Sermons for the Month

Rebreathing Lessons
DATE: March 25, 2001
SERVICE: Lent IV
TEXT: 2 Corinthians 5"16-21

“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

A couple of years ago I tried it for real for the first time: scuba diving. My big plunge was off the coast of Maui. It is called a resort dive i.e. with an instructor, not too far, not too deep and for a limited time.

During the orientation, the instructors principle concern is oxygen: how to breath underwater, how to clear your mouthpiece, how to measure how much you have. Then you have to pass a test.

Now all of us have seen those TV shows or movies of the diver who comes up too quickly from a deep, deep dive. They call it the bends, the result of oxygen toxicity i.e. when the very air we need to survive becomes our worst enemy.

Oxygen toxicity. If you have it, you have either a pulmonary condition resulting in damage to the lungs and airways or you have central nervous system toxicity characterized by convulsions with little or no warning signs.

Either way - if you are a deep-water diver - you're in deep trouble.

That's why Bill Stone began to work on a cutting-edge diving device called a "rebreather." In 1987, he made diving history.

He began by immersing himself in 30 feet of water, deep down in a network of submerged caves in northern Florida, carrying only two 30-cubic foot oxygen tanks and a sack of "blood and gore" war novels.

Had he been using normal scuba gear, he would have been forced to surface after 30 minutes. But Stone, an automation engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Washington D.C., was wearing a homemade rebreather.

So down in the water he stayed, for one hour, two hours, 10 hours, 20 hours ... just plowing through his stash of novels and breathing away. His rebreather recycled his exhaled air, scrubbing it of poisonous carbon dioxide and squeezing out every last molecule of oxygen in his tanks.

Finally, he emerged. He had been down for 24 hours - the longest anyone has ever survived underwater with a self-contained breathing device. "When I got out of the water and checked, I found I'd used only half of my consumables," he told Discover magazine. "That was the big shock. I could have stayed under for another 24 hours."

That was 13 years ago. Today, the latest rebreathing device, the MK-5P, features sophisticated gas and depth sensors, three microprocessors, computer displays and a $17,500 price tag. With such a rebreather, divers can linger for half a day without thinking about their air supply, taking the time they need to survey shipwrecks, frolic with fish or explore undersea caves that were previously off-limits.

A rebreather works by saving expired air - instead of sending it all out into the water as bubbles. The expired air is then shuttled through a valve into a balloon like bag, and then into the breathing loop. The job of the rebreather is to scrub the carbon dioxide and add just enough oxygen as is necessary for healthy breathing.

When it is working well, a rebreathing apparatus is like a set of gills, permitting divers to live as though they really belonged in the water all along. It enables people to breathe like fish, turning them into a kind of a new creation that feels equally at home on the land or in the sea.

Precisely the point Paul is making in our reading! In Christ, we've taken on a new set of lungs. We have a new Spirit-breathing device allowing us to live as new creations, utterly at ease in the kingdom of God, working all the while to reconcile others to God, i.e., showing them how to develop spiritual gills as well! "Everything old has passed away" and "everything has become new!" (v. 17).

Talk about radical rebreathing! Suddenly the MK-5P rebreather doesn't seem like such an innovation. Jesus Christ turns us from land-dwellers to heaven-dwellers, and from air-breathers to Spirit-breathers. "So if anyone is in Christ," proclaims Paul, "there is a new creation" (v. 17). In Christ, we enter a whole new world, a world no less exciting than the world Bill Stone entered with his homemade rebreather.

But unlike Bill, we're supposed to do more than sit underwater and read "blood and gore" novels. As Spirit-breathing believers, we are challenged to do the work of reconciliation, the work of introducing unbelievers to Jesus Christ.

The original Greek for "reconciliation" is a fascinating word: katalasso. Kata means "together," and lasso means "wrapped" or "tied" - not unlike the lasso that cowboys use to rope wild horses. Paul tells us that God was active in Christ, tying the world to himself, wrapping it close to himself in the bond of forgiveness and love. At the same time, God was entrusting the message of tying, wrapping, and lassoing to us, asking us to go out into the world as ambassadors, winning the unchurched for Christ.

So our rebreathing lessons have two parts. One, be reconciled to God (v. 20). And two, perform the ministry of reconciliation (v. 18). Let yourself get tied close to God through his Son Jesus Christ, and then go out into the world to do the work of wrapping people together and lassoing them for God.

A Palestinian priest named Elias Chacour recounts a Palm Sunday service at his church in Israel - one in which he could see so many people who were at odds with each other. In fact, he realized that there was, in reality, no peace among his people.

At the end of the service, he made a startling decision. He walked down the center aisle and at the back of the church locked the only two doors to the church and took the key. He told the people both that he loved them and that he was saddened to find them so filled with hatred and bitterness for one another. Then, in the midst of stunned silence, he announced that only one person could work the miracle of reconciliation in their village: Jesus Christ.

"So on Christ's behalf, I say this to you," said Elias Chacour: "The doors of the church are locked. Either you kill each other right here in your hatred, and then I will celebrate your funerals ... or you use this opportunity to be reconciled together before I open the doors of the church. If that reconciliation happens, Christ will truly become your Lord."

Ten minutes passed, and no one said a word. The people sat in silence, locked inside their church.

Finally, one man stood up. It was Abu Muhib, a villager serving as an Israeli policeman, who was in his uniform. He stretched out his arms and said, "I ask forgiveness of everybody here, and I forgive everybody. And I ask God to forgive me my sins." He and Chacour then embraced, with tears streaming down Abu Muhib's cheeks. Within minutes, everyone in the church was crying, laughing, embracing and sharing Christ's love and peace.

Elias Chacour then announced that "this is our resurrection! We are a community that has risen from the dead, and we have new life. I propose that we don't wait until Easter to celebrate the Resurrection. I will unlock the doors, and then let us go from home to home all over the village and sing the resurrection hymn to everyone!"

Rebreathing lessons can be dramatic - as they were for this congregation in Israel. Suddenly reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, they reached out to each other and to the world in an explosively exciting ministry of reconciliation. After years of being choked by conflict toxicity, they were finally able to breathe.

The point is, the Spirit of Christ allowed them to act in a way that was totally contrary to their natures.

You say, "It's not in my nature to be patient and understanding. I am who I am."

You say, "It's not in my nature to listen first without jumping to conclusions. I am who I am."

You say, "It's not in my nature to give of myself. I am who I am."

You say, "It's not in my nature to share my faith. I am who I am."

You say, "It's not in my nature to surrender my life to anyone. I am who I am."

You say, "It's not in my nature to admit I was wrong and ask forgiveness. I am who I am." Exactly!

It is not our nature. So I am asking you to go against your nature. Jesus is asking you to go against your nature. God is asking you to go against your nature. My friends, I am asking you to make God's nature, your nature, Jesus' nature, your nature. I am asking you to be the kingdom of God. My friends, we don't need high-tech diving devices. We need the re-breathing power of the risen Christ who transforms us into new creations. Let Jesus be your nature and know the peace of God which passes all human nature.

AMEN

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