Minister's Message

Message from the Minister – November 2026

‘Autumn Wind’

Greetings for Novembe r. The clocks have changed, the nights are getting longer, the days shorter and – other than beginning with the completely obvious – I have definitely noticed a cooling of the season in recent days. Having ignored weather forecasts for the whole of the summer (every day seemed hot and sunny), I am starting to keep an eye a little more now. Autumn can be a wonderful season, full of colour and changes and a beauty all of its own. Of course, on wet, blustery days when the wind is inverting your umbrella and the rain becomes horizontal, it is less enjoyable!

When Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night to ask him all sorts of questions, Jesus used the wind to represent the Spirit of God. He said: “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’” (John 3:8-9)

It strikes me that there is actually zero criticism from Jesus at all in this sentence. Nicodemus is not expected to know everything and certainly not everything about the work of God’s Spirit. In fact that’s not for him to know fully – and it’s not for us to know fully either. While Jesus points the way to the Kingdom and to the love his heavenly Father has for all his creation (see John 3:16 a few verses later), the Spirit makes it possible for the human heart and soul to dare to reach to know this, to feel this, and to follow Jesus’ way. I wonder if Jesus is even subtly telling Nicodemus that God’s Spirit is already in him, prompting him to speak, to ask, to recognize that Jesus cannot be anything other than from God.

We will never know it all, you and I – but we can know enough. By God’s grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit, we can dare to face questions about life, death, eternity, the depths of love, the heights of grace, the freedom to live as people who are cherished in spite of all our failings. The wind, the Spirit may beyond our understanding, but is with us all the way. By God’s grace we’ll continue to receive glimpses of his kingdom: the one in our midst, and the kingdom to come.

Blessings to all this autumn!

Grace and Peace,

Rev. Paul Tabraham