In one of the most dramatic, significant and yet intimate, tender moments of the Gospels, the resurrected Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit onto His gathered disciples:
“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:21-23).
Can you imagine what it must have been like to have Christ’s own breath, the very breath of God, the Holy Spirit, gently blown into your face, lungs and heart? Life-changing for sure. Once, a breeze of the breath of God bathed my face in a dream. The dream sequence began as other dreams, but turned into something holy and wholly unspeakable. Here it is in present tense:
I am in the living room of the house in which my family lived in Des Moines, Iowa. The room is darkened, yet I can see well enough to walk around it without banging into anything. I notice a mirror above the fake fireplace, and it is smoky gray. Curious, since a mirror did not exist in real life, I walk over to it. Seeing a bare outline of myself looking back to me, through “a glass darkly,” so to say, I begin to feel a slight and very pleasant breeze gently wafting through a tiny hole in the mirror. I put my face closer to the mirror, as this enchanting breeze becomes stronger.
Suddenly, it is no longer just a breeze. Now it is the very breath of God. So powerful is God’s breath/breeze, that I wake up at once. Shocked, I begin to pray, asking what I can possible say about that most intimate encounter. Then it hits me: there is absolutely no way I can ever describe what I just encountered. I have no words for the Spirit of God; hence, no one might believe me or understand what had just occurred—unless of course, they should experience it themselves. At this realization, divine humor seeps into my awake consciousness, and I begin to laugh at such an impossibility. My wife wakes up alongside me.
Mildly irritated at having been awakened by her laughing husband in the middle of the night, she says: “So what’s so funny?” That makes me laugh harder, because I cannot ever describe what just happened, not even to my wife. So I said, “I cannot put words to what happened, or to the reality of God.”
Kitty replied, “OK, if you say so. Can we go back to sleep now?”
I said, “Sure, honey; I am sorry my laughter woke you up.”
This is how I later depicted this truly indescribable event:
Once You breathed on me; I felt Your breath, so softly surrounding me, then slowing, ever so delicately, moving through and filling me with Your liberating presence.
Then Your breath became You, how I know not, but when Your breath morphed into You it ceased to move; everything ceased moving within and around me.
There was simple union, pure You and only You for a space as immeasurable as it was unforgettable.
You are Spirit; You are love; Light and airy, yet of Greater Substance and Power than all the mass and energy generated by Your Big Bang.
This is but one of Your paradoxes:
Ultimate power one with ultimate tenderness, strength wed inseparably to gentleness.
You are Yourself the miracle of all miracles.
Breathe on me, breath of God; transform my weighted being into your weightless wind, blowing wherever it will, in accordance with Your will, knowing Your freedom of flight.
One of my favorite hymns is “Breathe on Me, Breath of God,” written by Edwin Hatch in 1878. Here are its four verses, slightly modernized. As you meditate on these heartfelt words, pray that God will breathe on you, establishing in you the spiritual truths they contain: [EXT]
1. Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love the way you love, and do what you would do.
2. Breathe on me, Breath of God, until my heart is pure, until my will is one with yours,
to do and to endure.
3. Breathe on me, Breath of God, until I am wholly yours, until this earthly part of me, glows with your fire divine.
4. Breathe on me, Breath of God, so shall I never die, but live with You the perfect life of Your eternity.
Leave a Reply