John 3:8 “You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.”

If you watch the weather report any given evening, it may seem that the weatherman is telling you where the wind is coming from and where it is going. You see the fronts on the weather map. You may know that the wind flows clockwise around high pressure systems, and counter clockwise around low pressure systems. That is not the picture Jesus has in mind.

Think of an individual gust of wind on a particular day. Just where did that particular column of air start to move? Where does it die? These are the things you can’t see, and no weatherman can tell you. But you know that the gust of wind was real. You felt it on your face. You heard it rustling through the trees or whistling past your ears. It’s real thing, a real phenomenon, but it’s unseen.

That, Jesus says, is like the people who have been born again. Line up a bunch of randomly selected people, and then tell me which ones are the Christians just by looking at them. You can’t do it. Even if you followed them around for a while you might have difficulty telling them apart, because Christians don’t always act like Christians, and sometimes unbelievers seem to act more Christian than the Christians.

But this new birth, this spiritual life, this relationship with God, this trust in the grace and forgiveness of your King, is a real thing. “You know you’ve changed,” Jesus seems to be telling Nicodemus. “You don’t regard me like the other Pharisees. You hear my words, and it stirs you deep within. It moves you in ways you don’t even understand. Exactly when I became more than just a curiosity to you, and you started to trust me, maybe you can’t even say. But you know that you have changed. You are starting to talk differently. You are starting to think differently about things. You feel guilty about things that never bothered you before. But most of all, you are finding a peace you didn’t have before, because you have found a King who loves you, who will protect you, who will give his life to save you.”

Sound familiar? I could tell you about many modern day Nicodemuses, surprised by their own new birth of faith. Nabeel Qureshi came to the United States from Pakistan to study to be a doctor. For years he dismantled the Christian beliefs of his poorly trained Christian classmates. Then he met a Christian student who knew a thing or two about the Bible. After several years of debate, study, and friendship Nabeel came to the conviction that Jesus is the saving God he claims to be. Before he died of cancer, he became a speaker for a ministry that reaches out to Muslims. Something changed.

You don’t need stories about other people. You have your own. Whether early in life or late, whether by baptism or the word, the Holy Spirit found his way into your heart. Everything changed. You’ve had a new birth. You’ve got a new life. Because of Jesus, that’s no surprise.