Breathe Deeply

Below is the sermon I preached today on Acts 2:1-21. Click here to read the scripture passage ebfore reading the sermon.

Breathing Deeply

As much as I enjoy being away at a conference or on vacation, there’s a part of me that dreads coming back. Not so much because of the work that piles up while I’m gone, but more because I can never manage to remember what setting I was using on the treadmill. So I simply dread that very first workout once I’ve gotten back from a trip.

This last trip that I took was no different. I found myself standing on the treadmill, desperately racking my brain trying to remember the setting. After awhile I come to the conclusion I’m just going to have to guess or I’ll never get around to the actual workout, I’ll just spend all day standing on the treadmill staring at it. So I muster my courage and I guessed. I picked something that in my mind had to be reasonably close.

The first part of my workout went well, I was feeling pretty good. Then as the treadmill begins to pick up speed, I realize that I have in fact, guessed wrong. I chose a setting that was harder than the one I had been on before. “Oh well,” I think to myself, “It’ll be a little harder, but I can do this.” And for those of you who have run before, you know that a large part of running is mental. So I’m having this mental conversation with myself about how I can do this, it’s really not that much harder than what I was doing before, I’m only feeling this tired because I was expecting the old setting, at this point I’m telling myself anything I can think of to motivate me to keep running. But the longer my workout goes, the heavier my legs seem to feel. I find myself slowing moving further and further back on the treadmill and I am gasping for air. I feel like I just can’t get enough air.

At this point I really want to stop running. And I find myself wondering how people would react if they walked into the room and realized their pastor had flown off the back end of the treadmill and was flattened against the wall. I begin to think I really should slow this thing down, after all, that’s the pastoral thing to do right? Because I wouldn’t want to traumatize anyone who happened to walk in and find me in an unconscious heap on the floor from having flown off the back end of the treadmill.

But I’m too stubborn to give in. I really hate quitting. So I find myself trying to combat these negative thoughts, trying to find any source of motivation to keep going. I think one of the occupational hazards of being a pastor is that you bring God into everything. And I certainly was going to need some divine intervention to make it through this workout! Yet all I can hear is my gasping for air. So with each gasp for breath, I start to say, “I have the breath of God within me.” I have the breath of God within me. And I’m breathing really fast so I’m saying it over and over again really fast. IhavethebreathofGodwithinme.IhavethebreathofGodwithinme. That starts to perk me up a bit, so now I’m starting to get a little feisty about it. I start saying things like, “I have the breath of God within me! And I am not going to let a machine, defeat the breath of God. The breath of God is stronger than this machine, it’s stronger than the ten pound weights that seem to have magically appeared on my legs, it’s stronger than anything else that exists.”
I wish I could say that I finished that workout strong and feeling really good. I didn’t. But I did finish. I finished that workout still gasping for air and still saying over and over again, “I have the breath of God within me.” In fact, I spent the rest of the day repeating that phrase in my head as I went about my work.

As funny as that story is, we all know how important breathing is, how serious it is. We know that when we stop breathing, we lose our life. The very first thing that we have to do when we are born is breathe. And it’s the very last thing we all do before we die. Our life is tied to our breath. It’s a fact that’s known all too well to those who have ever had a loved one on a ventilator. It’s a fact that’s known all too well to those who have asthma, a condition that threatens one’s breath, and therefore one’s life. Our life is tied to our breath.

I think it’s because of this relationship between breath and life that I so love the image in Genesis of God breathing life into Adam. I picture God kneeling down beside Adam in the clay that he was just moments ago formed from, and God leaning full body over Adam as God breathes into Adam, forcing air into his lungs for the first time; a lot like when someone is giving CPR. What an intimate and messy picture of God imparting life into humanity.

I find it really fascinating that the same word in both Hebrew and Greek can be translated as wind, or breath, or spirit. In Hebrew the word is ruah and in Greek the word is pneuma. And so the passage in Genesis could just as easily be translated as God breathed God’s spirit into humanity. And the passage from Acts that was just read could be translated as “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the breath of God…”

We all have within us the breath of God, the Spirit of God. And that’s what we celebrate today, on Pentecost Sunday. We celebrate the powerful and dramatic way that God’s spirit is poured out on those gathered in Jerusalem. It reminds us that the church is inseparable from Christ. Because to be separated from the source of our breath, to be separated from the spirit of God, is to lose our life. Without the Holy Spirit, we aren’t the church. Without the Holy Spirit, we’re just an old lifeless institution.

