The Lutheran Hour
-
"Breathe In, Breathe Out"
- Download MP3 Reflections
-
Text: Acts 2:42-47
-
Our text for today is Acts 2:42-47: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
Breathe in, breathe out. A Harvard Medical School article recommends deep breathing as a technique to deal with bad stress, which can lead to anxiety and depression, or to high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease—the leading cause of death in the United States. The article observes that “deep abdominal breathing encourages full oxygen exchange—that is, the beneficial trade of incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide. Not surprisingly, it can slow the heartbeat and lower or stabilize blood pressure.” Breathe in, breathe out. Even creation bears witness to God’s wonderful design and blessing in the healthy rhythm of our breathing. The article ends with a recommendation to make conscious, deep breathing into a healthy routine, habit, or rhythm of daily life.
Breathe in, breathe out. Such is the rhythm of life. We breathe without thinking about it. Breathing is life. It is essential to who we are as God’s creatures. Breathe in, breathe out. You can’t have one without the other, and live. We need to inhale oxygen to live. Breathe in. But we also need to exhale carbon dioxide to live. Breathe out. If you only breathe in but do not breathe out, you die. And if you only breathe out but do not breathe in, you also die. There is no subverting the way God created us to live. In the bidirectional flow of our breathing, God has established a healthy rhythm for our lives.
In the biblical story of God’s dealings with His creatures, the Holy Spirit is portrayed as God’s breath of life. Throughout history, Christians have confessed the Spirit in the Nicene Creed as “the Lord and Giver of Life.” According to Psalm 104, when God takes our breath away from us, we die. We expire. Breathe out. But when God’s Spirit creates and sustains us, we live. Breathe in. In prayer, the psalmist speaks of all creatures’ humble dependence on God’s breath and Spirit for life: “When You hide Your face, they are dismayed; when You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104:29-30).
The psalmist’s prayer recalls the Genesis story in which Adam is made a life-giving creature because God breathed life into him. But this breathing does not only bestow physical life. It also bestows a spiritual life, a life of joyful fellowship with the Creator, a right relationship with God. In the biblical story, such fellowship with God is only possible through the Holy Spirit.
When Adam sinned against God, this spiritual bond and fellowship with the Creator was broken. Theologians of the early church and the Reformation believed that, because of Adam’s sin, the Holy Spirit who binds us in fellowship with God had departed from humanity. Adam lost the Spirit and so did the rest of humanity. As a result, humans were destined to die in sin, to die spiritually, that is, to die as sinners separated from God. They were destined to expire without the breath of life, without the Holy Spirit. Breathe out.
But what about breathe in? With Adam’s sin, death entered creation. Life was sucked out of us, as it were. Might the Spirit who had departed from humans breathe in humans once again? Might the Spirit return to breathe in us, to give us life once again? Purely out of divine goodness and mercy, God the Father sent His Son to earth to restore and renew His sinful creatures, to redeem the race of Adam from sin and death, by becoming one of us even unto death and by sending the Holy Spirit to give us His resurrection life. As the apostle Paul teaches, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). God made Adam a living being with a natural body, but through sin the first man Adam’s body became a perishable, dishonorable, and weak one. We inherited the image of this man of dust. But thanks be to God, through Christ, the last Adam, the man of heaven who rose from the dead, we will inherit an imperishable body, raised in glory and power. When Christ returns at the last day, we shall bear His image in a resurrected, glorified, incorruptible, and imperishable body (see 1 Corinthians 15:42-49).
Through Christ, whom Paul calls “a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45), God will send the Spirit of life once again into our hearts. Through His sin or unrighteousness, Adam lost the Holy Spirit and so did we; but through His righteousness, Christ regained the Holy Spirit for us. Paul calls Christ a life-giving spirit because, as the Risen Lord, He is the giver of the Spirit of God, the One through God bestows the Holy Spirit back to sinners to restore their fellowship with God once again. Through the Spirit of life, Christ breathes life back into us through the forgiveness of sins and through the power of His resurrection unto life everlasting. If Adam lost the Spirit, Christ returned the Spirit to us. Breathe in!
The Holy Spirit, the breath of God, acts according to His own rhythm in the life of the church. This rhythm can also be described with the image of breathing, of breath coming in and going out. Breathe in, breathe out. In the book of Acts, the Spirit breathes life into the church and then, through the church, breathes life out into the world. At the beginning of Acts, Luke tells us that before His ascension into heaven, Jesus “had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom He had chosen” (Acts 1:2). Jesus taught His disciples as One full of the Holy Spirit. But Jesus also gives them the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised His apostles the Holy Spirit to empower them in their ministry of proclamation: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Jesus, who has the fullness of the Spirit, fills His disciples with the same Spirit so that they can proclaim His Name in the power of the Spirit. Breathe in, breathe out.
