+ 19^th Sunday after Pentecost – October 19^th, 2025 +

Series C: Genesis 32:22-30; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church

Milton, WA

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In C.S. Lewis’s book, The Magician’s Nephew, the world of Narnia is created when Aslan the great lion appears and sings it into existence. He speaks. His voice. His song. His breath creates Narnia out of nothing. One moment there’s no life. And the next, there’s life. All by Aslan’s breath.

This is a beautiful picture of what God does in the true words of Scripture. All Scripture is God-breathed, Paul writes. Scripture is breathed out by God. Inspired. Inerrant. Infallible. Trustworthy. True. Unfailing. Life-giving. When God breathes out his word he brings us from death to life.

From Genesis to Revelation, when God breathes out, he breathes out life for you in Jesus. His breath and Spirit and Word bring life where there was no life.

Creation in this world happened this way. God spoke and it happened. “Let there be light…and it was so.” And there was evening and morning the first day. God spoke and it happened. And so it went, day after normal, 24-hour day. Six days of God creating life out of nothing. One moment there was no life. And the next there was life. All by God’s word. His breath creates and sustains and gives life.

The same is true of Adam’s creation on the 6^th day. The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Sadly, Genesis 2 gave way to Genesis 3. Adam and Eve fell into sin. Sin leaves them physically and spiritually gasping for air. This is what sin did to them and does to us: sin is soul sucking; soul consuming. Like a vacuum that siphons all hope and light and comfort from us. Sin leaves us breathless, gasping for air, unable to breath. Sin brings a spiritual claustrophobia to us. It seals us into the tomb, cuts us off from God’s breath of life. Locks us in prison and says “there’s no life here.” No word. No Spirit. No breath of God. Only the foul air filled with the serpent’s lies and poison…just as he did for Adam and Eve.

Later in the Scriptures, Israel finds themselves in a similar place. The Lord shows Ezekiel a valley of dry, dead bones. This is the house of Israel. God’s people cut off. Gasping for air. Breathless in their sin. Sealed in the grave and enslaved to their own idolatry.

Jesus’ disciples, also find themselves feeling breathless and winded after Jesus’ resurrection. Having abandoned and denied Jesus. They fled for fear. Hid in fear. And huddled with uneasy breath, locked in an upper room frozen in fear.

And what does our Lord do? How does he respond to such gasping in our sin? What he always does. He does not leave us breathless or cut off from him in our sin. Instead, He takes our sinful breath away. He swallows all the poison of our sin, Adam’s sin, Israel’s sin, yours and mine, and replaces it with his own life-giving breath. Remember what he did as he hung on the cross. He spoke. He proclaimed. He declared. It is finished. Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. He breathed his last…at least for a little while. Three days later, he who gave up his breath on Good Friday breathed the free and gracious air of new life, new creation, and the new dawn of Easter Sunday.

And then, just as he did in creation, Jesus our Second Adam, the perfect Israel, the Word of God made flesh, spoke. His Word gives life. One moment there’s no life. The next, there’s life. Life out of the grave. A new creation made by Jesus’ cross.

God kept the promise that he had breathed out and spoken to Adam and Eve long ago. That he would send a Son who would crush the serpent under his foot once and for all. That he would stomp that twisted, forked tongue liar right into the dust of his grave – along with all his lies that fill the air and our ears and hearts and minds.

God kept his promise to Ezekiel and Israel as well. Those dry, dusty, dead bones of Israel became a mighty host. An army of the resurrected. Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. All by God’s word. God’s breath. God breathing out life from the dead.

So too for his disciples. Jesus came to them in that upper room. In their fears. Their worries. Their pains. Their sin-staggered breathing. And he spoke. He filled that room and their ears and hearts with his life-giving promise, peace, and presence. “Peace be with you. Peace in my hands. Peace in my wounds. Peace in my death and resurrection for you. Breath in. Breath out. Breath the free air of my dying and rising for you.”

So it is for each of us. All Scripture is God-breathed. All Scripture – from Genesis to Revelation – is breathed out by God. Inspired. Trustworthy. True. Unfailing. Life-giving. When God breathes out his word he brings us from death to life.

When the air around you and your sinful flesh within you leave you feeling as though you are gasping for breath, cut off from God, remember this: the God who created you, formed you in your mother’s womb, and who died and rose from the dead for you, also breathed his life-filled word over the life-giving waters of your baptism. And sent the Lord and giver of life, the Holy Spirit to dwell in you and for you.

On days when your body feels like those dusty, dry, dead bones of Israel. Remember this: the same God who delivered his divinely inspired prophecy to Ezekiel is the one who fulfilled that in his own valley of dry bones on the cross and out of the grave. And he promises that one day, he will speak the same life-giving word and breath out his life-giving breath over our dusty, dead, dry bones. And you will live. You will be resurrected in the flesh. Forever a new creation in body and soul.

When you wrestle with God’s word or struggle to understand parts of Scripture, remember this: the same Lord who inspired the prophets and apostles to write his Word, also sustains you as you read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest his word. His word – all of it – is trustworthy. True. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

And when you’re feeling like those disciples in the upper room: anxious, afraid, gasping for air, and reeling from your own sin, remember this: the same Lord who came among them and spoke: “Peace be with you” says the same to you today – on the altar, in his body and blood. For your forgiveness. “Peace be with you.”

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.