Lent Week 2 2026: Year A - The Cross is Where the Wind is Blowing - John 3:1-17

(The following was first preached at the 8th Street Church, Oklahoma City, USA)

John 3:1-17

There was a man named Nicodemus.

He was a good man.

A religious leader. The kind of guy who read his Bible every day, showed up to meetings, tithed, volunteered, and knew how things were supposed to work. The kind of guy every pastor wants in their church.

And one night—not during the day when people could see him, but at night—Nicodemus went to talk to Jesus.

Now, in John’s Gospel, night is almost never just night.

Night is what it feels like when you’re curious… but careful.

Interested… but not ready to change anything.

Night is when you want answers—but you also want your life to stay mostly the same. Because you’re afraid of what might happen, what might come out into the open, what truth might be revealed, and what light might be shed on your life.

I wonder if more of us than not are like Nicodemus—approaching faith and church, and even Jesus, with this sort of caution.

Nicodemus is not a bad guy.

He’s not hostile to Jesus.

He just wants to understand what Jesus is about because Jesus is intriguing to him.

So he comes to Jesus at night and says:

“Rabbi, we know you’re from God. Nobody could do the things you’re doing unless God were with him.”

And in typical Jesus fashion, Jesus responds in the most peculiar way:

“No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.”

And understandably, there is confusion.

Nicodemus says, “What do you mean? I don’t get it. Like… being born all over again? Like going back into the womb?”

Now Nicodemus has a certain way he makes sense of the world. He’s orderly, educated, experienced. He’s a respected leader with a lot of clout in an ancient religion with a long history. And above all, he’s the foremost expert when it comes to that religion.

He wants to make sense of these mysterious activities Jesus carries out and these compelling statements Jesus makes.

But instead of clarifying, Jesus continues with the metaphor:

“No. You don’t need to be reborn of your mother. If you want to see the Kingdom God is establishing, you need to be born of the Spirit. And the wind blows where it chooses…”

And all of that is confusing to Nicodemus—but it can be even more confusing to us.

Because in the original language—Greek—the word Jesus uses for Spirit is pneuma.

And pneuma can also mean:

Breath.

Life.

Wind.

Same word.

So the way Jesus’ words are translated in English is, “The wind blows where it chooses…”

But in Greek, it sounds more like this:

“The pneuma pneumas where it wants to pneuma.”

“The Breath breathes where it wants to breathe…”

“The Wind winds where it wants to wind…”

“The Spirit spirits where it wants to spirit…”

In other words, Jesus is saying: God’s animating life moves like wind.

You can’t plan it.

You can’t schedule it.

You can’t put a lid on it.

You can’t vote on it at a board meeting.

You don’t control where it starts or where it goes.

You can only notice it… and decide whether or not you’re going to get on board with it.

So the question becomes: Where is the Spirit moving? Where is the wind blowing? And if we raise our sails to it, where is it going to take us?

Nicodemus knows the answer… he just doesn’t know he knows it.

So do we—if we’re honest.

In 2003, during my final semester of seminary, I sat in a required senior seminar with Dr. Mario Zani.

You had to pass this class to graduate. It was where everything was supposed to come together— theology, ethics, Scripture, pastoral wisdom.

Dr. Zani was one of those professors you wanted to impress—not just because he was smart, but because he was kind.

That day we were given a case study. It felt unrealistic. Dramatic. Far-fetched. Something I thought I’d never face.

I was the pastor of a church. An undocumented member of my congregation—an asylum seeker who had worshiped with us for years—was asking for sanctuary. A coworker had reported him. INS—what we now call ICE—was pounding on the church door demanding entry.

“What would you do?”

I answered confidently.

I said I would speak gently. I would assure him of our love. But I would explain that the laws of our country are just, and breaking them has consequences. Being here without papers is illegal.

And then I said, “I would turn him over.”

I felt composed. Measured. Responsible.

And then I looked up.

Dr. Zani was staring at me—not angry, not loud—but with grief in his eyes.

He was an immigrant himself.

And his expression seemed to say:

“You’ve read the prophets. You know what Scripture says about the stranger. And you still don’t see it?”

Over time, I realized something.

I knew the rules.

But I did not yet understand love.

Which sounds a lot like what Jesus says to Nicodemus:

“You are Israel’s teacher—and you do not understand these things?”

Nicodemus has the Law.

He has the Prophets.

He has the story of liberation.

He has the command to love the neighbor.

And still… he doesn’t see what God is doing right in front of him.

Because what he cannot yet grasp is this:

The wind is always blowing in the direction of self-giving, self-sacrificing, self-surrendering love.

Deep down, Nicodemus knows this.

So do we.

But if we’re honest, we ignore it.

Because love comes at a cost.

In fact, it costs God everything.

To follow Jesus is to recognize that the wind blows toward the one who is lost, abandoned, hungry, marginalized—the one who needs love the most.

And that is a hard pill to swallow.

So instead, we build systems so we don’t have to do the hard work of love.

We create rules.

We draw boundaries.

We build structures.

We tell ourselves: “This is just how the world works.”

But what we’re really saying is:

Love costs too much.

And what we’re really doing is protecting ourselves from the vulnerability love requires.

Because love is inefficient.

Inconvenient.

Risky.

Interruptive.

Costly.

Painful.

But no matter how carefully we construct our systems…

No matter how tightly we define the rules…

The wind does not move around them.

The pneuma pneumas where the pneuma wants to pneuma.

And it moves with storm-strength force—gale force, even tornadic—pressing us toward love.

What Nicodemus thought were the rules… were actually barriers.

What he thought were boundaries… were limits of imagination.

What he thought were faithful structures… were the very things the Spirit was beginning to topple.

Because in the Kingdom of God, the only law that finally matters is the law of love.

So Jesus says:

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up…”

And there it is.

The Kingdom of God—embodied in a man hung on a tree.

This is love on full display.

Costly love.

Cruciform love.

What Nicodemus thought was cryptic… was actually clear.

Jesus was talking about the cross all along.

If you want to understand new life—look at the cross.

If you want to understand the Kingdom—look at the cross.

If you want to understand the Spirit—look at the cross.

Because that is where the wind is blowing.

In John’s Gospel, the cross is not just tragedy.

It is revelation.

It exposes the truth:

That our systems protect ourselves.

That our structures serve our interests.

That our world will sacrifice the innocent to preserve power.

The cross reveals that what we call order is often fear in disguise.

And unless we are retrained by the Spirit… that looks normal to us.

But Nicodemus…

Eventually, he sees it.

Later in John’s Gospel, Nicodemus shows up again.

Only this time—it’s not at night.

It’s in the daylight.

Standing at the foot of the cross.

Watching love become costly.

And in that light, he finally sees what he could not see in the dark:

The Spirit had been moving all along—not toward safety, but toward cruciform love.

And if we raise our sails…

We will discover that the wind blows straight toward a skull-shaped hill.

Because the wind blows where it wants to blow.

And the pneuma will always move toward those who need love the most.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

And that is the Lenten good news for all of us.

——

The question is not whether the wind is blowing.

It is.

The question is whether we will resist it… or raise our sails to it.

Because the wind of God does not carry us toward comfort.

It carries us toward love.

And love—real love—will always cost us something.

But it is the only thing that leads to life.