Breathe Spirit

John 20: 19-23

When we think of Pentecost, we first think of Luke’s account of the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For Luke writes it was on the Jewish holiday of Pentecost, 50 days after the Passover.  There was a loud wind and tongues of fire on the believers heads.  Peter starts preaching and we celebrate this day as the birthday of the church.

Tradition does connect this gift of the Holy Spirit with Easter as we have kept the celebration of Pentecost 7 weeks from our Christian Passover, Resurrection Sunday.  John however connects the gift of the Holy Spirit directly with that day, as He gives them the Spirit on that very day.  Luke uses the term wind which in the Hebrew (ruach) means both Spirit and wind reflecting the wind of Genesis 1 that God used to create. John uses the word breathed, which would harken back to Genesis as well, chapter 2:7:

then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Or in Ezekiel 37 when God breathed on the dry bones to bring them back to life.  John is emphasizing with the gift of the Spirit that those received New Life in the Sprit. 

Peter and the disciples in Luke’s account knew exactly what to do with the gift of the Spirit; they evangelized.  In John even seeing the resurrected Jesus, it is not long before they take that gift and go fishing.  Jesus meats them at the lake and cooks them breakfast and reminds them, why He gave them the Holy Spirit, via his discourse with Peter:

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. (John 21: 15-17)

Jesus is saying as He said in the locked room, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  We are commissioned to share that gift.

Jesus breathed the Spirit to His believers.  They breathed it in, but to live one must also exhale.  We must breath the Spirit in and out.  This gift of the Spirit it not a gift we keep, it is a gift we must share.