A Breath Away From Jesus: A Parable
A man and a woman, both in their mid-twenties, were seated in a coffee shop. Their conversation was animated as they spoke, and they were intensely focused on what they were expressing, focused in a way that they appeared to be unaware that they were in public and everyone in the room could hear them.
The man was pointing to a book lying on their table. The man opened the book, and said, Marsha, it’s important to look at the theological implications of what you’re claiming. You’re referring to Luke 23: 39-46. Let’s look at how Scripture instructs the reader in that passage. It’s very important to study a passage before drawing any practical applications from it. Most people use the phrase “good thief” to name the thief that Jesus saved while they both hung on their own crosses, but I like to call him the “repentant thief,” you see–
Tom! You’re not listening to me! I’m talking to you about a breakthrough I experienced in my relationship with Jesus! My experience! With the living Christ! And you want to throw abstractions at me like “theological implications,” and my need “to study” Scripture before I do anything! When you use your degree in theology, it sometimes feels like I’m getting the third degree!
OK . . . all right . . . slow down, Tom replied, his voice softening. I’m here to listen. Please continue with what you were saying.
Sometimes the Lord just shows up–unannounced–makes His presence real–uncovers mysteries and reveals truth–the meaning of a certain Scripture–before you study it! With both her hands encircling her coffee mug, she lifted the mug to her lips, took a few swallows, and then set down the mug, one of her hands still holding the mug, her other hand resting on the table, her fingers upturned and open.
Marsha, I can see that you’re excited about what the Lord has revealed to you. Tom reached across the space between them, his fingertips gently resting on the fingertips of Marsha’s open hand, and then he sat back, and said, I’m all ears, and I’m all yours. Please continue.
OK, Tom. Last night, around three in the morning, I woke up from a dream. In the dream the Lord walked up to me, looked delighted to see me, smiled, and then took a deep breath, a breath that sounded like a comforting and refreshing sigh. Then I woke up. Although He didn’t breathe on me, I felt energized, and yet, somehow, disoriented. My room was very dark, and I strained to find anything I could fix my eyes on. But the darkness was too thick. And then I thought of the repentant thief hanging on his cross at Calvary. I’m going to call him “RT.” While RT was still an unbelieving robber and murderer, Jesus saved RT, and promised him that on that very day, RT would be with Jesus in Paradise. Then suddenly, at high noon, darkness covered everything–a midnight darkness so thick that RT couldn’t see Jesus.
Like the kind of darkness you experienced just after Jesus took that deep breath and sighed in your dream. Right, Marsha?
Yeah, Tom, except that I wasn’t nailed to a cross . . . but . . . I. Marsha paused, her eyes closed, shaking her head.
What is it, Marsha? asked Tom. Is there something wrong?
No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just that what RT experienced in the dark, and what I experienced in the dark–right after the Lord breathed that sigh in my dream–they came together in me, revealed a new truth for me, and took me into a deeper walk with Jesus.
Marsha, I’m on the edge of my seat! Tell me more–please don’t stop now!
Well, you know that my heart’s desire is to help those who are in despair because of broken relationships–whether broken with other people or broken with God.
Of course, I do. We’ve prayed about that, and the Lord made it clear that you’re to minister to those who are on the brittle edge that separates their despair from their destruction. Those who are like Paul was in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 where he says, “We were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead”–that kind of despair!
Yeah, but even worse: those in despair who are barely able to groan: “What’s left for me, when there’s nothing left in me–when even my trust in God has left me?” Those people–the worst of the worst despairing and suffering–those are the ones I’m called to serve.
But Marsha, if they’ve lost even their trust in God, what do they have left except their own psychological break down and spiritual collapse?
RT’s experience and Jesus coming to me in my dream showed me the way, revealed to me that there is always one thing that is always left, one thing that is always there–for the despairing, and, yes, even for all who are struggling with their own brokenness.
I can’t accept that anything could be left for them, Marsha. Those that have lost their trust in God, for them I don’t see anything left but hopelessness and complete and utter defeat–total destruction of their lives!
Tom, don’t you frequently tell me that your seminary professors had to remind you and your classmates that all things are possible with God?
Yes, Marsha, but–
But?! No, Tom, there’s no “but!” Either all things are possible with God, or they are not! Right?!
True, logically and theologically, in the strict use of the term “possible,” but . . . still–
Still?! I was still unfolding what the Lord revealed to me. May I go on?
Of course . . . you were saying . . . that there’s always one thing that is always left, one thing that is always there–for the despairing, and that is . . . ?
