Just
Breathe
By
Rev. Jamie Green Klopotoski
Based
on Acts 2:1-31
Topsfield
Congregational Church
June
8, 2025
This past month has been a whirlwind. As a music teacher, the end of the
school year is always jam-packed with concerts but this year has been
especially busy because not only am I the elementary school band director in
Gloucester, I also help out with the middle school and high school music
programs. So in the last 30 days, I have helped lead and organize: the High
School Chorus Concert, the High School Jazz Band Concert, the District Wide
Gloucester Student Arts Festival with over 400 students on stage and 9
different groups performing, the Middle School Band and Chorus Concert, the 8th
Grade Band and Chorus Finale, three spring concerts (and three more next week!)
and Band Instrument demos at all 4 elementary schools in Gloucester, and the
District Wide Elementary Band and Chorus Concert. That’s on top of my day job
teaching music, substitute preaching on Sunday mornings, performing with my own
bands, trying to have a social life, and managing all my household affairs.
(sigh) I'm out of breath just thinking about it all. It has gotten to the
point that when people ask how I am, I say busy, because I am too busy to feel
an emotion, much less articulate one. When I am this busy, I tend to sigh a
lot. (sigh) I once read an article about this. Apparently, when you feel
stress, you breathe very shallow breaths, so your body compensates for the lack
of oxygen by making you sigh. Your body literally forces you to take a deep
breath. Obviously, my body has been trying to tell me something. I have been so
busy that I have been forgetting to breathe!
I share this because maybe you, like me, have also found yourselves entangled
in a web of chaos, busyness, and stress, so much so that you forget to breathe.
Busy-ness and stress happen to most of us - it's our culture, it's life. We go
from task to task, from stress to stress, from activity to activity, from need
to need. School, work, home, groceries, laundry, family, pets, kids, grandkids,
sports practices, dance recitals, holidays, vacations, volunteering, church,
bills, cleaning, planning, organizing, fixing, doing. Before we know it, we are
simply breathless. Life has socked us in the gut, the web of chaos grips our
throat, and we cannot breathe. (sigh)
In Acts chapter 2, the disciples were probably quite breathless
themselves. Remember all that has happened to them in the last 50 days. Their
last meal with Jesus, Jesus' goodbye, his arrest and crucifixion and death, all
of which must have been accompanied by loud sighs and long wails of grief. Then
there was the locked room – where the disciples shut themselves off from the
world, and stopped their ministry, fearful for their own lives. And finally,
the resurrection! Their shallow, grief-laden breathing must have become full
and robust as they saw their leader once again, and heard his voice, and felt
his presence. They were revived and encouraged.
But just as the disciples had caught their breath, Jesus did as he said he
would - he left, this time for good. The ascension. Jesus was taken away from
them once more and returned to God. It must have been heartwrenching. The wind
must have been knocked out of them. I bet they sighed loudly with stress and
fear, the web of chaos gripping their throats.
So what did the disciples do? They did what all good
church people do - they had a meeting. The bible tells us they gathered on a
holiday weekend, during Shavuot, the Jewish Festival of the Weeks, the first
harvest festival of the Spring. The city was bustling, noisy, busy with
travelers, visitors, family and friends, people from all corners of the Roman
Empire, speaking over 16 different native languages.
During this holiday time, the disciples busily began to try and get their
game plan together. There was so much to do. They needed to get organized. They
needed to choose more apostles to help them with all the work Jesus had left in
their trembling hands. After all, they were now supposed to go out into the
world and make disciples of all the nations and tell everyone about God’s
amazing love and forgiveness that Jesus had taught them about.
It was a daunting mission. They were probably busy making agendas,
checklists, to-do lists, maybe even budgets, all without Jesus, with no
guidance. Loud sighing must have filled
the room and anxious looks must have etched their faces. They could not believe
they were now the ones in charge of continuing Jesus' ministry. It was enough
to make them scared and breathless.
But before the disciples knew what was happening, out of the blue, they
heard a mighty wind heading their way. The wind blew through the entire house,
filling each of them with a breath that came from somewhere else, someone else.
