The Spirit Hovers, Breathing Life

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We are in the series on the Holy Spirit. We want to hear from the Holy Spirit.

We want to learn about God, the Holy Spirit, but not just learn about Him. We want to be awake and aware of the presence of God that is in us, with us, and for us. It’s quite an incredible thing when you think about it—what we believe about the presence of God with us.

I want to pray for us once more. And even that prayer that we sang in that song, that Ancient Future song—that Jesus, Your Spirit, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, would You breathe on this place, hover over our hearts, over our lives, over everything that we feel is lost?

It’s life that we fear is being lost. We fear it is dead. Your Spirit, hover over us, and God, bring all that we need.

Lord, we’re awake. We’re open to Your presence in our midst. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Amen.

We read this full scripture, but this is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“To these bones I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.”

Man, that’s just amen right there. Amen.

I want to declare this truth over everything that you feel might be dead and dying in you, in your life, your relationships, those that you care about, and the systems of this world: that the Spirit of the living God is still hovering over all that is dead and dying, breathing life, healing, and hope into us and into all of creation.

I’ve done a lot of weddings over the years. If you’re a youth pastor, as long as I was for 12 years, you get to do a lot of weddings. I’ve married some of your kids, which is beautiful. I love it. Yeah, I see that hand.

And so when you’ve done it so long, you get to do a lot of weddings.

There was a season where I felt like I was doing a wedding every few months. I did like 25 or 26 weddings in a few years. And you’re so honored. It’s such a privilege. It’s beautiful to do this.

And I’ve now lived long enough to see some of those marriages die. Some of them decay, and that’s heartbreaking.

There’s a couple I remember in particular. They just had so much life. So beautiful. Their love was so strong. They had everything going for them. Both of them were in love with the Lord, in love with one another, in love with what God was doing in the world.

They were married for many years. They had several beautiful children.

And then infidelity. Both directions. Repeated.

Eventually they left their marriage, and they left Jesus—following Jesus.

And it’s heartbreaking. It grieves my heart, and it grieves God’s heart.

And I’ll say this: sometimes marriages have to end, okay? But it still breaks our heart, and it breaks God’s heart. These covenant unions, made before God, before family, before community—they break.

And it feels like a microcosm.

It’s not just our marriages where we see death and dying. We see this in our families, our neighborhoods, and in the faces of people you pass by on the street or at the store. You watch the news, and you feel it. You feel the death, the dying, the decay.

You wonder if anything is holding the world together anymore.

Do you ever feel that way?

Death is all around us.

It feels like we’re standing in a valley of dry bones.

And we are.

Into this reality, we’re going to declare that the Spirit of God is still hovering over all that is dead and dying. That the living God is breathing life, healing, and hope into us and all of creation.

Let’s survey Scripture briefly on how the Spirit brings life.

First, the Spirit hovers, creating and sustaining all of life.

Take a deep breath in, would you?

Your life, the breath you breathe, is a gift from God, made possible by the hovering Spirit.

Let’s look at Genesis 1:1–2:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep.”

And who was there?

“The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

In the ancient world, water represented chaos. It represented disorder. It represented this mystery that was terrifying.

In the ancient world, if you went off to sea, there was a very good chance you would not come back.

I was talking to Matthew about this just this morning. How much of the sea did you say is explored? Like 30 percent?

Fifty percent? Okay, enough.

We still don’t know what’s down there. The ancient world had no clue. They could just stick their face down there, and that’s all they could see.

So it represented chaos, disorder, and formlessness.

And the Spirit of God is hovering over this chaos, this formlessness, this disorder. The Spirit comes to the chaos and brings order and life out of it.

And God loves bringing life.

God created the world out of great love and passion. He refuses to leave the earth formless and void.

Then we see, in Genesis 2:7, kind of a zoom-in on the creation story:

“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground.”

And what does He do?

He breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7.

And in Psalm 104 is a poem of praise to God, and I encourage you to read it this afternoon if you have nothing else to do. Even if you have something else to do, I encourage it.

Verse 30 is this poem, this song proclaiming God to be Creator and Sustainer of all that we see and experience and are.

And he says, “When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.”

