2nd Sunday of Easter - sermon

John 20:19

Breath of God

            Today we begin with the creation story of God creating Adam.  As God creates, it is not until God breathes into Adam that there is life.  God’s breath into humanity, into us, into this world to bring life.  This is a rather intimate way of remembering who we are in relationship to our Creating God.  Our life force, our very being exists because God has breathed life into us. 

            Breathing is one of those things that I don’t pay much attention to until I am out of breath.  Athletes and Musicians must pay attention to their breathing as they practice and train.  If you do yoga, the practice reminds you to breath and to feel your breath.  Breathe in, breathe in deep, and then breathe out.  The world all around us is breathing:  The trees, the birds, the squirrels, and each of us. 

            As we get busy in our lives, it is easy for us to forget that we are so connected to God, that all of creation is so connected to God.  Can our very breathing be a spiritual practice?  Can we find time in our daily living to just stop and focus on our breathing, saying a short prayer of gratitude to God for these created bodies in which we dwell?  As you find time to breathe in, remember where your breath goes, as it enters into your lungs and then from there is gathered up by your blood and brought to every last cell in your body in order that each part of your being receives the oxygen that it needs to live.  Your breath, finding its way to the tips of your toes. 

            Our God uses breath to bring forth creation, and our God uses breath to bring forth the new creation of God’s people in the resurrected Christ.  The Easter story is not over.  Easter is not just about God defeating death and overcoming the powers of sin in this world.  Easter is about engaging God believe that in the power of the resurrection, we are a new creation.  We are an Easter People. 

            As those disciples gathered together, full of fear, they were in a room and they had locked the door.  They had no idea what their future held.  They had just witnessed the death of their beloved friend, teacher, and leader.  What was going to happen to them? 

            Years ago, a church member gave me a Jade plant, they were downsizing and could not take this rather large plant with them.  Well, I rather quickly destroyed this plant, but instead of just throwing the whole thing away, I took cuttings off of it, and replanted the parts I thought would continue to grow.  That was over ten years ago, and I still have cuttings from this Jade plant.  A few weeks ago, my girls were playing together, and seemed a bit too quiet, so I went to see what they were up to – and they had stripped on of the Jade plants of all of its leaves, just leaving this bare stalk. 

            Symbolically, that is how I envision these disciples in that locked room.  They were stripped of everything, stripped of their hope, of their faith, of their expectations and assumptions.  All they had left were each other.  They had lost everything.  Everything that they had put aside for the past three years, their families, their livelihoods, all for nothing.  As they gathered in fear in that locked room, there must have been some deep grief and loss going on as well.   

There is just something so real about our scriptures.  The story of who we are, it tells it like it is.  We are a people that don’t always get it.  We are people that, when afraid, we gravitate towards those that help us feel safe.  We lock the doors to keep others out, whether it is the doors of our houses, our churches, or even our hearts.  We know how to protect ourselves.  And our God never gives up on us.  Jesus does not say, oh I wasted the past three years with these people.  Jesus meets them in their fear, he appears to them, entering into the locked room, and breathes upon them.  Sacred breath, sacred creation, sacred living.  No matter who we are, no matter what our past or what our present, God desires to encounter us in our locked places of our lives and breathe the life giving force of creation. 

I didn’t throw those stalks of my Jade plant away.  I decided I would continue to water it and see, if just by some chance, it would continue to grow.  And it is.  For a plant that I thought I had killed ten years ago, it continues to amaze me as cutting after cutting continue to grow. 

God’s people are the same, we continue on, we continue from a long faith history, we continue hearing the story and sharing the story.  And sometimes, hopefully more often than naught, we encounter the risen Christ in our lives and are refreshed with God’s living breath reminding us that we are indeed a part of God’s new Creation. 

As Jesus breathes into his beloved friends, he does not allow them to stay in the locked room.  He calls them to go forth.  They have a role to play in God’s plan.  They have a role to play in continuing God’s story.  They have a role to play in sharing the message that God has overcome the oppressive powers of the world.  This is a daunting role, and they do not go out alone, but they go out with the breath of God within them.