Luckily that’s not the picture that Luke paints for us in Acts. Instead we have this incredible image of life and passion and vitality that is described in this passage from Acts as the Holy Spirit is poured out. We can practically feel the wind blowing on our face and see the tongues of fire resting on everyone. We can hear the commotion as the noise level begins to rise, everyone speaking their own language and yet everyone hearing in their own language and understanding. There’s preaching by Peter and over 3,000 were added to their number that day! It’s a really chaotic and lively image of what it means to be the church.

Yet so often, as individuals, or even as a community we don’t feel that lively and energetic. We often feel just the opposite. When we find out that a loved one is sick it can feel like we just had the wind knocked out of us. Or it can feel like we are suffocating under the weight of our worry and axiety as we wonder if we’ll have a job next week. Sometimes it feels like we’re gasping for air, desperately trying to keep our head above water as we juggle the demands of work and family.

Sometimes as a community it feels like any minute we might go flying off the back end of the treadmill as we try to provide more and better ministries to the community. Or how we’ll accomplish the vision God has laid out for us. So often we don’t really feel all that inspired or empowered.

Honestly, that’s how I imagine the disciples feeling at the beginning of this passage. I imagine them feeling like they had just gotten the wind knocked out of them. It was bad enough that Jesus died, but then he was resurrected and they’ve spent that last seven weeks with him. And now, all of sudden, he’s gone again. He’d warned them that he was leaving, but I imagine it was still a painful parting for the disciples. I imagine them feeling like they are suffocating under the weight of their own grief, dazed and confused about how exactly they’re going to fulfill all the commands Jesus gave them before he left.

But then God’s Spirit is poured out on them and fills them with power. It transforms them from scared disciples that were hiding in a locked room after Jesus’ death into the powerful and passionate body of Christ alive in the world. Peter, the one who flat out denied Christ, the one who flat out lied about knowing Jesus, now stands boldly preaching before the crowd in Jerusalem. As the story of the early church continues to unfold in the rest of Acts, we see the disciples empowered to venture off into unknown places to spread the news of the Gospel. They preach and pray and spread the good news even in the face of the floggings, stoning, and being imprisoned. And we’re told that they do all of this with great joy!

The same Spirit that was within them is within us. God has breathed the breath of life into each of us. God has breathed the Spirit of God into each of us. That same Spirit that empowered and transformed the first disciples into the church, the body of Christ, can fill us with power and transform us. God’s Spirit can fill us with what we need just as it filled the disciples with what they needed. That Spirit is just as powerful today as it was on that first Pentecost.

Like the disciples we have to learn to trust in the power of that Spirit. Not only did the disciples receive the Holy Spirit, but they trusted it and relied on its power. They didn’t have to talk or keep talking and that incredible miracle of understanding and unity would have ended. Peter didn’t have to explain it. But they did keep talking and Peter did explain it, because they trusted in the Spirit that had filled them. Peter trusted in the power of the Holy Spirit to speak through him and to bring others into closer relationship with God.

So breathe deeply! Today if you find yourself hurting, if you feel like you’re suffocating or just might fly off the back end of the treadmill then breathe deeply. Breathe deeply and inhale the Spirit of God. Lean into that spirit, trusting it to carry you through. And when times get tough you can even repeat my little running mantra, “I have the breath of God within me.” If you are hurting or grieving or wondering if you have the strength to carry on, breathe deeply and inhale the Spirit of God.

If the opposite is true for you, if you find yourself feeling full of the Spirit, if you’re feeling strong and empowered to live out the vision God has for us, then breathe deeply and breathe out the love of God on others nearby. Chances are there is someone near you that desperately needs to feel the life giving power of the Spirit of God. So breathe deeply and exhale the love and grace of God on those around you who are hurting and feeling lifeless.

Regardless of where you find yourself this day, Breathe deeply.

Amen.