The Spirit of God hovering over the earth is what sustains and brings life. Physical life—the heartbeat pumping blood through your veins, the lungs going back and forth, exhaling and inhaling. This is a gift of God, sustained by God, by the very Spirit of God.

So the Spirit of the living God is still hovering over all that is dead and dying, breathing life, healing, and hope into us and all creation.

And this is physical. It’s also speaking spiritually to our life, our vitality as people of God.

The Spirit hovers, creating renewed lives.

What has died in us, what is dead, is brought to life in Jesus.

And there’s a promise of this in Ezekiel.

Just as the Spirit hovered over what was formless and void in the beginning, God’s Spirit is hovering now, refusing to abandon what has died in us and around us—what’s been destroyed by sin and death and unfaithfulness.

God’s Spirit comes and brings new hearts and resurrected life.

In Ezekiel 36, just before the vision, we read God speaking to Ezekiel. He’s speaking concerning Israel, the people of God, the covenant people of God.

He says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees. And be careful to keep my laws.

So he’s speaking to Israel, the people called into relationship with God, into covenant with God, to be a light to the nations, to be God’s people who would bring all people into communion with their Creator.

And as we know, Israel failed. Their hearts grew hard. They rejected God as their King. They distorted love. They grew hard-hearted. They went the way of idolatry. They rejected God’s love. They distorted God’s love. They perverted God’s love.

And they were dying as a nation. They were dead, in fact.

And here God responds with mercy.

God’s Spirit comes upon them in resurrection, changing their hearts from stone to flesh. It’s beautiful, powerful imagery, enabling their hearts to beat again—to beat for love.

Love for God. Love for neighbor.

And then comes the next chapter, which we read in its entirety: Ezekiel 37:1–14.

God takes Ezekiel on a tour through a valley of dry bones.

Did you get the imagery there?

I mean, this could be one of the most epic movies, right? This valley of dry bones. Imagine a mass grave—exposed bones, skulls, femurs—representing the death of a people, the death of a civilization, the death of covenant.

It represents the death of relationships, the death of marriages, the death of families, the death of ethics, the death of society, the death of a beautiful world God created to be in communion with God.

But God does not turn away.

His Spirit insists on hovering.

God says to Ezekiel, “Prophesy. Call on the breath of God.”

The same life-giving Spirit that created us in love in the beginning, breathing life into our bodies, making us come alive to God’s love and love for creation, now hovers over what is dead—over these dry bones, over faithlessness and failure and pain—and it resurrects what is dead.

It pours new life into what is lost. It gives new hearts that align with God and His way of love.

And this is what God always intended for His people, right?

And so God looks on an entire people—and this is so encouraging. He looks at an entire people who had given up on Him, and God doesn’t give up on them.

He looked at the dead bones, and He saw people that He loved. He saw people that He wanted to be with, and He resurrects them.

That’s the kind of God we’re dealing with.

So the Spirit of the living God is still hovering over all that is dead and dying, breathing life, healing, and hope into us and all of creation.

And so this valley, this vision of the valley of dry bones, is the resurrection of an entire people—dead, but brought to life by the breath and Spirit of God.

This is a foreshadowing.

This is in the Old Testament, the prophets, the prophetic book of Ezekiel, proclaiming what would be true of Israel, but also what would be true of everyone—of all nations, of all people, of us sitting here, of our children in the future, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, our great-great-grandchildren—that they will receive the promise of the breath of God, the life-giving resurrection of Jesus breathed into them.

So the Spirit hovers, breathing new creation through Jesus.

Jesus makes it possible for the Spirit to breathe new life into all of creation—what the Bible calls new creation.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, which my church is named after, New Creation Albuquerque:

If anyone is in Christ, new creation bursts forth.

The Spirit of God is resurrecting, hovering, breathing new life into all that is dead and dying.

So it’s a prophecy, a foreshadowing of what will be true and what God’s desire is for everyone.

So Jesus enters the valley.

I love it. Jesus enters the valley.

He walks among the dry bones of broken humanity. He walks among our broken marriages. He walks in the midst of our addictions. He walks in the midst of our dead faith, our doubt, our dying world, the systems that harm and hurt people.

