Don't Forget to Breathe

John 20:22

“He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Man am I out of breath. You wouldn’t think that climbing a set of steps would leave me out of breath.  I know I could lose a few… well a lot.   But hey I have been working out pretty much every morning for a few years.  In Texas I belonged to Lifetime fitness.  I went every day to work out.  In Germany I walk 5 – 10 kilometers every day.  Why in the world would I be out of breath after a few steps?  Our Doctor explained it.  He said, “It’s not your weight.  It’s not how much you work out.  What happens when people climb steps is that they hold their breath.  Don’t forget to breath!”

That’s also great spiritual advice. That’s why I want to focus on these words that Jesus spoke to His disciples.  “He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”   Let me share a couple of things about this passage.  First, you need to know that the words for “breath” and “Spirit” are the same word in both the Greek and the Hebrew.   Secondly, this isn’t the first time God has done this.  When God was first creating the world “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”  Adam was only a clump of dirt until God breathed life into him.  See how important breathing is.  When we don’t breathe, we don’t live.   What does it tell us that Jesus now repeats this action as He ordains the Apostles for their ministry?  He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  It’s so obvious.   The breath of God’s Spirit is as important to our spiritual life as physical breathing is to our physical life.  Luther wrote it in the Small Catechism, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel…”  God through baptism breathed His life giving Spirit into our lives and we became living breathing children of God.  

The thing about breathing is that it is essential that you never stop.  You want to live then don’t forget to breathe.  Now you would think that is a silly thing to say.  Who would forget to breathe?  Well I do.  I have sleep apnea. That means that while I am sleeping I stop breathing.  When that happens my brain sends out all sorts of signals to get me breathing again.  That’s why I sleep with a CPAP machine.  It blows air into my nose to keep me breathing.  It’s a very simple solution to a very dangerous problem. 

Just as dangerous to our spiritual life is our tendency to forget to breath spiritually.  We live busy lives in a busy world.  We are so busy doing things – at home, at school, at work, in our kid’s activities, even at Church that we forget to breath.  We fail to take time to breath in the Spirit of God daily!  We skip our devotion time.  We short change prayer.  We are too busy to read our Bibles.  When we forget to breathe it does great harm. I know from personal experience.  It was the year before we got an Associate at Lamb of God.  It was happening again before I took the call to Germany.  I was so busy doing ministry that I had no time for God to breath His life into me.  The result was I had nothing to give.  I had no time for people.  I was cranky.  I was worn out. 

That’s why God desires daily to breathe His Spirit into our lives.  When Jesus died and rose again He began a new creation. That’s why the first thing He did after rising again was the same thing He did when He first created Adam in the Garden.  He breathed into His disciples the breath of new life and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”   He did the same thing in you at baptism.  That’s the work He continues every day as He speaks to you His word… as He feeds you weekly with His body and blood in bread and wine at Holy Communion. That is what He is doing when He invites you to come to Him daily in prayer… when He invites you to confess and repent your sins and then speaks to you His word of forgiveness.  We get rid of 71% of the waste inside in our body by exhaling. Then when we breathe in the fresh air we receive the most important renewal and refreshment our bodies need.  The same is true when we repent.  As we confess to God our sins, we give to Him our spiritual waste.  As he forgives us, He breathes into us the new, renewing life of His Spirit.  God is oxygen of faith. If you forget to breathe in God’s new life, eventually all you will have inside is the sin that pollutes you. 

Linda and I love to go to Colorado.  We love hiking the mountain trails. Now it is the nature of every hike in the mountains of Colorado that you spend a lot of time climbing up steep inclines. In that high altitude if you just put your head down and keep climbing you aren’t going to make it very far.  You will be out of breath and unable to go on.  But if you stop regularly to drink water… to enjoy the view… to breath, you will make it to the end of the trail.  That’s how it is with your walk with God.

The most important thing you can do is take the time, stop along the way, to pray… study His word… be fed at His table… breathe deeply the Spirit of God… The best advice for walking the up the high mountains and into the deep valleys of life is this – Don’t forget to breathe!  Amen!