John 20 – The Breath of Life

/

Lectionary Readings for Nov. 14, 2021                 25th Sunday After Pentecost, Year B
1 Samuel 1:4-20    Hannah’s Prayer for a Son
1 Samuel 2:1-10    Hannah’s Prayer of Praise
Hebrews 10:11-25 v24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.
Mark 13:1-8 Jesus Predicts the Destruction of the Temple

But this week we continue our series exploring the book of John, now with Chapter 20.

Weekly Meditative Exercise

Christianity includes a long and rich tradition of embracing meditative practices as a way of keeping us connected with God, ourselves, and each other. I encourage you to spend some time each week (ideally 10-30 minutes) trying each weekly exercise. You will naturally find some more appealing and effective than others. You’ll like some but not others, and after 6-12 months you’ll better understand what’s available and what helps you.

This week’s exercise focuses on Examen (pages 58-61).
From Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun. InterVarsity Press, 2005.

  • Desire: to reflect on where I was most and least present to God’s love in my day

  • Definition: It is a practice for discerning the voice and activity of God within the flow of the day. It is a way of increasing awareness of God-given desires in one’s life.

  • Scripture: “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best…” (Philippians 1:9-10)

As you engage with this exercise, I encourage you to ask yourself one of more of these questions each day this week:

  • For what moment today am I most grateful?
    For what moment today am I least grateful?

  • When did I give and receive the most love today?
    When did I give and receive the least love today?

  • What was the most life-giving part of my day?
    What was the least life-draining part of my day?

  • When today did I have the deepest sense of connection with God, others and myself?
    When today did I have the least sense of connection?

Peace through Leadership Quotes

“Ignorance is a menace to peace.”  ~ Paul P. Harris

“Peace is a fragile thing. It takes courage to secure it. It takes wisdom to maintain it.”  ~ Jenny Shipley

Ignorance often becomes the petri dish for imaginations fueled by fear. Sometimes our own assumptions can be more comforting than the realities around us. Either way, in our ongoing efforts to create and share peace, ignorance is neither bliss nor our friend. But when we replace ignorance with courage and wisdom, we can build meaningful, lasting spaces for peace to grow.

Any time I preach or lead a group, regardless of age, I start the same way. I’m going to say three short sentences. Please repeat each sentence, with enthusiasm.
God made me. God loves me. God has plans for me.

Preface to Today’s Scripture Reading

Between last week’s reading of John chapter 17 and this week’s reading from chapter 20, Jesus has been arrested, tried, convicted, brutally tortured, and horrifically executed for everyone to see. Jesus has also miraculously risen from the grave – which is much easier to believe 2,000 years after the fact than the day of.

As you listen to today’s reading, notice that Jesus arrives with words of blessing. He is focused on giving the disciples peace. He tells them to be at peace, and, a week later, He gives Questioning Thomas a profoundly transformative peace through an incredibly personal experience – “Touch me. Touch me where humanity nailed it’s fears into me. Touch me where the powerful sliced me with their deadly insecurities. Go ahead Thomas, it’s ok, touch me.” 

Jesus also empowers the disciples with words that combine blessing and vision. Today, religious communities like ours might call this an anointing or an ordination. Jesus anoints, not with oil, but with His very breath. He ordains them, not with titles nor privileges, but with a directive to GO and share life-giving forgiveness with the people they meet.

Also notice what Jesus does not say or do. He shares NO words of criticism with His friends who abandoned Him on the worst day of His life. He does not scold anyone – not even Thomas – for doubting; rather, He encourages them. This is the Good News made present to the disciples – people of great faith and great fear, great beliefs and great doubts.

Let’s open our ears, minds, and hearts as well as our questions, doubts, and fears to the empowering blessings of peace, encouragement, and direction found in today’s readings.

 

Read John 20:19-30 – and jump back to read chapters 18 and 19 as well for the complete “crucifixion to resurrection” story.

What an incredibly dramatic and intimate scene! Neither the locked door nor the disciples’ doubts and fears could prevent Jesus – God in the flesh – from effortlessly passing through those barriers so that He could be with the people He loved. This begs the question, what is God passing through to get to you?

Once inside, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit onto and into the disciples. Thanks to modern science, we better understand that our breath is far more than nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide atoms. No, our breath is alive with all sorts of microscopic creatures. Our breath not only keeps us alive, it is alive! That’s why surgeons have worn masks for the past century, and why many of us wear masks to avoid a virus we cannot see.

But unlike a life-sapping virus, Jesus shared His life-giving breath with the surprised, confused, and perhaps terrified disciples in that locked room. Recalling God breathing the breath of life into the first humans (Genesis 2:7), Jesus literally breathed His active, resurrected, life-giving breath into the disciples so that His life force – the Holy Spirit – would be in them. As an act of intense love, Jesus gave them “Spiritual CPR” so that they could, in turn, be empowered to go out and give this new life to others.

And what does this new life look like? Through today’s verses, Jesus tells us that peace, shalom, is central to God’s desire for our lives. As I’ve described before, shalom is not a shallow, momentary happiness. Shalom “is a Hebrew word meaning peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility and it can be used idiomatically to mean both hello and goodbye,” a greeting and a blessing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalom). Shalom is being at peace with God, with yourself, and with others.

Jesus also tells us one way we can attain this peace: through forgiveness. Our Bible Study group discussed various ways we’ve experienced offering and receiving forgiveness. We discussed how forgiveness is key to being able to live into the Great Commandments of loving God, loving ourselves, and loving others.

We talked about the challenges of forgiving ourselves for not always being the people we want to be. We talked about the impossible expectations society (including our own church family) often places on us, burdens that drain many of us from the joy of loving ourselves as God created us.

We talked about the burden of carrying grudges – the mental, physical, social, and spiritual suffering that often accompanies bitterness, resentment, and anger. We talked about the relief that often comes from forgiving someone else – whether or not they even ask for our forgiveness.

But if this path of forgiveness and peace sounds too good to be true, Thomas’ demand for proof and Jesus’ response immediately drives home the price Jesus paid for the forgiveness and peace He offered. “Go ahead, touch the scars from my years of service.”

What was true 2,000 years ago remains true today: our efforts to seek out and serve people who are outcast, to advocate for people who are ignored, to defend people who are weak, to lift up people who are put down... when we muster the courage to do any or all of those life-giving actions, we – like Jesus – will face adversity. And – like Jesus – we will ALSO attract like-minded people who will join us in our quest to give others peace with themselves and with the world around them.

Jesus gave his disciples the breath of life, the gift of the Holy Spirit active and alive within them. Jesus offers us the same today. No matter our circumstances, we too can breathe in the breath of life. We too can be empowered by the Holy Spirit to GO and forgive and love others with wild abandon.

Equipped with God’s mysterious presence within them, Jesus sent the disciples out of their protective, locked rooms so that they could share the Good News of God’s love. As Jesus’ disciples today, God is asking us, urging us, drawing us to GO into a hungry, hurting world with the best news of all: the Creator of the Universe created you, knows you, loves you, and welcomes you into the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of peace.

Amen? Amen!