Pentecost – 2026
John 20:19-23
Marian Free
In the name of God who breathed life into creation, who breathed the Spirit onto the disciples, and who continues to empower us through that same breath. Amen.
Breathing is essential to life. Without breath we die.
Over recent decades an interest in Eastern religions has taught us the importance of breath – to slow us down, help us to focus, and to reduce stress. Breathing techniques are an important aspect of a number of forms of meditation and their ability to help a person calm down and/or to breathe well has been recognised by medical doctors and psychologists and other professionals. Exercise physiologists know the importance of the breath for oxygenating our muscles.
In a spiritual or religious sense, the very act of being still and focusing on the breath is a way to stop the constant activity of the brain, to free us from distractions and to enable us to be fully in the present and to be present to the Spirit in and around us.
Breathing is essential to life. Without breath we die.
Breath is not empty it contains within it moisture, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and number of trace elements that provide a way for medicos to determine a person’s metabolic health. Breath is also intimate and transactional as we learnt to our cost during COVID. We breathe in air that others have breathed out. They breathe in air that we have expelled. We take in something of them and they of us. This means of course that viruses and germs can be transmitted from one person to another through the simple act of breathing. It is not all negative. The breath of one person can resuscitate another when their breath has stopped. The breath of one can enter another for good and for ill.
In John’s gospel the giving of the Holy Spirit is a very intimate and personal event, vastly different from the wind and flames of Luke’s account of the Day of Pentecost. The only detail that the two accounts have in common is the gathering of disciples “in a room”. According to John the giving (transferring) of the Holy Spirit occurred in the evening of the day of Jesus’ resurrection, when the terrified and grieving disciples are still in shock. The disciples (not Thomas[1]) are together in a locked room “for fear of the Jews.” Without any kind of fanfare, Jesus comes among them, offers them “peace” and, perhaps to assure them that it is actually him, he shows them his hands and side. He gives them “peace” for a second time before – in what may be an unwelcome gift for the disciples who now know the consequence of Jesus’ mission – Jesus commissions them to continue his work in the world. Then he breathes the Spirit on them – what was his is now theirs including the power to forgive and to hold[2].
All this John records in just five verses – appearance, assurance, commission and equipping for ministry and the authority to forgive.
The account in Acts is vastly different. It has none of the details recorded by John. Instead, Luke depicts a dramatic, terrifying, life-changing event – a violent wind, flames of fire, and speaking in a cacophony of other languages. (The commissioning of the disciples has already occurred, immediately before Jesus’ ascension into heaven.) Now they spill on to the street, “speaking about God’s deeds of power” with so much noise that they draw the attention of the crowds. Then follows a long speech from Peter who explains the events of Jesus and the prediction that the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh. This plus some information about those who believed as a result takes all of 47 verses to report.
Such a public, noisy, impersonal event stands in stark contrast to the simple, quiet, personal experience of John’s gospel. In Luke the disciples are fired up, driven and empowered by the Holy Spirit to declare the gospel. The risen Jesus doesn’t play a role. Having remained with the disciples for some 40 days after the resurrection, Jesus has now been absent for a week or so. In that time the disciples have been inactive – waiting for the promised Holy Spirit.
John places Jesus right at the centre. Jesus who has promised the disciples that they will not be left alone and who has assured them that he will send the Holy Spirit now, on the very day of resurrection, comes in person to provide proof of his resurrection, to give comfort and assurance to his grieving, frightened friends, to send them out to continue his work and to equip them for that work by breathing the Holy Spirit on them.
Jesus breathes the Spirit into his disciples as God breathed life into the first human being. Jesus – in person – hands over something of his very self, breathing peace and power into his disciples. What was Jesus’s has now been passed on – the Spirit which empowers and equips, the Spirit that reassures and emboldens, the Spirit which enlivens and holds others fast.
At that moment, the disciples truly become one with Jesus as Jesus is one with the Father and the Spirit.
May we consciously breathe the Spirit in and breathe it out so that others to may experience its life-giving power.
Word to reflect on
1 Breathe on me, Breath of God,
fill me with life anew,
that I may love the way you love,
and do what you would do.
2 Breathe on me, Breath of God,
until my heart is pure,
until my will is one with yours,
to do and to endure.
3 Breathe on me, Breath of God,
and all my life refine,
until this earthly part of me
glows with your fire divine.
4 Breathe on me, Breath of God,
so shall I never die,
but live with you the perfect life
for all eternity.
Edwin Hatch 1835-89
[1] Cody J. Sanders suggests this is because Thomas is the only disciple who is not afraid to be out in the world. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/day-of-pentecost/commentary-on-john-2019-23-6
[2] In the same article Sanders reminds us that the word sin doesn’t appear in the second half of Jesus’ saying. He quotes Schneiders who states: “The community that forgives sins must hold fast those whom it has brought into the community of eternal life.”
Swallowsrest 