He walks among this.

And His crucifixion, His death, His resurrection from the dead, is the breath of God entering the valley.

I had this picture of Jesus on the cross.

What does it say in the last words He speaks? He breathes out, “It is finished.”

And with that last dying breath, that is the breath of life over the dry bones of all that is dead and dying in our world.

There’s this beautiful moment after Jesus rises from the dead. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this.

In John 20:21–22, Jesus, the resurrected Christ, is with His disciples. They’re still trying to figure this out. What is happening? Who is He? What is going on?

He’s with His disciples, and He’s about to ascend to heaven.

And this is what it says:

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you.”

And with that, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

That’s weird—that Jesus breathed on them. But it’s everything.

It’s the symbol of the breath of God that created all the heavens and the earth, that resurrected the nation of Israel, and that will resurrect all things and all people—new heavens, new earth, new creation.

And Jesus says, in the resurrection, “I breathe new life, and all things will be resurrected.”

All things will be resurrected.

The Spirit of the living God is still hovering over all that is dead and dying, breathing life, healing, and hope into us, into you, into me, and into all of creation.

I think this is really good news.

I hope you feel it and think it.

And it’s something we always want to respond to—how God is at work in the world.

As I think about how I’m wanting to respond to this, I think first of wonder.

My first response is wonder.

I’m in wonder at the Spirit of the living God hovering over what is formless and void and chaotic, bringing order and life.

I was talking to my friend Jeremiah—you can meet him in the back. Sorry, Jeremiah, but he’s awesome.

We were talking on the way over here about the hummingbird.

The hummingbird, man, is crazy.

A hummingbird beats its wings 80 times per second. It weighs, like, half an ounce. It can go—what did it say it was? Like 15 miles a second? Is that possible? Maybe it was AI. Maybe Google got it wrong.

Fifty miles an hour is fast enough for a little guy like that.

It can go backwards. It’s the only living thing that can actually fly backwards, right?

It’s amazing.

It beats its wings so incredibly fast. It’s amazing.

And so I’m in wonder at the creative power, the sustaining power of God, to bring this beautiful creation that we have.

And we just see it after thousands of years of abuse. What was it like at the very beginning?

It’s amazing. It’s beautiful.

So I’m in wonder.

I’m also in wonder that the same Spirit who hovers over and brings life to this beautiful creation hovered over my life and brought me to life.

I didn’t do it.

I was dead.

You were dead.

And God hovered, came, did not leave you a valley of dry bones, didn’t leave you there. He resurrected you. He breathed new life.

He makes your heart of stone a heart of flesh.

I’m so thankful that my heart can be for love—love of God, love of neighbor, love for creation.

That’s all.

I’m in wonder.

The second response is surrender.

Not only wonder, but surrender to this move of God at work in the world.

It’s really good news that the Spirit of the living God hovers over all that is dead and dying and brings life.

And then I don’t have to.

Because it’s a lot of pressure if I have to resurrect the world, isn’t it?

I feel it, though. I’ll own it.

Every time I come back from vacation—for a long time, until recently, and it still hits me every once in a while—when I return to my neighborhood, there’s a very defining line of pain and suffering as you enter the International District from the surrounding area of the city.

Every time we return from vacation or a long time away, as soon as we hit that moment and you see people passed out on the sidewalk, you see buildings boarded up with smoke trails staining the stucco, I just feel this tension in my chest.

This literal, physical weight on my body.

This discouragement, this depression, this tension, this stress.

And I have begun to realize what that is.

It’s my belief that it’s my responsibility to resurrect the neighborhood.

And it can’t be. Or else I’ll be crushed.

So what I need to do is surrender to the life-giving Spirit that is moving and breathing and hovering over my neighborhood, and over the people, and over my children.

I feel the same pressure.

You pray over your children, wanting to see them just get there, right? Through your marriage, or whatever it is. The people you love that feel like they’re destroying their lives, and you just want to breathe into it, right?

But it doesn’t work.

Your breath is just bad. It doesn’t work, right?

And so the Spirit has to breathe life into them.

And so we surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit at work in the ones that we love, and the systems, and the nations, and all that is dead and dying.