To show what that is, I have to return to RT’s experience. So, RT’s hanging there, nailed to his cross. I can imagine him thinking that he just received Jesus as his Savior, and that he’s going to be with Jesus in Paradise. But there’s still darkness. And now the darkness is closing around him, and his suffocating is growing worse, choking more life out of him. And RT feels imprisoned in the darkness, and his flesh is becoming heavier and heavier, and it’s harder and harder for him to breathe. Off and on, he gasps for air. He’s starting to sink into despair because he can’t understand how it can be that in faith he gave his life to Jesus, and that because of his faith, Jesus assured him that he would be with Him in Paradise–today!—and not be abandoned, alone and unseen, in this darkness, its cold and relentless squeeze like that of the constricting coils of suffocation, increasing in force, causing doubts to bite into his faith, chewing up his strength to keep trusting in what Jesus promised him. RT feels drained, emptied of hope, and in his despair he believes that there’s nothing left in him, and that there’s no one left for him.
But then, above the screaming of confused believers, above the wailing of mourners, above the jeering of pious hypocrites, above the mockery of the mindless mob, above the doubts biting into his faith and chewing him up, RT starts to hear Jesus breathing in the dark. The sound of Jesus breathing–that!–only that!–is all RT has left, and that is everything he has left! Because in the dark, although RT can’t see Jesus, he can hear Jesus breathing! And as Jesus is breathing in the dark, a deep, refreshing breath flows from Him toward and into RT, and RT starts to feel his suffocation loosen its grip, making him feel more energized, creating more space in him to breathe in the life-giving sighs of Jesus.
As RT continues to breathe in Jesus’ unwavering sighs, he realizes that he is joined to the Lord, and that he is one spirit with Him. And as he continues to breathe in the sighs of Jesus, the presence of Jesus feels real and actual, the Lord’s presence deepening as RT listens to Jesus’ breathing, the Lord’s sighing becoming deeper and deeper until–suddenly!–RT realizes that he’s breathing at exactly the same pace and rhythm as Jesus is breathing, in the darkness, on the cross. They are hanging on crosses that separate them in space, but they are breathing as one. And nothing can separate them from their living and breathing union–not even death!
Yes, Marsha, yes! Death can’t separate RT from Jesus. In Romans 8 Paul agrees with you, and says more, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
That’s right, Tom! Paul gets what I’m saying! And the Holy Spirit gave Paul a style to say it so that Paul’s words reflect his own experience. Last night I got it! Got the truth! Got my experience of that truth! And I’ve got my own way to proclaim it! I am–we all are!–a breath away from Jesus! RT’s sighs, then deep breaths, sighs, then deep breaths from the cross–that’s what I felt alive and moving in me last night as I sat in darkness, recalling Jesus in my dream, His breathing in front of me, His breath sounding like a comforting and refreshing sigh.
And as I concentrated on my experience of hearing Jesus breathe, I felt my rigid categories for how to think about Jesus–all fall away, felt all my expectations about how I should perform for others so that I could get their approval–all fall away. And as I felt the Lord’s sighing in me creating an expanding space opening in me and more of His breath flowing through me, filling me with His presence, I thought of RT as he was hanging naked and helpless, nailed to his cross, pinned to a place where he couldn’t move–but he was only a breath away from Jesus! The breath of Jesus was all RT had left–and it was enough!
And I realized that I–or any other person–may be nailed to trials, nailed to family of origin relationship fractures, nailed to financial mismanagement, nailed to greed in its many forms, nailed to political correctness, nailed to a sinful thought life, nailed to addictions and lusts, nailed to holding grudges, nailed to envying others, nailed to gossiping, nailed to cowardice, nailed to prideful ambitions, nailed to religious hypocrisy, and nailed to self idolatries of every kind–but their suffocating grip will continue to loosen as I–like RT–keep focusing on the Lord’s comforting sighs, keep concentrating on the empowering breaths of Jesus, keep centering on the cleansing and refreshing sound of Christ’s breathing and on the feel of His life-giving sighs, realizing–with wonder-releasing surprise!–that Jesus through the Holy Spirit is breathing in me, at a place too deep for words, too deep for conceptual analyses, too deep for psychological interpretations, too deep for theological explanations, and too deep for logical dissections!
The cold and suffocating grip of darkness may seem endless for me, but dawn will be breaking as long as I continue to focus my hope on the Jesus who is only a breath away from me. When I take a deep breath and let out a sigh, then I feel Jesus breathing in me, His sighs lightening the darkness enclosing me, and as long as Jesus keeps breathing into me His resurrecting power, then He is blowing away the darkness from me, and breathing into me a new dawn, a dawn that is always breaking!
Tom stood up and held out his open hands to Marsha. She rose from her chair. They both smiled, and then embraced, his head on her shoulder, hers on his. They spoke in a tone both soft and sure, Thank you, Jesus, that we are just a breath away from you. Then they both took a long, deep breath, and together, sounding as one breath, they let out a sigh that rose into joy-filled laughter!