Sermon for March 30, 2008

This is the sermon for the second Sunday of Easter, March 30, 2008

Perhaps you have heard of the phenomenon of Caesar’s Breath. I hadn’t until I started googling ideas for this sermon.

The idea is that at his assassination, Caesar let out a huge gasp of air, a breath, that contained a huge number of molecules. That number is a 10 followed by 22 zeros. It is a number, so big, I don’t know what it is called. I think part of the idea is that there is a finite number of air molecules that get recycled. Evidently, this is a popular college chemistry and physics experiment. Over the years, a number of scholars have tried to figure out what typically would happen to the molecules in Caesar’s breath. Scientists figured some were absorbed by plants, some by animals, some by water and a large portion would float free and spread themselves all around the globe in a pattern so predictable that if you take a deep breath right now, at least one of the molecules entering your lungs literally came from Caesar’s last breath.

That’s what the scientists say.

In the Gospel Lesson (John 20:19-31), Jesus breathes on the disciples and says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Applying the scientific understanding of Caesar’s breath to this Gospel Lesson event and working backwards, then Jesus is breathing onto and into the disciples the same air or breath molecules that the Prophets breathed, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Samuel; the same breath that Joshua and Moses breathed; the same breath hat the Patriarchs breathed, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph; perhaps the very air or breath that God breathed into Adam.

The early and medieval Church produced many Baptismal customs: marking the Baptized on the forehead with the Sign of the Cross with the thumb; using oil to make the Sign of the Cross; using cinnamon to make the Sign of the Cross with the thumbnail so that it would burn slightly, being accompanied by the words, “You are marked as Christ’s own for ever,” syblolizing being branded as Christ’s own. There was a custom of slapping those Baptized on the cheek of the face, a theological equivalent of the slap babies get on the cheek of their bottom to start their breathing. As the Baptizee gasped at the cheek slap, the Presider would cup his hands, breathe into their face & say, “Receive the Holy Spirit” or  “Receive the Breathe of Christ.”

No doubt this custom has its roots in this GL and Jesus action.

As time went on, whenever or wherever the custom was kept, it would mean the presider breathing into the one baptized the breath of God, the breath of the Patriarchs, the breath of Moses & Joshua, the breath of the Prophets, the breath of Jesus, the breath of the Apostles, the breath of the Church Fathers, the breath of the Church’s Martyrs, Theologians, Reformers, and Social Activists. 

The breath Jesus breathed into the disciples that day in the upper room was the Spirit and Power of God. From the Disciples, Jesus breath circulated into the highways and byways of Jerusalem. From there, throughout all of Judea, to Turkey, Greece & Rome; across Arabia to India, Across Egypt and all of North Africa, circulating onto and into all parts and peoples of the world, including Van Buren, Trinity, and you and me, carrying with it the breath of all God’s work that preceded Jesus, circulating the conversionary work of Jesus since that moment in the Upper Room.

The baptism of Alyssa and MacKenzie is about receiving perpetuating Jesus’ Breath. It is about being Inspired, breathed into, and Inspiring, breathing into others. Jesus’ breathe and all that goes with it will be breathed in by Alyssa and MacKenzie and breathed out by them onto others, so that the Mind of Jesus, the Heart of Jesus and the Work of Jesus continues. Amen