New to Faith

John's Gospel opens with a poem — a theological declaration so compact and so vast it has occupied scholars for centuries. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then the most astonishing turn in all of literature: the Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.

The eternal God, unlimited and uncreated, became a baby in Bethlehem. He walked dusty roads and ate fish with fishermen. He touched lepers who had not felt human contact in years. He came to what was His own, and His own people did not receive Him. Not everyone welcomed this strange, unsettling Jesus.

But some did. And to those who received Him — who opened their hands to what He was offering — He gave something that could not be earned: the right to be called children of God. Not visitors. Not admirers. Children. The legal standing of family, given as a free gift to anyone who would simply receive the One who came.

Your first step in faith is the oldest step — it is reception. Open your hands. He is already here.

The younger son had rehearsed his speech on the long walk home. He would say: I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me one of your hired servants. It was an honest assessment of his situation — he had taken his inheritance early, squandered it, and ended up feeding pigs in a foreign country, dreaming about their slop.

He never got to finish the speech. The father saw him from far off, ran, embraced him, and kissed him. Then, while the son was still reciting his prepared words, the father interrupted and called for a robe, a ring, sandals, and a fatted calf. Not the uniform of a servant — the marks of a son restored to full standing in the household.

Exousia — the right, the standing — was given back before the son had demonstrated any reform. The father's declaration made it real: "This my son was dead, and is alive again." Not "this my servant who is on a trial period." My son.

Nicodemus was confused. How can a grown man be born again? Jesus didn't soften the mystery: "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

The new birth is like wind — you cannot manufacture it, control it, or schedule it. You cannot earn it or bring it about by force of will. But you can feel it. You can open your sails to it. You can notice that something is happening in you that you did not put there yourself.

If you are exploring faith for the first time and something in you keeps drawing you back — a longing, a curiosity that won't go away, a feeling that there must be something more — that is not random. That is the wind of the Spirit moving in you, the first breath of a life that God is bringing to birth.