6th Sunday of Easter, Confirmation Day “Breathe on Me, Breath of God”
May 5, 2024 John 20:21-22; Acts 2
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Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,
One of our hymn verses says this:
Breathe on me, breath of God; Fill me with life anew,
That I may love all that you love, And do what you would do.
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The Hebrew word for ‘spirit’ is ‘ruach’; that same word is used for ‘wind’ and for ‘breath.’ The Holy Spirit is the Breath of God. God’s breath gives life. A scene from a movie showed a man from India who moved to London to live & work. The first week there he saw a woman get hit by a bus. She lay on the street, not breathing. The man rushed to her and applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She was revived, and the man said to her: “Madam, my breath has given you new life.”
That’s not true; but what IS true is that when God breathes on us, His life comes into us & gives life. When God formed Adam out of dust of the earth, says Genesis 2, God breathed into his nostrils and the man became a living soul. (Gen 2:7). God’s breath gave life in the beginning; God’s Spirit-Breath still gives life.
We read in John 20 the event of Easter. Jesus had risen from the dead, but the disciples were still hiding in their locked room. Suddenly Jesus was standing there among them. He said, “‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ Then He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (Jn.20:21-22)
With that, the Spirit of God revived their shaky, doubting faith in their Risen Lord Jesus so that they could be sent out to make disciples of all nations. To do that, the HSp would clothe them with power on the day of Pentecost. On that day, they heard the sound of a mighty rushing wind; they were filled with the HSp, and began to speak the gospel in other languages, and many came to believe in Christ. The breath of God brought life.
So, when does God breathe on YOU to give His Spirit and life? Let’s identify four times. First, in Baptism. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3: ‘flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.’ That means that the life we receive at our earthly birth does not qualify us for the kingdom of God. For that we must be born again. (Jn 3:3–5) That happened when God connected His Spirit -His Breath- to water in your Baptism.
God’s promise to give you the Spirit & faith in your Baptism did not depend on you.
Just as you did not help when your parents gave you physical birth = it was their gift to you. So God’s promise of a new birth thru Baptism is His work & gift to you. God breathed new spiritual life into you thru your Baptism.
Second, God’s breath gives life as you grow up learning of Jesus. His Spirit continues to breathe life into you as you learn from His Word. You learn that you are a sinner & need forgiveness. You learn that God’s Son Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins, & the sins of the whole world. Jesus is your Savior; He died so that you would live. Every time you come to worship Him, God is breathing on you. Every time you acknowledge your sin to Him, & repent to turn away from sin, and confess that Jesus is your Savior, God has breathed on you, and His Spirit is at work in you.
Third, God’s breath gives life at your confirmation. The purpose of confirmation is to bring a child’s simple trust & scattered knowledge of Jesus into a more formed & public confession of Christ. We need this, because Jesus is also the Lord over every part of our daily living. To be ‘confirmed’ is to acknowledge that God has grown you in the faith so that you can make an ongoing promise back to Him. You vow to remain in this one true faith with your words & actions.
Today we celebrate that -by the Breath of God- He ‘makes firm’ your vow to live in Christ. We celebrate that you can now examine yourselves, as St.Paul says, and so receive the very body & blood of Jesus in His holy meal. Today, you affirm that your faith is a living relationship with God. He warns you to be on your guard, to listen to His voice, to obey His teaching, & strive to win the prize for which God has called you heavenward in Christ Jesus.
And finally, God’s breath gives life to live this Christian faith until death. Confirmation is not an end; it’s a step up & forward = with a more firm foundation as your life changes.
In John 6:63, Jesus says, ‘My words are Spirit and life.’ That means: His Bible is the breath for your living. That’s what church is for. How long can you go without breathing? As Exodus 20 says, ‘six days you shall labor & work, but the seventh is a sabbath to the Lord your God.’
God knows that His people need His breath every day. The devil, & your own excuses, will tempt you to stay away; but without the breath of God, faith suffocates & dies.
To live as God’s faithful disciple & servant, you’ll need His breath to face every new week, because life in this sin-filled world is a dangerous challenge to our spiritual health.
So God provides us His Word & Sacrament to use. By them, God’s breath gives life.
God’s Spirit has breathed on us in our Baptism, thru our childhood trust in Jesus, thru our more formed confession of Him in confirmation, and then, week by week, as we listen to our Savior’s voice, and follow Him to the point of our death, and then thru the very gates of heaven.
Breathe on me, breath of God; Fill me with life anew,
That I may love all that you love And do what you would do.
Amen