Pneuma (Nooma)
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Second Week of Lent
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030313-third-sunday-lent.cfm
Exodus 3:5, 14-15
God said to Moses, “The place where you stand is holy ground.” Moses said to God in the burning bush, “What will I say is your name?” And God replied to Moses, “I am who I am … this is my name forever for all generations.”
“I am who I am” is a rough translation of Yahweh, or YHWH. In its original Hebrew language this word is unpronounceable.
However, when you try to say it, the sound is like the sound of your breathing. It is like, with each breath, you are sounding out the name of God.
In Nooma 14, Rob Bell says, “In the Bible, the word for ‘breath’ is the same word as the word for ‘spirit.’ In the Hebrew language, that is the word ‘ruah.’ In the Greek language, it is the word ‘pneuma.’ One scripture says that when God takes away the ‘ruah,’ the breath of all living creatures, then they die and return to dust. But when God sends the ‘ruah,’ the Spirit, they are created. Breath … Spirit … same word.
“You are a sacred creation of God. The divine breath is flowing through you, and it’s flowing through the person next to you and it’s flowing through the person next to them. You are on holy ground. There is a holiness to the people around us and how you treat them. Jesus said that whatever you do for them, you have done for him.”
As the divine breath, the holy spirit flows through us, we breathe in and we breathe out. From the beginning of time every one of us has breathed in and breathed out all the moments and days of our lives. Every one of us, whether pagan or Jew, Christian or Hindu, Muslim or Mormon, has breathed in and out over and over all our lives. Mother Teresa breathed, and Adolf Hitler breathed. They both breathed in and out, over and over.
We have all of us breathed the name of God, even as God has breathed his spirit into us. We are all brothers and sisters in this way. There is no Muslim breath. There is no Hindu breath. There is no Christian breath. There is only … YHWH, in and out, over and over.
Rob Bell continues, “May you come to see that God is here right now with us all of the time. May you come to see that the ground you are standing on is holy. And as you slow down, may you become aware that it is in ‘Yod,’ ‘Heh,’ ‘Vav,’ ‘Heh’ that we live and we move and we breathe.”
In this breath, YHWH, we have our being. Quiet my mind and soften my heart that I may hear the sounds of your spirit deep within me, rising up and resting, rising up and resting. In every moment you are here.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1155
