In the season of Easter we are especially interested in breath and breathing. On the Second Sunday of Easter we heard the Gospel of John report that the risen Lord entered the closed room and greeted the disciples saying, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. (John 20:22)
Jesus’ breathing on the disciples is a most welcome gift in light of what happened on the cross. We cannot help but connect this act of breathing to the reference to Jesus’ last breath.
When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:30)
At the most basic level the text can be read, “and gave up his breath.” In the same way we speak of dying as expiration (breathing out). When we give up our breath, our relationships to the world are at an end. When we receive breath, we are at the beginning, like Adam in creation. The reader of John already connects Jesus to creation. “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). Jesus dies crying out, “It is finished.” What is finished? His work is finished. Is Jesus finished? He has given us his spirit (breath). The death of Jesus as the “one sent from God” is the fulfillment of creation in so far as we see in his dying the power of God revealed in a dark world. No breath, no life, unless God acts.
Such is the expression of the psalmist who declares,
When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground. (Psalm 104:29-30)
Note how the psalmist accents the relational essence of what it means to be a breathing creature. In the Hebrew scriptures and in the New Testament the Holy Spirit is not a thing. It is not a substance. The Holy Spirit is the force by which the Creator Spirit creates relationship. We understand this relationship as a gift because we know that we are impotent when it comes to engendering a relationship with God. The wind in our windpipes conveys the mystery of life as the product of God’s pure grace. Every reference to breath in the biblical witness is a reference to the creation or re-creation of life.
When Jesus breathes on his disciples in John’s story, we have a clear allusion to the Adamic story of creation.
Then the Lord GOD formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. —Genesis 2:7
The Adamic story of creation tells us that we are relational being. This meaning has been covered over by different concerns imposed on the text. In the history of the church we have overly spiritualized this most concrete expression of God’s creative act. The King James Version offers us the words, “and man became a living soul.” The Greek dichotomy of body and soul, material and spiritual was imposed over these words so that it was thought that God blew a thing into the man. That thing was called a soul. But the text is clear. God blew into the man the breath of life. The lump of clay became animate, alive. He was breathing!
When Jesus breathed on the disciples on that first Easter Day in a closed room, he brought about new life, new relationship. Some rites of baptism preserve this meaning when the priest blows on the newly baptized signifying the reception of the Holy Spirit. This gift of relationship is the forgiveness of sin; it is the justification of our lives by grace.
We start with breath in the season of Easter, and we end it with breath when on the Day of Pentecost we celebrate the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit that calls the church into being. Even though Luke delays the gift of the Spirit by 50 days, both Gospels of John and Luke give common witness to the resurrection as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the world that God loves.
‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.’
(The prophet Joel quoted by Peter in Acts 2)
Our response to the gift of breath is to worship God by the power of the Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead and gives rise to the acclamation awakening us from sleep, “Alleluia.” (praise the Lord)
Let everything that breathes praise the lord! —Psalm 150
Hallelujah!