The Breath of God (Ruah)
Service link https://youtu.be/BvIj0505iDc
Readings: Genesis 2:7-20, Psalm 104:24-30, Ezekial 37:1-14
Sometimes we can over-spiritualize the Holy Spirit. Yes, the Holy Spirit is hard to perceive and lay ahold of, but that does not mean that the Spirit is only an indescribable, invisible God. The first name given for the Holy Spirit in the Bible is The Ruah of God. This Hebrew word is often translated as spirit, but it also means breath and wind. Breath and wind become two of the best ways for us to physically understand, experience, and relate to the Holy Spirit.
Take a moment right now just to breathe. In and out, in and out. Keep going as I speak. What is that breath doing to you? What are the feelings and experiences that come along with just breathing? Do you feel the energy and life flowing through your blood and limbs? Do you feel a different kind of clarity come into your mind? Do you feel more grounded and present? Yes, the breath is also invisible, most of the time, but already we have experienced three fundamental truths about the Holy Spirit. As the breath gives us energy, the Holy Spirit is our energy, life, and power. As the breath is clarifying, the Holy Spirit is our guide, wisdom, and clarity, Christine will talk more about that next week. As the breath is grounding, the Holy Spirit is also our grounding and our stability. All we need to do is breathe to experience Him.
We can look to science and it will tell us more. As we breathe the oxygen is filtered through our lungs into our blood system and then is transported to every part of our body, feeding every cell so that we might think, move and live. We need our breath to live, so we need the Holy Spirit to give us this breath and fill us. As Adam is being created from the dirt and then breathed into, we see a fundamental truth, we are a product of the substances of this earth, but we only have our being through God’s gift of his Spirit to us. God’s Spirit is the breath of life.
One side note, you will notice that simply in the phrasing, the breath of life is related only a few verses later to the tree of life. We know how breath and trees are related as the trees process carbon dioxide to give us oxygen to breathe, but this image is looking even beyond that. I know there is still more for me to understand, but at the very least the story of Adam and Eve’s fall tells us that how we relate to the tree of life and to God’s breath can ultimately lead us to life or death. We need to be conscious and work with God to care for the life that has been entrusted to us.
The Spirit is more than our breath, but as He is the breath of God that God filled Adam and us with, our breath is a part of the Holy Spirit. This means that our breath is truly an experience of the Holy Spirit. We have always had a way to experience him and yet we have so easily removed ourselves from him.
What happens to our breath when we get afraid? Our breathing becomes strained, we can stop breathing, or we can begin to hyperventilate, we can even take in too much oxygen that we become dizzy and faint. We become less able to actually take in the Holy Spirit and appreciate him. When we feel afraid, we should stop, breathe and let the breath bring us clarity and understanding that God is present and He will help us through. What about when we get exhausted? We breathe more heavily, we know we need to take in more oxygen to break down fuel reserves so that our muscles and minds can work adequately. The Spirit can also give us the energy we never knew we had. We can also get so busy or worked up that we forget to breathe. Or there is the every day, where we breathe without thinking about it, we live off of and depend on God and yet we usually aren't thinking about that. We can be disconnected with our breath and so we are even more disconnected from God’s Spirit and our life.
This is what I relate to most in the image of the dry bones from Ezekial. The first image of the immobile bones is tougher for me. It relates to how Israel and we have done a lot that makes us deserve death. Israel experienced that in some really dire ways as they often literally caused death around them. We too experience this death in ways that we don’t understand. It is hard to see the consequences of our lives or the world we live in. It is hard to see how our relationship with everything can lead to sin and death.
The second image becomes a little easier for me to relate to. Once the bones have all gathered together, once all the sinews and physical material of life are brought in, standing before Ezekial is this great army of the living dead. They may be able to walk or move, but they lack something fundamental. They are lacking the breath of God, a relationship with God that leads to life and wholeness. I think it is fairly easy for us to move around in our lives lacking that fundamental relationship with God and His breath. We wake up, get ready, go to work, eat, and watch some TV, we might even be with someone and yet be far away. Then we repeat. We might even know that we need something different so we plan special nights, or vacations, but those can be lacking too. This is because we need the breath of God, we need that fundamental relationship that breathes life into every aspect of our life. We might not feel this all the time, but everything is lacking without him.
