or cool us down when we are hot. Wind even has its bright moments on the big screen.
It
plays a roll in one of my favorite movies.
A shift in the wind blows away a nest of nasty-looking nannies to make
room for one who is a breath of fresh air for little Jane and Michael
Banks. Her name, of course, is...Mary
Poppins. In another classic movie, a
terrifying tornado actually turns out to be a godsend when Dorothy’s house
lands right on top of a very Wicked Witch.
Thus begins the beloved adventure…The Wizard of Oz.
Now, name some Bible stories that feature the positive effects of wind.
-Gen.
1 In the beginning when… the earth was a
formless void…a wind from
God swept over the face of the waters (1:1-2).
-Gen.
2 When the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, he
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life
(2:7).
-Gen.
8 After the flood, when God remembered Noah and all the animals,
he made a wind
blow over the earth, and the waters subsided (8:1)
-Ex.
14 When the Israelites were caught between the sea and Pharaoh’s
army, Moses raised his hands and
The Lord drove the sea back by a
strong east wind…and
the waters were divided (
-Acts
2 On the day of Pentecost, the disciples were gathered when suddenly
from heaven there came a sound
like the rush of a violent wind…and
all of them were filled with
the Holy Spirit (2:1-4).
So, when all this is added together, from winds that destroy to winds that save, we’re left with a profile that takes us right back to where we started in the nursery rhyme: the wind is capricious, it can be a blessing and a curse. Certainly God can use it for good: to rock a cradle, divide the sea, create both power and pleasure. It can also be an agent of pain, causing boughs to break, buildings to fall, people to die.
In
some sense, a similar thing can be said about the nature…of God. As the wind blows where and when it
will, so the Almighty acts and speaks where and when it will. But there is this important difference: while
the earth’s wind is only sometimes a good thing, the wind of God
is always a blessing, even, we believe, when it appears to be the
opposite.
Here’s
the reason why. Both the Hebrew word ruah
and the Greek word pneuma communicate the same meaning of wind as
also breath and spirit.
Wind=Breath=Spirit. It can cause
some confusion, as good ol’ Nicodemus discovers in our Gospel lesson for
today.
The
Pharisee proves that he is a concrete thinker, no stepping outside the box for
him. Nicodemus compliments the Lord and
claims to know that Jesus is from God.
Jesus replies by saying that only those who have been born an-o-then
can know about the
This,
of course, is how Nicodemus hears it, seizing on the more literal and anatomically…challenging
sense of being born again. He
snorts, How can anyone be born after having
grown old? Can someone enter a second
time into their mother’s womb and be born? (John 3:4).
What
Jesus says, seems to him as silly as a nursery rhyme, a child’s riddle, an
infantile inanity not worthy of this teacher come from God. As Jesus continues to speak, the Pharisee
discovers that this is no laughing matter.
This
man, born to wealthy parents, into a privileged estate, with a silver spoon
in his mouth, this man knows from whence he comes, to whom he belongs, and
to what he is thus entitled. He knows,
in fact, where everybody fits in his well-defined social order. He is a leader in God’s Kingdom… while most
everyone else is a follower.
Yet
in just a few short words, Jesus discards and disregards this man’s entire
worldview. The wind blows where it
chooses and so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. In other words, a person’s birthright, (social
standing, wealth, color, gender) means nothing in the eyes of God. To be born of the Spirit means that our first
birth becomes second in importance.
To
be born anew, from above is to have our loyalties changed from earth
to heaven. Says one
theologian, To be born “from above” – that
is, to be born of the sky, of the realm of God – is to belong to that
realm, to become a veritable child of God (Malina/Rohrbaugh, Social
Science Comm’y on the Gospel of John, p. 82).
It
is a gift, Jesus goes on to say, that is intended for everyone. For God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him
may not perish but may have eternal life (John 3:16).
Wind…Breath…Spirit.
When
the earth’s wind blows – cradles may rock and babies may sleep.
When
the earth’s wind blows – boughs may break and houses may fall.
Wind…Breath…Spirit.
When
the wind of God blows – the world is created and people are saved.
When
God breathes – dirt comes to life and people are inspired.
is filled with the Word that
gives life. Thanks be
to God. Amen.