On the Day of Pentecost, the promise of Jesus came to fulfillment when “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). Jews from many nations who were in Jerusalem were amazed when they heard Jesus’ disciples and observed, “we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11). Because some people were making fun of Jesus’ disciples, saying they were drunk, the apostle Peter explained what happened on that day, telling them that Pentecost was the fulfillment of the words of the prophet Joel, according to whom God “will pour out” His Holy Spirit upon His people in the last days to prophecy, to tell the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, so that “everyone who calls upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:18, 21). Here we see the rhythm of the Spirit. The Spirit breathes life into the church and then, through the church, breathes life out into the world.
Peter teaches that on Pentecost the Lord Jesus has “poured out” the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33) for the purpose of empowering His church to proclaim God’s salvation in Christ in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. To those who were listening to his message, Peter said: “Repent and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Through the Word and Baptism, Christ will breathe the gift of the Holy Spirit to the spiritually dead in order to gather them into His church as a people who share life together around the Word of God in faith and in works of love.
What does such fellowship of the Spirit look like? Luke gives us a picture of the church that lives in Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:42-46). They devote time to the teaching of the apostles, break bread together in their homes, and say prayers for one another and the world. They worship together. They also love one another. They share things in common, including possessions, a sign of their spiritual bond with Christ and one another. They live, they breathe, as a people filled with the Spirit, who binds them in joyful fellowship with one another. Breathe in. But then Luke adds that “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). Which means they were not only breathing in the Spirit, but also breathing out the Spirit in the community as witnesses of Christ in the world, sharing the apostolic message with others. Breathe out.
The Spirit is not to be kept among us but is meant to be shared with others. This is the rhythm of the Spirit that Christ Himself embodied. In teaching about the significance of Pentecost, Peter tells us that Christ “received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:33a). Christ has the fullness of the Holy Spirit. He does all His work of salvation in the power of the Spirit. In another sermon at the house of a Gentile called Cornelius, Peter talks about “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” and how “He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). Jesus does all His deeds in the Spirit, that is, in faithful obedience to the Father and in loving service to us even unto death. Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit to save us from our sins and give us resurrection life.
Jesus also gives us the Holy Spirit. Jesus has the fullness of the Spirit so that we might receive the Spirit from His fullness. For this reason, Peter also says in his sermon at Pentecost, that Jesus, “having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit … has poured out” the same Spirit to us. How generous! Jesus did not only breathe in the Spirit. He also breathed out the Spirit upon us. Early church and Reformation theologians agreed on this image of the Holy Spirit who flows from Christ to us, from the Head of the church to its members. St. Athanasius, a church father from the fourth century, beautifully taught that Jesus, our Savior and God, “as a man” was “anointed with the Spirit” so that “He might provide for us men, not only exaltation and resurrection, but the indwelling and intimacy of the Spirit.” A disciple of the reformer Martin Luther by the name of Martin Chemnitz taught that Adam through the Fall lost the Holy Spirit, and the flesh, because of its depravity, was not able to contain the Holy Spirit. But in the person of Christ human nature was again anointed with the Spirit. Christ has received gifts [of the Spirit] from His Father for the benefit of men. But then, having received these gifts, He does not keep them to Himself alone, but because we are His brothers and the flesh of His flesh He gives, communicates, and distributes them to His brothers as Head to its members.
Friends in Christ: the ongoing purpose of Pentecost, its enduring significance, is to bring the church into the life-giving rhythm of the Spirit so that she can reflect the life of her Lord Jesus, who having received the Spirit did not keep His gifts to Himself but generously shared the Spirit with us. The church has also received the breath and gifts of the Spirit, but she does not keep the Spirit to herself. Instead, the church embodies this rhythm when she brings the Spirit who fills her into the world through the Word and Baptism, in order to bring the world into the fellowship of the Spirit that is the church. Breathe in, breathe out.
Let us pray: Come, Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of life, breathe new life into Your church and, through Your church, breathe new life out into the world. Breath of God, Spirit of Christ, gather hearers of Your Word into the fellowship of the church, where brothers and sisters share the apostolic Word, break bread together, pray for each other, worship together, help the needy, and bear each other’s burdens and gifts. Holy Spirit, breathe in us, and breathe out through us! Amen.
Reflections for April 14, 2024
Title: Breathe In, Breathe OutMark Eischer: You’re listening to The Lutheran Hour. Want more? You’ll find audio on demand along with other FREE resources online at lutheranhour.org. Joining us now, here’s Lutheran Hour Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
Mike Zeigler: Thank you, Mark, and thanks to Dr. Leo Sanchez for the sermon today on Acts 2. Today I’m visiting with Dr. Jeff Gibbs, an emeritus professor of New Testament at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and still teaching Bible class at his local church here in St. Louis. Welcome back to the program, Jeff.
