Receive the Holy Spirit

“He breathed on them.” You weren’t there. Neither was I. None of us will see – in this life at least – what the disciples saw that first Easter Sunday. But can we imagine what they must have been feeling that evening? Their beloved friend and teacher, Jesus, was gone. And they were scared to death. Despite Peter’s denials, the authorities knew they’d been followers of that seditious rabbi. Would they be next on the cross? Would a locked door even keep the soldiers out? As they huddle together, in through that locked door walks Jesus! Let yourself feel the shock, the joy they must have felt. Let your mouth hang open. Get up and hug him! Then start hugging each other!

After they’d quieted down a little, Jesus spoke. He gave them a greeting of peace and a commission: “As Abba God sent me, so I send you.” All of a sudden, the joy changed to fear again. Do what he did? Go where he went? Minister to the people he ministered to? Love as he had loved? No way! Then the gospel writer tells us that Jesus breathed on the disciples. How did that feel? Were they actually close enough to him to feel his breath on their faces? Or did the risen Jesus have super breath? As they received his life-giving breath into their own bodies, what did it smell like? Could they smell the flowers of spring – or the joys of heaven – in it? Did the scent of his last meal with them, the bread and the wine, or the fish, bread, and olives of all his other meals with them, linger in his breath? Could they smell the sour wine he had drunk while hanging on the cross, or the spices with which they’d anointed his body? Was there a mix of death and new life in his breath, just as there was in his risen body?

So am I running off into trivial, naïve literalism? Then perhaps we are not meant to take this account literally. Nor do we need to do so. Remember that in Hebrew “spirit,” “breath,” and “wind” are all the same word. Remember too that in Scripture the “breath” is the animating principle, that which gives life. Do you remember God’s action in the second creation story in Genesis? “So YHWH fashioned an earth creature out of the clay of the earth, and blew into its nostrils the breath of life. And the earth creature became a living being” (Gen. 2:7, The Inclusive Bible). Or Isaiah’s description of God’s Servant: “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one, in whom I delight! I have endowed you with my Spirit that you may bring true justice to the nations” (Is. 42:1). Many of us rely on God’s promise relayed to us by Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26). And of course there are the dry bones, the bones of the whole house of Israel. God said to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to the wind; prophesy, mere mortal, and say to it: ‘Thus says Sovereign YWYH: Approach from the four winds, Breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live’” (Ezek. 37:9). And how can we forget God’s promise spoken by the prophet Joel: “I will pour out my Spirit on all humankind. Your daughters and sons will prophesy, your elders will have prophetic dreams, and your young people will see visions” (Joel 3:1).

Jesus too reminded us that God’s wind or breath or Spirit was what truly animates us. Remember his conversation with Nicodemus earlier in John’s Gospel? “You must be born from above,” Jesus tells him. “The wind blows where it will. You hear the sound it makes, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit” (John 3:7-8). Perhaps most important of all, in the course of that long last meal with his friends, as John tells it, Jesus made another promise. “If you love me and obey the command that I give you, I will ask the One who sent me to give you another Paraclete, another Helper to be with you always – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept since the world neither sees her nor recognizes her; but you can recognize the Spirit because she remains with you and will be within you” (John 14:15-17).

So what we are really meant to understand from this image of Jesus’ breathing on the gathered disciples is this: in Jesus all God’s promises are fulfilled! Fulfilling his own promise to them, in his risen life Jesus re-animates this frightened band of friends by filling them with his own Spirit. Through his gift of the Holy Spirit, the Helper, Jesus enables this hapless group of deserters to calm down and become courageous. He enables them to be bold, and joyful. What is more important, in giving the disciples his Spirit, Jesus also gives them the power to carry out their commission, the commission that is at the heart of all the gospels. In effect, Jesus gives them the equipment they need and the authority they need to speak words of peace and healing to all, to extend God’s mercy and forgiveness to all, and to carry forward Jesus’ work of creating new communities united in love.

My sisters and brothers, this is truly the good news in this gospel story. We too are part of that new community created by Jesus’ Spirit. Just like the disciples of old, we too are part of that re-animated band. Through our baptisms, we have been included into the group gathered into that locked room, and we too have been gifted with a share of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has breathed on you and me. His breath is now in ours, his voice is now in ours. We too breathe him in in prayer and breathe him out in our speech and our movements. We speak as Jesus would speak, not only to bring judgment, but, more importantly, to bring grace. We attempt to do what Jesus did, not to win brownie points with God, but because Jesus is working in the world through us. And here’s the most important part. When Jesus commissioned his friends, when he said to them, “As Abba God sent me, so I send you,” he didn’t say those words only to Peter or the Beloved Disciple. He didn’t say those words only to priests. All the people who received Jesus’ breath into their own bodies, all the people who heard his commission, were ordinary, working people: fishermen, former prostitutes, peasants, merchants, tax collectors, and who knows what else. If we are part of that company, then Jesus has commissioned all of us. Do you think that clergy are the only ones who can speak in God’s name? My ministry and role are emblematic of yours! The most important thing that my collar symbolizes is that I should ideally be serving as a model for what all of us are called to do. Believe me, you too are commissioned, you too have been re-animated by the Holy Spirit.

In his risen life, Jesus has transcended the limitations of human life. When he comes to us, when he breathes new life into us, Jesus enables us to also break free of our own narrow experience. He enables us to live differently, to go to places we had not foreseen, to minister to people we had not known, and to offer God’s love in ways we had not thought possible.

Examples abound of those animated by God’s Spirit. Most recently, some of us have been remembering Rosa Parks. A new complete biography of her has recently appeared. Most of you know her story: how she helped start the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, and how that boycott initiated a decade-long struggle for civil rights for all. Some of you may also know that she did not act alone, but was part of a community of African-Americans who worked together to effect change. What most of us forget about Rosa Parks was that her activism grew out of her devotion to Jesus. She was a staunch Christian, carried her Bible everywhere, and was an active member of African Methodist Episcopal Churches in Montgomery and Detroit. Taught by Scripture and empowered by the Holy Spirit, she fought against racism, even facing down death threats with long periods of prayer.

Just as Jesus breathed God’s Spirit into the dispirited disciples and into Rosa Parks, Jesus breathes on, with, and through us. We too are animated by his breath, and we too go out from here, ready to proclaim him to the world and to spread his message of justice and peace. “Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what thou dost love and do what thou wouldst do.”