Did you know that we breathe better when we are praying? Prayer is actually mentally and physically good for you. Studies have compared prayer to Yoga or meditation because even though we may not be conscious of it, we are connecting with the breath, and so we are connecting with God's breath, his Spirit. Science can even recognize this aspect of prayer’s blessing, I even read a study comparing prayer to drinking a cup of coffee because of the pick-me-up it creates but of course, we know prayer is even more than this. Prayer is an essential time when we invite God in. We breathe him in, but we also invite a relationship, a conversation. As we speak, we breathe and so we give God our spirit, and as we listen and he speaks He gives us His breath too.
The breath is a way that we can experience God within ourselves, but we can also look up and around us and see how the breath of God fills every living creature, how it fills our sails, how it propels the birds, how it blows through the trees, how it carries seeds and life into new places. The wind and breath of God is this invisible and powerful force that moves all around us. We can hear him speak to us if we learn to recognize his voice, but quite easily we can also hear the music of the breath in singing, in the musical vibrations carried in the air, in the movement of the trees and so much more.
It was the wind of God that hovered over the chaotic waters before creation and as God spoke his breath poured out and brought order. It separated the light from the darkness. It separated the water from the dry land, just like God’s wind would later bring about dry land for Noah and for Moses to pass through the Red Sea.
We also know that we can struggle against the wind. When we push against the wind, our ships can barely move, as even tacking is strained. We can resist the Holy Spirit in such a way that life becomes unproductive and good. Just like those before Noah that led to the flood, or those Egyptians that wouldn’t set Israel free, we can resist God so much that his breath is taken away so that soon the waters cover us, or so that we no longer have God's life in us.
The reality is that God’s Spirit, breath, and wind are so close to us that we can quite easily experience him. This makes sense because we have a fundamental need for him. This need also means that separation from or resisting his spirit can also be very scary, as being removed from God’s breath of life can literally mean being removed from life. It is also incredibly good news though because it also means that life and fullness are so close. It might start with breath or looking around to see God’s invisible powerful force moving, but as we do this daily, our relationship with the Holy Spirit grows until soon we can know and feel that same powerful breath moving in us, moving around us, and guiding us like a wind in our sails all the time. God is our breath and the wind, but he is even more. AMEN
Bible Study: Genesis 2:7-20, Psalm 104:24-30, Ezekial 37:1-14
Background: The word for the Holy Spirit in Hebrew is Ruah which is translated to mean wind, breath, and spirit. The Holy Spirit is all of these things and more.
Genesis 2:7-20
How does God create the first human?
Do you think there is any correlation between the breath of life and the tree of life? If so what?
How is the human meant to relate to the garden and God?
Why would eating from the tree of knowledge mean death? How does this relate to God’s breath of life?
Why does Adam need a companion and divine helper? Why is this fundamental?
Extra: How does this second creation story relate to the first? What is different? What is this one highlighting?
Psalm 104:24-30,
Vs 29 - How does the face of God relate to the breath of all living things?
How does the Holy Spirit relate to creation and renewal?
Ezekial 37:1-14
We are told that the valley of dry bones is an image of Israel, why do you think a valley of bones was God’s representation of them? Do you think this relates at all to our time and culture?
What does God do with these bones? Why does he use Ezekial’s voice to do it?
What are they without the breath? How does this relate to our relationship with God and his breath?
How does this prophecy offer Israel and our time hope?
Digging deeper:
How do you relate to your breath?
When you purposefully breathe, what do you experience?
Can you think of a time when your breath became strained? Why? What did this do to you?
How do these experiences of the breath relate to your relationship with God’s breath of life?
When can the wind be scary? When can the wind be comforting?
How do these relate to our relationship with the Wind of God?