Jeff Gibbs: Thank you very much, Mike. It’s good to be back.
Mike Zeigler: Acts 1, it starts with a reference to the first book, the first message, and dealing with all that Jesus began to do and teach. When I hear that, I think of began to as in, oh, Jesus is still doing stuff, and that’s what this book is about. Is that on the right track?
Jeff Gibbs: No, I think that’s exactly the right track, Mike. Acts, of course, begins with the Lord Jesus having been raised from the dead and before He ascends into heaven, and so His ministry leading up to the cross and the empty tomb was volume 1, the Gospel of Luke, as we know it. Now Jesus isn’t done. We’ll probably pick up on this later, but there’s a beautiful reference where there in chapter 1, St. Luke writes that Jesus was informing the disciples about the things relating to the Kingdom or the reign of God. The very end of the book of Acts, Paul is in prison and he’s speaking freely. He’s kind of under house arrest, he has privileges because of his Roman citizenship, so he’s kind of a high-status person, although he is in chains. And what is he talking about? He’s preaching Jesus and the reign of God, the kingdom of God. Oh, and then Acts ends and it’s not over. The things that Jesus began to do, volume 1, now Jesus is continuing, risen from the dead, the Lord of all, He’s still doing stuff.
Mike Zeigler: Jesus came to be the king—
Jeff Gibbs: Yes.
Mike Zeigler: —of God’s kingdom and He did stuff in the first part in Luke, and now He’s ascended, but that doesn’t mean He’s out of the picture. He’s enthroned and He’s sending and doing things.
Jeff Gibbs: Correct. We say this in the Creeds, the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. That sequence of how God chose to do things to save us and to begin to renew the world, it’s a sequence. It’s His birth, His ministry, His crucifixion, His resurrection, His ascension, His sending of the Holy Spirit. That might be the main way to think about how Jesus is continuing to do things. It’s through His Holy Spirit who fills His church with faith. Obviously, Jesus sometimes works directly as the case of miracles and so forth, but that’s how He catches us up into this story that is continuing on until the day when He comes again.
Mike Zeigler: As we read Acts and are attentive to things, especially in this early part of the book, what does that mean for Jesus’ followers to have the Holy Spirit poured out on them from Jesus?
Jeff Gibbs: They proclaim. So, God’s people receive the ability not only to believe what it is that Jesus has done, but to speak about it. Not everybody’s an apostle, not everybody’s an evangelist in the narrow sense. But the Spirit is the Spirit who enables God’s people to speak.
Mike Zeigler: Dr. Sanchez in his sermon, he talked about that really great image of the breathing and exhaling, in and out, breathe in and out. There’s this rhythm and so far, if you’ve been reading in the book of Acts, there’s sort of a rhythm alluded to, of stay and wait for the promise of the Father, so there’s a gathering and then you will be My witnesses in Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. A gathering and a sending rhythm. What might that mean for us today, being aware of that rhythm?
Jeff Gibbs: The knowledge that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all believers, all Christians, is a wonderful promise. It’s an encouragement. It reminds us—this is St. Paul now—that gift of the Spirit that we’ve received now is like a down payment, and so the fullness is coming when Christ returns and the Spirit renews the face of the earth. I like that image, and the Spirit is at work. We can grieve Him, Paul says interestingly in 1 Thessalonians, I think, but He’s at work. For us to just think, oh, yeah, in that sense it’s as natural as breathing, but it’s also a promise for my faith to grasp. I am caught up in God’s plan. I am, with you and all believers, indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Right? That means I can know, I can believe, I can bear fruit, I can speak.
Mike Zeigler: And so as we live in that rhythm, there’s this two parts to it, just like with breathing—the Holy Spirit is He gathers and calls and enlightens, but also sends out.
Jeff Gibbs: Right. Right. Right, yeah. That’s right because if we don’t breathe, we die. If so, if we don’t keep that rhythm going, we live in a noxious, spiritually-deadly atmosphere, still. He accomplished His work in Christ and all that we need for our faith is provided. But still the world is broken; still we ourselves are broken. And so, if we forget to breathe or if we stopped breathing, if we stopped taking in, then we’ll die. But having taken in—if you actually take in, it’s hard not to give out.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah.
Jeff Gibbs: Right? We can do it if we work at it, but yeah, we need to breathe and God enables that to happen. I think of this as what it means to be alive actually. We talk about eternal life and we already have eternal life now: John 3:16 and so forth. But I think it’s not a bad analogy with physical life, this receiving and giving, receiving and responding, that’s what it means to be physically alive. I actually think that that’s not a bad analogy for spiritual life. God offers me His peace, His forgiveness, and I actually can receive it and rejoice in it, and I do, so do you, so does every Christian.
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“With High Delight Let Us Unite” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.