The word used here in the original Greek is pneuma, which was translated from
the Aramaic and Hebrew word that Jesus himself would have used: ruah. Like many
Hebrew and Greek words, Pneuma and Ruah have a literal meaning and a more
esoteric meaning. Literally, ruah is wind, breath, or air. But ruah has a much
deeper meaning…. soul, spirit, the
life-giving attribute of God.
The wind, the breath, the spirit, the pneuma, the ruah filled the
disciples with a power they did not understand. Theologian N.T. Wright says
that “Pentecost is the moment when the personal presence of Jesus with
the disciples is translated into the personal power of Jesus in the
disciples.” The disciples discovered a reserve of strength they did not know
they possessed. They came face to face, lung to lung, with the gift of God's
Holy Spirit, God's holy breath, God's ruah. It was literally inspirational.
Once the disciples realized they could breathe again, once they shook
themselves loose from the stress and the anxiety, once they unwound the grip of
chaos from around their throats, they found themselves speaking about how God
was working in their lives. They spoke
the only language they knew yet because of the spirit they were understood by
people of many different languages and lands. These timid, stressed-out
disciples found themselves telling the world about who God was and what God had
done in their lives.
And the people listened. The crowd grew. Yes, some in the crowd thought
they were drunk. (This is perhaps one of my favorite lines in the bible… no
they are not drunk, it was only nine o’clock in the morning!) The crowd had no
other way to explain it. People from near and far, strangers and foreigners,
young and old, all those who came for Shavuot, were able to understand the love
and grace of God, and they all began to breathe deeper. They started to
purposefully inhale some of this Spirit breath into their own lungs. And the
church was breathed and birthed into being.
Now, while this is a lovely story, a meaningful story, a powerful story,
we simply cannot keep it contained in the past. God's Spirit still works this
way. The Holy Spirit, the breath of God, is at work, here and now. God's spirit
is not just for the disciples, gathered in a house thousands of years ago. God's
spirit is for all people. God's spirit is at work here and now with all of us.
The story of Pentecost invites US to breathe deeply and consciously in
every moment of our lives, expecting to be filled with God's Spirit, expecting
to be changed by it as it fills our lungs, expecting that we might see things
we could never imagine seeing, and speak things we did not think we had the
courage to say. Deep breathing is so important – not only does it provide our
bodies with life sustaining oxygen, deep breathing has been shown to reduce
stress, anxiety, depression, tension, and pain. Deep breathing paves the way
for transformation and renewal; it opens up a space in us to be filled with
God’s spirit.
Once we shake ourselves loose from the stress and the
anxiety, once we unwind the grip of chaos from around our throats, we can find ourselves
seeing and feeling and sharing how God is working in our lives. Like the disciples, we are called to leave
our locked rooms and go out into the world, to preach, love, care, hope, teach,
risk, witness and serve, not just to those who look like us and speak our
language, but to the whole entire world, to people who speak different
languages and live in different places and have
different customs, cultures, backgrounds and experiences; to people of different
abilities and genders and ages and income levels and races and orientations.
After all, we all breathe the same air, the same spirit. No matter who you are,
every single living being on this planet breathes the same air. Across all
barriers, Christ’s message of love and grace can be heard and understand and
known.
The story of Pentecost helps us remember that we are all
in this together, that God is bigger than all the divisions that humans create,
and that we have all been given the greatest gift of all—the Holy Spirit, God’s
holy breath, God’s ruah. Breathe on us, O Breath of God, fill us with life
anew. That we may love the way you love, and do what you would do. Amen.
Benediction (two balloons: one deflated, one inflated)
Today is the birthday of the church. (show deflated balloon). A balloon is
great way to celebrate a birthday. But there's something missing in this
balloon - Air! Breath! Spirit! Pneuma! Ruah! Before a balloon can fulfill its
purpose, before it can be used for celebration, someone must breathe some life
into it. (show inflated balloon) Just like this balloon is filled with air, God
fills us with the breathe of life, the holy spirit, giving us strength and
courage so that we can be all that God wants us to be
Don’t let the busy-ness and stress and fear keep you from living your
purpose.
Be filled with God’s spirit
Inflated to your potential
And live out your purpose.
Just breathe! Amen!
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