Water, Wind, and Fire

Creation began with water and wind.

Over the deep primordial waters, the Wind of God blew. She swept over the face of the deep, brooding, stirring, breathing. This was the first stuff of creation: a formless void of the water of creation and the Breath of God bringing her creative, life birthing force. When God spoke, it was the wind, the breath, the Spirit that went forth, causing light to separate from the dark. There was evening and then morning: the first day. Then the sky split from water, land from sea, and the boundaries of the cosmos were created with the whisper of God on the face of the primeval waters.

This is the breath of God’s—the wind of God’s— modus operandi. The spirit moves over the water, and creation happens.

The wind of God split the Red Sea, and the story of the creation of Isreal as the people of God’s deliverance came to pass.

Again, the waters split at the Jordan River when Isreal passed through and became the people of the promised land.

Creation of the people of God happened through the water the Spirit chose to brood over.

John the Baptizer came to know the Spirit again brooding over the Jordan as the people of God came to repent and be baptized in the waters of creation.

Then came Jesus. At his baptism, the Spirit made herself manifest and descended on the Son of God as he came through those waters of the heart’s orientation to divine love.

Jesus knew the reality he spoke to Nicodemus of being born of water and the Spirit, the wind of God.

All of this led up to Jesus standing up in Jerusalem on the last day of the feast of booths and proclaiming the same truth he had spoken to the woman in Samaria, the truth the prophet Isaiah had spoken centuries earlier: the living water was a free gift to all who would believe.

From the depths of who we are, living water, the moving, churning water of creation would flow. In that moment, the thirsty believers were invited into and promised a place in the ongoing act of creation that God continues to this day. Jesus spoke of the Spirit as this living water, as the wind of God, as the source of this creation flowing from the heart.

But people didn’t understand. They didn’t know this water was the water of creation, the water the Spirit brooded over before the formation of the cosmos. Arguments arose whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. Those arguments grew larger and more poignant. Jesus continued to offer living water, and in doing so disrupted the political and religious power that aided the oppression of the people under the Roman Empire. Jesus and his offer for the thirsty to come and drink and become wells of creation water continually challenged the authority of the elite. Jesus empowered people to see with new sight, to go forward in forgiveness, and to rise from the dead. Jesus offered to any and all the chance to believe in the Son of God, and in doing so to move into the promise of the wind of God brooding over them.

Eventually, the promise and disruption of Jesus become too much for the authorities to deal with, so they give Jesus over to Rome as an insurrectionist to die a criminal’s death. As Rome killed Jesus, a message was being sent—those who disrupt the power of dominion will be delt with through violence. Those who drank from the living water of Jesus and had the seeds of the Spirit and her creation life in their bellies, they were afraid. Violence was the final solution to disruptors, and the leader of the disruption had been executed in the ultimate act of violence.

Fearful to their bones, they hid in the dark where monsters stalked them. The kind of shapeless terror that consumes. It was the kind of fear that brings anxiety over what could happen.

Where was that wind, that breath, that Spirit of creation and liberation?

Was the promise dead along with the Messiah?

Would violence find them as well?

“Peace be with you.”

Jesus interrupts their fear with a simple greeting. Then he offers himself, his nail-marked hands and the wounded side from where blood and water flowed. Jesus offers his body to the fear riddled disciples.

And they rejoice.

Here, before them, in their midst, was the Messiah, the liberator promised by the divine wind maker. God had told the world through the power of the Spirit that Jesus was coming, and now she had brought him to them. Jesus was alive, the breath of life filling his lungs.

It is this breath, this whisper, this wind that Jesus breathes out upon the disciples, opening the door for them to receive the Spirt, the breath, the wind of God that brooded at creation. No longer was the Spirit “out there” acting creation, but now the Spirit was to reside in them, making the disciples agents of creation themselves.

What world would they create? Would it be one where liberation sets all people free, where sins are drowned in the waters of forgiveness? Or would it be a world of retention, of control, of metering out forgiveness like currency in a failing economy?

Were they going to be creators of the liberation and belonging of God in the world they were in, or would they succumb to the methods of empire, dominance and oppression being the law of the land, enforced with the very violence they had just been cowering in fear from?

This was the question they faced after the ascension. What was this group supposed to be? How now should they live? How was it that they would live out their calling to be witnesses and testify to the nations about the reality of liberation in Jesus?

It started as a whisper, air barely moving in the corner of the room. Then it was a breeze; people began to notice a gust. Then the wind began to build, rushing, moving, violent. This was the violence they had truly been hiding from, not the violence of empire, but the violence of new creation. The windstorm shook the room. Everyone was left wind swept and in awe.

And then came the fire.

Igniting above the head of each and every one of them as a flame, burning bright, but not consuming. They felt the heat from these tongues of fire, and the warmth melted away any question of what they would do, how they would live, who they were.

They were followers of the Way.

Sins were going to be forgiven, and liberation proclaimed to the ends of the earth. There were no two ways about it; this baptism of fire had finished was the wind of God had started. Now, finally, the living water erupted from their hearts.

And they spoke.

In every language, every tongue, every national dialect. They spoke of Jesus, of the Messiah, how he had to die and be raised on the third day. This was their message of liberation.

If anyone doubted this was liberation, all they had to do was to look at the followers of The Way: once fearful, cowering, unsure, they had been transformed through this baptism of fire into earth-shaking, bold agents of a new creation.

The towers of the empires of the world, the monuments of self-important people that trafficked in slavery and oppression through violence, now had to contend with a different kind of violence, the violence of liberation.

When the Spirit moves, she shakes the house. She reverses Babel, crumbles its tower, and unites all people, every nation, and all tribes under the fire of new creation.

This is the fire in our bones, the flames dancing on our heads. This is the power of the waters of creation, the wind of God, and the fire of new creation. We carry forward this legacy, this remarkable truth that life doesn’t have to be this way.

Empire tells us that power, domination, oppression, and violence are the means to create a world in its image.

But we know a different truth, a deeper magic. We know that through water, wind, and fire, the empires of the world will crumble, the disjointed lives of the peoples of all nations will be reversed, and that we are all connected and needed to build a new world, a new way of living, a new way of being in the cosmos.

Not only is another world possible, but we are its foundation, and Christ is our cornerstone. We are not building a tower to the heavens to make a great name for ourselves. No, we are prophesying when the Spirit falls on us, no matter where we are, that the old has passed away and behold all things are being made new.

It doesn’t matter if you are a churchgoer or not.

It doesn’t matter if the gatekeepers accept you.

It doesn’t matter who you are, who you love, or how you identify.

The Spirit that broods over the waters of life will come and ignite you with a holy fire that you may burn this old world and see the newness of creation burst forth in your life, in our communities, and in our world.

Let us burn.

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If you are in a season where you need someone to help you hear where the Spirit is brooding over the waters of your life, and where she is igniting the flames, spiritual direction might be a good fit. As a spiritual director, I'm here to walk beside you, listening with you to what's happening in your soul. I'm fully queer-affirming, trauma-informed, and love working with people no matter their relationship with God, church, or religion. Contact me if you're curious, and we can talk more.

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