It's Like Breathing

Part 2 of Resurrection and the Shaping of Our Hearts

Hi everybody! Thanks for being here. This week we’re continuing the series called Resurrection and the Shaping of Our Hearts. We’ll be looking at how our relationship with the risen Jesus shapes our being-in-the-world as individuals and communities.

Let’s turn to Part 2: It’s Like Breathing:

My back was to the wall, my arms folded, my eyes fixed on some distant point. My unspoken message was clear: keep your distance.

It was the first week of freshman year in high school. Along with my new classmates, I was waiting in the hall to get into English Lit. All my defenses were up.

Anne turned to me, smiled, and said something like this: You look a little scary. I bet you’re just feeling uptight. Me too. It’s going to be okay. You can smile.

And I did.

Eventually, Anne and I became friends. I saw in her an openness to life that didn’t come easily to me.

I had learned to be guarded. In the schoolyard, bullies had harassed me. At home, my father’s emotional and physical abuse could erupt without warning. After my mother and I fled, we were unhoused for a time.

I was afraid. A lot of the time. The world didn’t feel safe. So I kept my defenses up. The result was loneliness. And honestly, no less fear.

What coaxed me to lower those defenses that day was not some insight of my own. I didn’t decide to become more open. I responded to Anne’s openness to me.

Looking back, she was doing what a disciple of Jesus does. She wasn’t trying to convert me or signal her piety. She was simply offering herself as a friend. Over time, I received that offer and gave my friendship in return. And that friendship changed me. In her own way, Anne was embodying the kind of friendship Jesus offers us.

John’s Gospel tells us that, on the evening of the resurrection, the disciples were gathered behind locked doors, afraid. They had every reason to be. The authorities who killed Jesus might come for them next. Into that fear, Jesus came and stood among them.

He didn’t knock. He didn’t wait for them to get themselves together. He came into the room they had sealed off and said, “Peace be with you” Then, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is more than mere reassurance. It is radical re-creation.

There’s an echo here of Genesis. God forms the human from the dust of the ground and breathes into him the breath of life. Now, in the risen Jesus, God breathes again. This is what the resurrection does in our daily lives. It animates us. Infuses us with a new life. Forms us with Jesus’ own way of being. Not just in the next world. But already in this one.

So Jesus says: As the Father has sent me, so I send you. The reanimating breath and the sending belong together.

Jesus does not give them his life so they can stay behind locked doors. He gives them his life so they can go back into the very world they were hiding from.

That’s the part we sometimes miss. We find ourselves wanting peace without purpose. Presence without direction. Comfort without cost. But the life Jesus gives us is a sent life.

And this brings us back to that day outside my English class. Anne didn’t just help me feel better. She opened a way of being in the world that I slowly began to inhabit myself. Her openness called forth something in me. Over time, I didn’t just receive it. I began, haltingly, to offer it.

That’s how this works. We are met. We are given life. And then we are sent—into our own lives, our own relationships, our own ordinary places—with that same life to give.

But let me be clear. It doesn’t happen all at once. Our transformation is not instantaneous. It’s a lifelong process. And that brings us to the role of spiritual practices in the life of disciples.

Prayer, worship, Scripture, fasting, almsgiving, works of mercy—these are not self-improvement projects. We don’t take them up to earn God’s approval. The practices are how we keep receiving the breath. How we stay open to the life that is already being given. How, over time, we become more fully who we are.

Spiritual practices are like breathing. We receive. We are reanimated. And then we are sent. Again and again.

That day in high school, I didn’t decide to become a different person. I simply responded to someone who had already opened herself to me. And over time, something in me began to change.

The same is true with Jesus. He comes close. He breathes his life into us. He sends us.

And as we return to him—again and again—we find ourselves becoming the kind of people who can do for others what Anne once did for me.

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In this series, we’re not only thinking about the spiritual life—we’re learning to notice how Jesus is already present and at work in our lives. I’m including in Substack—and also in the Apple and Spotify show notes—a simple way to begin. Try it today and consider trying it for a few minutes each day this week. I would love to hear from you about your experiences and insights.

Spiritual Practice: Receiving the Breath of Christ

Read the passage slowly. First out loud. Then quietly. Sit with it.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit…”
—John 20:19–23

Imagine yourself sitting behind the locked door in fear.

What fear are you carrying?

Hear Jesus say, “Peace be with you.” Sit with that. Repeat peace silently, gently, and slowly.

Now imagine his breath upon you.

Where are you being sent?
To what situation in your life?
To what need of the world do you feel drawn?

End with a simple prayer:

Lord Jesus, you come close, breathe your life into me, and send me. Help me to receive what you give and to carry it into the lives around me. Amen.

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The Woodlands is always free. Upgrading to a paid will fund ministry in under-resourced areas. You’ll help adults learn to read, send young people to camp, and provide food for hungry families.

Thanks again for being here. Part 3 of Resurrection and the Shaping of Our Hearts drops next week. Until then, be well and God bless.

Jake

P. S. To read more about the full-hearted life centered on the risen Jesus, click the link or the image to grab a copy of A Full-Hearted Life: