The Breath Of Jesus

“How do you explain the giving of the Holy Spirit on the night of resurrection and the giving on Pentecost? What I mean is, why the two? …the significance of each. Hope I make sense. Ask the Teacher.” 

After resurrection, in fact the same evening of His resurrection, Jesus, in resurrected body, breathes the Breath of the Holy Spirit, on His disciples. It is imperative that you believe, accept and understand this truth that Jesus is doing all this while He is still in a human body. Only the Lord Himself can make this happen in you as He too had to open the minds of His disciples to understand the new life He was giving them.  You see, they too did not believe that He could rise from the dead and come to them in human form. He had to convince them as only He could. Now, fully convinced that their Jesus is really alive, He opens their minds to understand the Scriptures. What they have been told about their Master and Teacher, but have never been able to understand, the Risen Lord now makes clear in them.

Luke does not directly and openly tell us, as does John, that Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on His disciples, but we are shown two ways whereby Luke infers this fact. After convincing them that He is no spirit or ghost, Jesus then opens their minds so that they can understand the Scriptures. For them, and for us to understand the things of God, we need the very life and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of understanding who is given to us, so that we are not seeking understanding through our human ways of thinking and reasoning, but through the Holy Spirit. Will you accept that the Spirit has been put into the disciples, with the opening of each mind, to God’s Living Word? 

John is clear in reporting that when Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on the disciples, He gives them authority in Him, to forgive and not to forgive sins. But is this not recorded in Luke’s account also, as to what Jesus says to the disciples?

Let’s pause for a moment and ponder, for like me, I am sure that you can identify what the Holy Spirit has been working out in you. There are two things which He has been working out in me and others as well. Together, many of us can boldly and truthfully say that we have had our minds opened up to the truth that when Jesus breathed on His disciples, they received His resurrected life in them. Additionally, we have also been made conscious of the authority they received, when He breathed the Holy Spirit on them, to forgive or not to forgive sin.

Tomorrow, we turn to the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as we spend the remainder of our time, looking at Him and learning more about Him. 

PENTECOST

On Pentecost the Spirit came,

He who for us remains the same,

A promise for the young and old,

As Joel’s prophecy foretold.

 

On Pentecost the Spirit moved,

But many of Him did disprove,

As to disciples, He gave tongues,

That brought from many, scorns and frowns.

 

On Pentecost the Spirit filled,

Men and women, as the Lord willed,

Those on whom the Lord did shower

Without reserve, His mighty power.

 

On Pentecost the Spirit led,

The disciples, as Jesus said,

And made His power in them known,

By witness that in them was shown.

 

On Pentecost the Spirit came,

And He still comes in Jesus’ Name,

To give you power and the boldness,

To be Jesus’ living witness.

                                  Amen!