St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Steve preached this sermon on Sunday 19 May at St Margaret’s. Here it is for you to read again:

How do you get up in the morning?

I used to get up at 4.30 on a Sunday morning to get into a local radio station for 5.30, ready to present a religious breakfast show that I was also responsible for producing.  I did this for eight years.  So it was important for me to have an early waking-up routine:  something I could rely upon when I was drowsy and bleary-eyed.  That is why I warm to Emma Barnett’s description this week in the “i” newspaper of getting up to present the Today programme on Radio 4 for the first time this week:  “My first experience of waking up at 3.05 a.m. felt like being pulled out of a deep lagoon.  I didn’t understand what or why this was happening.  Then it hit me:  I had a new job and it starts now.”

I have learnt that the most important part of starting the day is to get my lungs working.  I have to find a way of getting the oxygen deep within my lungs so that my body wakes up properly.  There are a set of exercises which I do to help me – just ten minutes every morning.  But they make all the difference.  If I forget to do them, my body panics when it is under stress later in the day.  If I remember them, I know I can cope.

Breathing is fundamental to life.  If I can’t breathe, I die.  Our readings for the feast of Pentecost make this clear.  The act of Breathing is fundamental for understanding how God relates to all that God has made.

In remembering the coming of the Holy Spirit, it’s important to remember the Hebrew background for the word used to name the Holy Spirit of God.   It is onomatopoeic – it is as it sounds.  The word is ru’ah – which means Spirit, Wind or Breath.  It appears at the very beginning of Time – “now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” [Genesis 1.3].

And it is God’s breath that creates first the environment in which we, and all life, can breathe.  By God’s breath, our whole eco-system was made – the environment that creates, nurtures, sustains and supports Life.

Yes, God’s breath then comes and breathes life into human beings, creating us from the dust of the earth [Genesis 2.7].  God’s breath calls us into a deeply personal relationship with our creator, in which we know that we are personally loved.  But that same breath has also created the universe which sustains our life.  By breathing in God’s Spirit, not only do we breathe in a love that is deeply personal, we also breathe in a love that equips us to love our neighbour, all who are in need and the forces that sustain life on this planet.

So the Psalmist can pray:  “Send forth your Spirit, they are created, so you renew the face of the earth.”  [Psalm 104.31]

It is no accident that the Book of Psalms finishes with the line:  “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Alleluia.” [Psalm 150.6]

It is God’s breath that comes to Jesus’ disciples in a new, vivid and personal way – as the wind and the flame of God’s Holy Spirit – as they are together worshipping in Jerusalem during the Jewish feast of Pentecost.  Jesus, though risen from the dead, has bidden them farewell.  He has departed physically from his friends in order to be with his Father in heaven.  But his departure paves the way for their spiritual equipping to experience him, and bear witness to him, anytime anywhere.  Jesus tells his friends, in our reading from John:  “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”  [John 16.6]

The Holy Spirit is the agent of God’s new creation.

Because this is the same creative Spirit by which God made us and the whole universe, God first communicates:

Love – When the disciples first experience the outward sign of God’s presence in the rush of the wind that makes them catch their breath, then they are overcome with wonder and with joy – they know that God loves them, personally and intimately.  The joy overflows – to the extent that the onlookers, on the Jerusalem streets, think they are drunk [Acts 2.13].

Hope –  This is the difference God’s Spirit makes for the people hearing Ezekiel’s message in our Old Testament reading.  They are a people in exile, for whom everything has fallen apart.  They have been taken to Babylon in the year 586 BC.  Their Temple, the focus of their worship of God, the sign of God’s presence with them, has been destroyed – razed to the ground.  Everything that made sense to them has vanished. Ezekiel is then given the vision of a body coming together – dry bones reassembling, covered with flesh and muscle, until the Lord tells him to call on God’s breath to make them live.  Without the breath, as a  people that resembled dry bones, they were a people without hope [Ezekiel 37.11].  God’s breath gives them life and hope – a future.  So for us.  When nothing makes sense, God’s Spirit runs deeper:  “there is no pit so deep than God is not deeper still.”

Power – the image of fire – the Holy Spirit is turning them outwards to share this love and hope with the whole of God’s creation – how to be good stewards of the environment and of one another.  The love they experience is wonderful, deeply personal, but not simply for themselves.  They are equipped to go out and bear witness to God’s love in their lives – and to care for all in need, and for the creation that sustains all people.

Truth – Jesus promises:  “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.”  [John 16.13].  All truth is God’s truth.  The Holy Spirit will guide the disciples when they face new situations that they hadn’t anticipated in their three years with Jesus – and introduce them, to new horizons they could not have foreseen.  The future will somehow be Christ-shaped – but maybe not as they expected it to be!  And it will come through the Spirit bearing witness to the Truth.

So the Holy Spirit equips Peter to breathe in, and to share joyfully with his hearers the simple call:  “Repent.”  Return to God.  The Greek word, “metanoia”, means “put on a new frame of mind.”  Turn from what you know to be wrong, and receive the gift that God has for you.

There is a prayer that I say that accompanies my breathing.  You may be familiar with it.  The Jesus-prayer – where you say in your heart as you breathe in, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God”, and then, as you breathe out, “Have mercy upon me, a sinner.”  I then add another prayer with my next breath:  “Come Holy Spirit” and then, as I breathe out, “Bless you, Father”.     I pray these prayers, with my breathing, several times – when I need to settle down to pray, when I need to rest, when I read the Bible, but above all, when I take some deep breaths at the beginning of the day.  This is the way that I get up in the morning.  And, as you get up, asking also for the gift of God the Holy Spirit’s Love, Hope, Power and Truth, as you take that deep breath at the beginning of the day, just remember that you’re not alone!

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,

Have mercy upon me a sinner.

Come Holy Spirit.

Bless you, Father.”