The Breath of God

Source of Grace, Love, Forgiveness and Life

Our lives are gifts from God and are filled with many things: family and friends, jobs and professions, successes and failures, heart songs and heartache, sin and forgiveness, life and death. During the season of Lent leading up to Easter we have to opportunity, perhaps even the necessity to reflect on these many emotions and experiences. The following prayer helps me and many others put all things into perspective.

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer p. 219)

As we examine our lives with the help of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, we see that God cares about our joys and our sorrows, our sins and successes, our life, death and new life (resurrection).  I share a portion of Ezekiel 37:1-14, the Valley of the Dry Bones, and of John 11:1-45, the Raising of Lazarus, to shine a light on God’s care and love for us as we journey from life to death to resurrection with all that entails for us and for our families.

“The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. . . Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord. . . and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. . .” (Ezekiel 37:1-14) The Holy Spirit, the Breath of God surrounds God’s people through life and death and back to life again. We now go with Jesus to Bethany.

“When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. . .and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. . . then Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go! (John 11:1-45)

“Lazarus, come out!” “Unbind him and let him go!” Jesus’ words to Lazarus, Jesus’ words to Lazarus’ friends and family are Jesus’ words to us as well. He calls us out from death: from death to our fears, our sins, our disappointments and our failures as well as our physical deaths. We are surrounded by and filled with the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, our chains are broken and we are set free to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.” (Book of Common Prayer p.305)