Life Begins With Breath

Pentecost - Cycle C

In the Bible, life begins with breath.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

Spirit, Ruach in Hebrew – the word means wind, like the rush of wind that filled the house on the day of Pentecost.

And then the wind formed the formless earth.  God spoke.  And the breath that was God’s Word began to create.  Let there be…

There is a second version of creation that follows in the next chapter that is more specific about breathing life into human beings.  Then the LORD God formed a human of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the human became a living being.

This last Easter we heard Ezekiel’s version of the breath, the story of the dry bones.  Then God said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, son of man, and say to the breath [that's Ruach again], Thus says the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”  So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet.

And so what is death in the Bible?  Not when the heart stops beating, not when the brain ceases its frantic activity.  From today’s Psalm, You hide your face, and they are terrified; *you take away their breath, and they die and return to their dust.

Life begins with breath.  And as long as there is breath, there is life.

Try it.  Blow.  Blow out your breath, and hold yourself empty.

...

I didn’t have to tell you to inhale, did I?  You’re not dead!  The Spirit whom God sends, God’s own breath, is with you always.  Always that close – as close as your breath.

But maybe in the moment by moment simplicity of breathing – we need give it no thought whatsoever – we missed something, back at the beginning, back before there was breath, or before there were human beings to have breath.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

Without form, void, darkness upon the face of the waters.  Which in Bible speak means – chaos.

My therapist used to say, Chaos precedes creation.  And she knew she was paraphrasing Genesis chapter 1 verse 1.  The earth was without form and void.  Creation comes after that chaos.

What she meant was, Do not fear the chaos. 

Do not despair of the pain of chaos.

Do not avoid the chaos.

‘Cuz that’s the only way you get to creation.  Chaos precedes creation.  If you don’t let a little chaos in, if everything has to be just as you know it, just as you understand it, you will get what you already have.  You will never grow beyond where you are right now.

This time breath in, and don’t let it go.

...

The breath is life.  And if you try to hold on to what life you already have – cuz’ it’s a good life, isn’t it? Don’t you like what you already have, what you have always had? – If you try to hold onto it, you pass out.  God doesn’t leave you in such foolishness.  You have to let go.  Because God has more in store for you.  God has more in store for you.  And if you will not take it, God is likely dump a little chaos on you anyway.

So the disciples sat in that Upper Room.  For ten days they sat.  Gosh, it was a beautiful room.  Gosh, they had such memories of that table and what had happened around it.  Not all of it was wonderful.  There was pain, knowledge of the loss that was to come that last night with Jesus.  And uncertainty.  Philip spoke for them all when he said, “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

We just want to know. We want to know that what we have done, what we have sacrificed was worth it.  So we can lay our burdens down.  Turn out the lights, shut the door.  We will be done.

No, Philip, you are not done.  Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.  You want to exhale and call it quits.  But the Spirit will fill you again.

See, the Jesus Institution can close its doors.  And they did.  Filled with grief, they closed the doors the night he died.  Even after he came back, reminded them, You are not done! – they closed the doors again after he ascended.  On the edge of a new creation, they hung back.

Oh, those ten days before Pentecost were good.  They talked about old times.  They repeated the stories he told.  They broke bread together.  They’ll know we are Christians by our love.  That troublemaker Judas, (I never trusted him) was gone.  So how they loved one another!  Behind those doors.  They rested.

But the Jesus Movement, unlike the Jesus Institution, the Jesus Movement has to move.  If it’s not just a clever saying, the latest rebranding to make us feel cool, the Jesus Movement has to move.

So ten days was enough sitting around.  And if you will not take hold of the new creation, God will dump a little chaos on you anyhow.  A rush of wind, a fire that pushed them out the door.

And it wasn’t in them, they just were not the type, they did not have the energy to go out, to do what Jesus did, to tell the good news to strangers, to their neighbors – to anybody!

But God does not let you hold your breath that long.  So out it came.

Here is the Church, here is the steeple.  Open the doors, see all the people.  

And then – Pentecost!

At first they stood just outside the door, so they could duck back in if their courage failed.  Nevertheless, they spoke the Gospel to people who did not speak their language.

That was a beginning.  And it was hard.  It attracted attention and it attracted opposition.

But instead of pulling in, this time they went further out.

Philip even baptized an Ethiopian eunuch.  Think about that.  An Ethiopian eunuch.  Who would that be today, a transgender black man?  Or, I guess, black woman.  Well, Philip was a deacon.  You’d expect to find a deacon on the very edge. But the eunuch went home to Ethiopia.  So it never really touched the folks back home.

But then Peter, he baptized Cornelius.  Cornelius was a Gentile who lived in the neighborhood.  We forget, because we’re Gentiles.  But they/we do not do things the way the disciples did them.  The way we do things would just be weird to them.  That was a whole dump truck full of chaos.  And for many it was too weird, too much.

Peter argued his case.  He presented his evidence, evidence of the Spirit.  Acts, chapter 11.  Look it up in your own Bible.  So they had to say yes to this new creation, a movement much bigger, much more diverse, much stranger than they expected when they started out.  And even after they said yes, they tried to hedge their bets.  Paul had a lot more explaining to do in the days to follow.

But there was a direction established.  It was not going to be a hedgehog, spikes out, tender bits in.  It was Spirit, like the wind.  Who knows where it will blow us next.

The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these… I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth.

Breathe in, breathe out!  Breathe in, breathe out!

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.  Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give to you.

                                                      Amen.

fresco of Holy Spirit at the Karlskirche in Vienna by Johann Michael Rottmayr in public domain

artwork of nebula by Patrick Hoesley, used under Creative Commons license

fresci of Ezekiel's vision of dry bones by Feodor Bruni in public domain

The Last Supper in the Museu de Évora used under Creative Commons license

photo of fingers from https://nextchurch.net/here-is-the-church-here-is-the-steeple-re-writing-the-rhyme/