Now, I want to say this:

Surrender is not the same as passivity.

Surrender is not the same as going passive.

This isn’t like, “Jesus, take the wheel,” and I’m off somewhere. It’s not the same as passivity.

I was in the mountains a few weeks ago. I was walking and praying, and I saw this hawk soaring in the wind.

He’s going back and forth. It was a beautiful windy day.

And I realized he is not striving to fly, right?

The wind is taking him, and he’s going, and it’s beautiful, gliding. He’s flying with his wings spread out.

He’s not striving, but he’s also not without effort.

He’s not without participation and partnership with the wind and the movement.

It takes great skill and alertness to follow and cooperate with the flow of the wind.

He’s got to angle his body and catch the waves and adjust and move with the wind.

And I think the same is true of us.

We can’t create the wind, but we must ride it.

We have to open up our wings to it and follow, cooperate, and partner with the healing breath and Spirit of God moving to and fro in our marriages, our children’s lives, our neighborhood, our city, our nation, and the world.

We have to pay attention to how God is moving, how God is healing, and let’s cooperate.

Let’s partner.

Because remember, Jesus breathes the Spirit into you.

So how does the Spirit work?

I think that song, that Ancient Future song—something about employ our hands to meet the hurt in the world. Loose translation.

This is the Spirit of God at work in us.

How is He moving to and fro? How is He hovering?

As we cooperate with His Spirit, we surrender to it, but we pay attention and we partner with it.

And so I’m learning to exhale.

You know?

From self-effort.

But inhale the Spirit’s life and go with Him as He moves.

Go with Him as He moves.

The Spirit of the living God is still hovering, breathing life, healing, and hope.

I’m going to ask you this question:

Who comes to mind right now?

Whose face do you see?

A child who’s walked away?

A friend struggling with addiction?

A neighbor you’ve been meaning to check on?

A marriage that’s barely breathing?

A relationship that feels like dry bones?

It’s not an accident that this person, this situation, this relationship comes to mind.

It’s the Spirit.

And so, just like the hawk, you didn’t go looking for the wind.

He just opened up his wings.

All right, I want you to open up your wings to how the Spirit is already moving around you.

So what would it look like this week to simply open up your wings to the movement of God’s healing in the world?

Maybe it’s a text you’ve been putting off sending.

Maybe it’s a phone call you need to make.

Maybe it’s leaving food on someone’s doorstep that needs encouragement—or literal food.

Maybe it’s sitting with your child instead of trying to fix them.

Maybe it’s finally admitting to God that you’ve been carrying something He never asked you to carry, and letting it go.

You don’t have to save anyone.

That’s not your job.

You just have to stay awake to how God is moving, where the wind is moving, and lean into it.

He’s hovering over the people you love.

He’s there already.

He loves them more than you love them.

He’s at work in their lives, and He’ll be there.

He was there before you arrived.

He’ll be there after you’re gone.

He’s there when you fail to be there like you could.

And so your presence matters, right?

But His breath is what brings life.

And He won’t let us go.

So I just want to encourage you this week:

Pay attention to how the Spirit of the living God is hovering, breathing life, hope, and healing into all of us and into creation.

I want to end with this prayer.

Would you be willing to stand, if you’re able?

I’m going to read this first to give you a chance to kind of take it in. Then we’ll pray it together.

This is just an opportunity to respond as a community to the Spirit.

And this is the good news.

I’ll read it, and then we can read it together.

Gracious God, God of all compassion and consolation, Your breath alone brings life to dry bones and weary souls.

Pour out Your Spirit upon us, that we may face despair and death with the hope of resurrection and faith through Christ our Lord.

Help us advance with the Spirit, the breath of life, who calls us out of the valley of dry bones and into the Kingdom of God—both the present reality and the ground of our future hope.

Can we pray that together?

Gracious God, God of all compassion and consolation, Your breath alone brings life to dry bones and weary souls.

Pour out Your Spirit upon us, that we may face despair and death with the hope of resurrection and faith through Christ our Lord.

Help us to dance with the Spirit, the breath of life, who calls us out of the valley of dry bones and into the Kingdom of God, both the present reality and the ground of our future hope.

Amen.