Breath of life

Lutheran, The, Jun 2004 by Jensen, Richard A

The Spirit blows through Scripture and into our lives

I recently heard a woman recite Genesis 1:1-5 from memory ("and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters ..."). When she came to the word spirit, she paused, took a deep breath and literally breathed out the word. This woman, I thought, has it just right about the Spirit. Most Bible translations have a footnote that says the Hebrew word for Spirit could also be translated as wind.

Wind, breath, spirit. The biblical word for Spirit comes from this family of words.

When I grew up we called this member of the Trinity the Holy Ghost. Most of us associated the Spirit with the ghost family of words. That interpretation wasn't helpful. Wind, breath, spirit. That's the Spirit's family.

Life-giver

God's breath blew over the watery chaos at the beginning of time and blew life and the creation into being. In the creation story in Genesis 2 we hear that God formed our first human parent and breathed that parent to life.

The Spirit breathes life into the creation. The Spirit breathes life into human beings. So we confess in the Nicene Creed: "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life." This is a good beginning for an answer to our questions about the nature and activity of God's Spirit: life-giver.

The New Testament testimony to Jesus Christ is that he is the Spirit-filled man. His conception took place by the Spirit's power. John baptized Jesus. In, with and under that baptism God's Spirit descended upon Jesus as a dove from heaven. "This is my beloved Son," God announced.

We expect Jesus' ministry will be one of giving life because the Spirit lives in him. This is illustrated in the story of Jesus visiting his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. he read from Isaiah 61:1 -2, a passage in which the coming of a Spirit-filled man is prophesized.

Isaiah wrote: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19).

Jesus sat down. all eyes were fixed upon him. "Isaiah was speaking of me," Jesus effectively says. "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing for the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The Spirit of the Lord lives in me."

God's life-giving Spirit is alive and at work in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

In his ministry on earth, Jesus breathed on deaf ears and they opened; he breathed on limp limbs and they leapt to life; he breathed on sinners and they were forgiven; he breathed life on the dead and they rose to new life. The Gospel of John summarizes it well: "I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly" (10:10).

Jesus'continuing presence

Jesus was filled with the life-giving Spirit of God. At the close of his ministry he breathed the Spirit of life upon the disciples-and, by implication, upon us-at the first Pentecost.

On that Pentecost day the disciples were gathered when a sound like the rush of a mighty wind filled the house. Wind! The sign of the Spirit. Indeed, the disciples were filled with God's Spirit and spoke in many languages as the Spirit inspired them. The disciples witnessed to the crowds of God's mighty works.

The crowd gathered in Jerusalem for that Pentecost celebration heard the sound and wondered at its meaning. Peter spoke to the crowd. We expect Peter to speak about the Spirit. But no! Peter gave witness to Jesus Christ. "It is the risen Jesus," Peter proclaimed, "who has poured out this that you see and hear" (Acts 2:33).

In other words, Jesus is the author of Pentecost. At Pentecost Jesus breathed new life into the disciples. The Spirit will carry on his life-giving ministry. The Spirit is the present activity of Jesus' work among us still today. The Spirit is the active presence of Jesus alive in our midst continuing the life-giving work that he had begun.

The whereabouts of the Spirit among us today, therefore, is no great mystery. The Spirit is at work wherever and whenever the story of Jesus is told and enacted among us.

In our church we hold up Scripture, baptism, communion and the "mutual conversation of believers" as the primary witnesses to this story. It's through these means that the story of Jesus is told and enacted among us. It is through these instruments, therefore, that the Spirit is at work breathing God's life into us. We breathe the word of God, we breathe in God's promise made to us in the waters of baptism and communion, we breathe in God's life wherever two or three gather in Christ's name-we breathe-and God's life in Jesus comes to birth within our very bodies.

The Spirit is alive within us. God's powerful inner presence first of all enables us to come to faith in Jesus Christ. The Spirit alive within us also fashions in us the fruits and gifts of the Spirit, equipping us for our manifold life-giving works in God's world.

It's Pentecost. Take a deep breath of Jesus!