When
he was in prison…
When
he was shipwrecked…
When
he was being stoned, whipped, or beaten…
When
he had no food to eat, no clothes to wear, no roof over his head…
He
was content.
How
did he do that?
I
mentioned briefly that the Buddhists talk about finding calm in one’s breath.
All that meditation stuff that many of us find so hard… is focused on the
breath. And in breathing, there is calm.
It’s
a cool idea. Does Christianity have anything similar?
Yes.
Consider this scene:
The
scripture says that they had the doors locked… out of fear.
So
the doors of fear were locked. Fear
does that. It locks us in. It holds us back. It keeps us confined and
imprisoned.
In
locking the doors, the disciples were hoping to keep their enemies out, but
they were also locking themselves in.
They
could feel the fear in their bodies. Their breaths were short and shallow. They
were hardly breathing at all.
Then
Jesus came and stood among them. Somehow, he passed through the doors of fear;
the doors of fear could not stop Jesus.
And
he said, “Peace be with you.”
He
breathed on the disciples. He breathed on them and said, “receive the
Holy Spirit.”
Now,
I have to explain to you, that in Greek, the language of the New Testament,
there aren’t two different words for breath
and spirit. There is only one word: pneuma.
The
same is true in Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament. The Hebrew word is ruach. It means breath, but it also means spirit.
You
see this in English, too, although you have to look a little harder: the word respiration means breath; the word inspiration refers to the Spirit.
So
Jesus breathes on the disciples, and says, “receive the Holy Breath…”
And
that breath, that spirit, is their source of peace.
Let’s
think this through a little more…
From
where did the disciples’ fear originate?
The
fear came from out there. What they
were afraid of wasn’t present there in the room with them. There isn’t even any
indication that whatever they were afraid of was trying to get in the room. There was no banging at the door, no
yelling at them to “open up!”
So
in that moment, whatever they were afraid of wasn’t present.
What
was present?
Breath.
The
breath of God.
The
Holy Breath.
Their
own breath.
Every
breath is a reminder of God’s Spirit. Every breath is God’s Spirit, for it is God who put that breath in you.
This
is your present reality. Your breath is always with you.
Now,
what is it that worries you? What is it that you are afraid of? What is it that
causes you anxiety?
Is
it present right now, in this moment?
That’s
the horrible thing about fear and anxiety. The cause of it may last a moment,
but the fear and anxiety linger. Or, the cause of the fear and the anxiety may
not have even happened yet. It may be in the future.
But
your breath is always present. The Holy Breath of God is always present.
In
my sermon two weeks ago, I mentioned ever so briefly that so much of what
happens to us isn’t really good or bad, but it’s our reactions to those events
and our interpretations to those events that make them either good or bad.
I
was wondering if I should say more about that… then I read – in preparation for
the Pastor’s Summit at the Regional Gathering – Frank Thomas’s book The Choice, in which he says the same
thing.
Well,
that’s what I said! (And apparently Shakespeare said it, too.) But it sounded
more Buddhist to me than anything else. Is there a corresponding Christian
teaching that makes the same point?
Yes,
there is.
In
his book, Frank Thomas talked about Jesus’s command to turn the other cheek.
The
soldier does this to show you who’s in charge.
So
the event is a slap across the cheek,
but the interpretation of the event is something that stings even more than the
pain on the cheek. It’s your utter humiliation.
Your
first, instinctive reaction is obvious: “Ow!”
But
what happens next depends on your interpretation.
The
easiest way to interpret this event, obviously, is to think of yourself as the
powerless victim. That is the interpretation the soldier intends for you to
feel.
And
perhaps, in that moment, your mind will flash back to other similar events and
situations: “Why does this always happen to me?” This question will linger with
you, because as I said, the fear and anxiety linger long after the event that
caused it. Days later, the soldier is long gone, your cheek is no longer red…
yet you still feel the sting. You still feel the humiliation. You still feel
disenfranchised. You still feel a victim.
But
Jesus provides a way to reinterpret the event, a way to break out of that
victim mentality:
Turn
the other cheek.
And
this is likely to catch that Roman soldier completely off guard.
The
soldier might expect you to withdraw in defeat…
Or,
he might expect you to fight back. He might even be hoping for it, because that
would give him a reason, an excuse, to use his power to strike you even harder.
In
both of those options, you are defining yourself as the victim, the one without
power, the one to whom this has happened to.
Yes, even in fighting back, for that is simply a reaction, and quite possibly a
knee-jerk reaction in which you really aren’t in control of what you are doing.
You’re reacting without thinking. It’s what your opponent expects: He expects
you to fight back until you give up.
This
is why the Civil Rights movement was so successful: even though the oppressors
had the weapons and the dogs and the firehoses, the marchers and the counter
sitters maintained their control of the situation. They were struck down, but
they got back up and kept marching. They said to their oppressors, “You struck
us down once, but we’re getting back up. And you can strike us down again. But
we will not be defined by what you do to us; we will be defined by what we chose to do.
By
getting back up, we are letting you
strike us back down. We’re allowing
you to do this. We are not your victims – we are in control of the situation. And
we’ll keep getting back up, and we’ll keep marching, no matter how many times
you strike us.”
They
maintained a pro-active stand. Despite all that happened and kept happening,
they refused to look upon themselves as the victims. And the oppressors, even
though they had the weapons and the dogs and the firehoses, they could not maintain
control of the situation. They could not control the emotional power, the
spiritual power, in those situations.
Now,
how did the marchers and the protestors do this? Where did they find the
strength to go on?
It
came to them in their breath.
It
came to them in the Spirit.
When
they were in jail, they said, “but we’re still breathing…”
When
they were knocked unconscious, when they woke up, they said, “But we’re still
breathing…”
When
they were spat upon and fired upon, they said, “But we’re still breathing…”
And
even when some of their companions fell down, never to rise again, the rest
said to themselves, “but we’re still breathing…”
And
the Holy Breath was alive in them. And they did not lose hope. They did not
lose control. They did not give up.
They
had within them the Holy Breath of God.
Will
you do something for me? Take a breath.
You don’t have to breathe any deeper or longer than normal. But you do have to
pay attention. Notice your breathing. Be mindful of it. Focus on your breath.
The
breath is there, whether you notice it or not. So when you are stressed,
worried, anxious, or afraid – when the world seems to have it in for you – stop
for a moment and notice your breath. It is the Holy Breath of God. And if you
pay attention, and listen closely, you can hear it saying: “Peace be with you.”
And
with breath in your lungs and the peace of God in your heart, God will lift you
up on eagle’s wings, and give you the strength to soar.
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