The breath of God gives life. It happened in the Old Testament, it happens here. When God intended to give life to the Human race, he did it differently than with the rest of creation. With the rest of His creation God gave life by speaking it into being.
Genesis says,
And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:20-21 (ESV)
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:24-25 (ESV)
But when God created Adam he used a different mode. He took a lump of clay, formed it into a man and he breathed on it. From that moment Adam was a living being. I[n Hebrew the man had a
in Greek yuch.n zw/san] a living soul. Man had flesh, human dna, a body with a heart and lungs and similar physical structures to the animals God made in His creation. But man had something that the others did not, a living soul, the breath of God. A spirit that God designed to live forever in conjunction with that lump of flesh; that God infused with His own image so that the man and his offspring would be like Him and so that the man would have dominion over God's Creation; so that the man and his offspring would serve God and each other in this new and beautiful world that God created.
But the man had other plans. God's idea was that man live forever in His perfect creation. The man wanted to rule it for himself. Yes this was a beautiful world, and God made him as the greatest and best in this world, but he was not content to serve. Rather he thought to serve himself, to be better than just the greatest among created things he wanted to be God. And so , in an act of mutiny and rebellion, God's greatest creation turned against God. Adam, the man, and Eve his wife exchange God's image for God's knowledge, for knowing good and evil.
In so doing the man came to know death. In his act of disobedience and sin, as he mastered the discipline of evil and sin, he was rewarded with his just wages. The man, Adam, and Eve his wife came to know death. The breath of life was strangled in sin. God's good world became spoiled and wrong.
Brother and sisters in Christ, you are guilty of this sin. You are sons of Adam. You are daughters of Eve. You have made this knowledge, this knowing evil (as well as good) your god. You have not been content to serve your neighbor, you have not been content to obey the commandments. You have wanted more. You have sought after more. You have wanted to know and to experience those things that the world has to offer – worldly wealth, worldly power, worldly glory. You have sinned just as Adam sinned, just as Eve sinned and you are guilty of their disobedience and you are deserving of death.
But God gave to you Jesus so that you might have life.
The first breath that gave life was set aside by our first parents so that they might know evil. God gave a re-breathing of a new life when he gave to us Jesus.
Adam came into being when God formed a lump of clay into a man and breathed into him the breath of life. Jesus came into human flesh when God sent His angel Gabriel to speak His Word to Mary and through that preaching of the Word of God the Holy Spirit came upon her and Jesus was conceived in her womb. The power of the Holy Spirit created life where there was no life. And so Jesus was born as a child of Adam like us in every way, yet at the same time a child of the promise, born by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was born how we should have been born.
And now in our text John tells us that these things, the things that he has written and the things that we have read, that these things are written so that we may have life. Sin has taken away from us the eternal breath of God, through faith God restores that breath so that we once again have life.
And what is that we believe? We believe the things that we have read.
Throughout his gospel, John records for us the works of Jesus. John tells us of the wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. He tells us of the healing by the pool of Bethesda, the healing of the official's son, the feeding of the 5000, the blind man, the resurrection of Lazarus. He records for us many of Jesus' words and His teaching. There is much that could be written and much that could be told. John even admits that the world would be filled with books if it all were to be written. But these things that John has recorded have been written so that you may believe them and that by believing you my have life.
After John is content to tell us of Jesus' teaching and His miracles he tells us what he really wants us to know, he tells us that thing that is of greatest importance for us to believe and that is that this Jesus who was born by the power of the Holy Spirit apart from the sin of Adam died for you on the cross. God so loved his world that He sent this one and only son so that whoever believe on him might not die but have life. The death of our disobedience is overcome by the death of Jesus' obedience. And so faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word.
The death of Jesus is able to give life because Jesus himself is alive. His death was for us and in our place, yet he is no longer dead. He has paid the full penalty for death and so He is alive. When we believe that His death was for us, God gives us life.
In our text, Jesus, who is fresh from the grave, who has just conquered death and is now alive appears to his disciples. He sees them for the first time. They were locked up and shut away from the rest of the world. They were paralyzed with fear, fear of death, death that comes by sin, and he spoke to them words of comfort. Peace to you.
Jesus gives peace. To those who were dead in sin, Jesus restores to them the breath of life that the human race lost when Adam and Eve sinned. Jesus breathes on them. He rebreathes that breath that gives life. These sons of Adam are now sons of God and brothers of Jesus.
But Jesus does not intend for this breath to be limited, to stay only with these 10 men gathered here in the upper room. Jesus wants His breath to be breathed out all over the world. So with his breath he gives a command. Forgive sin. “If you forgiven anyone his sin they are forgiven. If you do not forgiven them they are not forgiven.” Jesus appeared to the 10 who were gathered there so that he could breath life to them, so that they would believe and that by believing they would have life. Jesus commanded them to preach and proclaim his forgiveness, to announce to sinners that they were forgiven because of the death and resurrection of Jesus and so that by believing this they would have life.
For you who are children of Adam, who are born into the death of sin, the breath of life is vitally important. The breath is breathed on you. Christ's command to forgive sins is carried out. Sin is confessed, absolution is spoken, the breath of God is restored where it had previously been surrendered. Your sins are forgiven.
The risen Christ gives peace. This is peace that can only come with forgiveness. Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.
Amen.
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