John 20:19-23

On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.” 

The Spirit and the New Creation 

“Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2) God creates us by taking up some dirt, the ordinary stuff of his creation, and then breathing into the nostrils of the first man, Adam. We are part of creation, but we also receive the divine breath. God shares his spirit with us – breath and spirit mean the same thing. We only live because God puts himself into us. 

But after sin enters the world through our first turning away from God, we live under sentence of death. Wonderfully as we are made, we cannot thrive when we are separated from God. But God has a plan to restore the divine breath in us. 

Ezekiel has a vision of dead bones which come back together, but which do not live. Then God says to him, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.” (Ezekiel 37) 

The victory of Jesus over death comes through his cross and resurrection. The first thing Jesus does when he sees his disciples is to breathe on them. Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into them because he is re-creating them. Only by receiving the Holy Spirit can we become “new creations” (Galatians 6). In fact, the whole point of Jesus’s mission is to give us the Holy Spirit, and so to re-create us. 

Notice also that Jesus tells the disciples that they have received the power to forgive sins through the new gift of the Holy Spirit. To be a new creation in Christ is to share his mission by proclaiming the forgiveness of sins. How many people are dormant or spiritually dead because they await this gift of the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of their sins. How amazing to see before our eyes the restoration of the lost, just as Ezekiel prophesied. Jesus’ words to his first disciples are also for us today, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” (John 20)