Blogging toward Sunday

By Craig Kocher
Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
Sunday March 30

Morning breath

The first thing the resurrected Jesus does in the presence of his disciples in the Upper Room is breathe. Before his famous back and forth with Thomas, before he offers his bloody hands and side, Jesus breathes, offers his peace, and then he breathes peace on the disciples.

At Duke Chapel we exchange the peace of Christ each Sunday.

It is done in the southern way of firm handshakes, solid eye contact, warm greetings, all tidy and polite. Jesus does not abide social graces. Jesus passes peace with his breath. Forget handshakes and sunny “good mornings.” Jesus comes close. He invades personal space, gets in the face of his disciples, and breathes the breath of peace through his wounded body.

Peace and wounds dine together during the Easter season. Jesus is raised from the dead, and as the rising of Jesus’ light falls on the brokenness of the world, Thomas recognizes the resurrection in the wounds of the cross. In Thomas we see the hope and possibility of the empty tomb, a sign of John’s New Jerusalem, and the suffering and death that continue to plague the earth. In Thomas we see the grittiness of Easter.

Easter is always at risk of being domesticated and sentimentalized, a forever-after ending to a Disney animation. We’re eager to replace the scars of nails and spear with butterflies and rainbows; to ambush gospel hope and the resurrection of the body with spiritual ideals and heavenly metaphors. But Easter is not the end of the fairy tale, a once-a-year cherry atop a tasty good life. Easter begins the church’s real work.

Jesus breathes the Spirit of peace on his fearful disciples and commissions them for ministry in the Easter church. Neighbor love and peace-making do not happen at a distance, he insists; they happen by sharing personal space, getting close to the wounds of the world, and exchanging breath.

Blessed are those who get close enough to breathe on one another.

Craig Kocher is associate dean of the chapel and director of religious life at Duke University.

Comments

[bill lenters]

I would hope he swished out the three days worth of the bad breath of death with a little Mogen David in his mouth before he started breathing his good cheer upon people.

[Marlea Gilbert]

I couldn't help thinking about breath smells, either!

Seriously, though, with the language conjunction of breath and wind and spirit, it is only logical that the Spirit would come on breath. But the breath of God in the resurrected Christ must be a sweet, but fiery breath, full of life. (Cinnamon red-hots anyone?)

[Pamela Lewis]

I would agree with a previous post that the breath of the risen Christ would be sweet and life giving rather than fetid. That Christ breathes on his disciples underscores that he is not a ghost but is in bodily form, a resurrection body. I see it as an "anointing" by breath of the disciples. If we think of the word "inspire," the root of which means "to breathe into" or "to infuse with life," the meaning of Christ's act of breathing on the disciples becomes clearer. It is Christ's life-giving, resurrection breath that "in-breathes" new life into his followers.

[Craig Kocher]

Thanks for these good thoughts. As I was writing this, I kept thinking about Christ's breath having some residue of death (though maybe not the putrid smell of it!) in the same way his body is still marked by the cross, as if to say to his disciples, this is the work of Easter, to bring life to those who are still in the throes of death in whatever form death may take - and how to breathe on someone you really have to get close to them. Easter is not only sweet-smelling smiles and laughter; it is the discipleship grunt-work of drawing close to the brokenness of the world and its people as Thomas draws close to Jesus through his wounds.
Craig

[Marlea Gilbert]

That part of your post struck me also. Breathing is not a wind or even a forceful push of breath, but a relatively gentle, and therefore intimate, act.

Jesus must have seemed both familiar and strange to them. Not only strange because they thought him dead, but renewed, brighter maybe? Wound marks, yes, but without pain or bleeding. ...Too much romantic painting of the beatific Jesus! Could it be he looked just like he did when he was laid in the tomb? Dirty, bloody, nearly naked? Unclean? I like the first image better!

[Tom]

Are we breathing too much Cecil B. DeBible into the allusion to the need to be alive in order to be born again?