Pentecost Sunday (Year C)
Acts 2:1-11 | Psalm 103:1, 24, 29-31, 34 | Romans 8:8-17 | John 14:15-16, 23-26
Though your body may be dead it is because of sin, but if Christ is in you then your spirit is life itself because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you. (Romans 8:10-11)
Christianity is rich in symbols, and two of the foremost are of course the wind and flame connected with the Holy Spirit. The wind aspect is in fact embodied in the Hebrew רוח הקודש (ruach ha-kodesh, lit. “spirit of holiness”), for ruach can also be translated as “breath”. This concept of “breath as spirit” goes all the way back to Genesis, wherein:
God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)
For some reason, all of us adults have unlearned the fullness of breathing like a child, and some of us have experienced the sudden burst of life when we consciously start to use more than a small fraction of our lung capacity. It’s no surprise that most effective exercise routines across all cultures emphasize the important of proper breathing techniques. This is no new-age mumbo-jumbo, just a cold hard fact: without breath, there is no life, physical or spiritual.
So on this festival day, let us ask God to breathe the Holy Spirit upon us, just like the powerful wind from heaven that flooded the room wherein the apostles met on Pentecost all those years ago. Just remember to breathe deep, lest the Spirit – and new life – pass you by.
Veni, sancte spiritus. Amen.