Since last Sunday was Easter, there was no VisionKids.  That meant all our kids were down here for the whole worship celebration, including my sermon.  More specifically, my own children were here for my sermon.  In what is probably a fortunate turn of events for them, my kids rarely get to hear me preach.  So after church last Sunday, I was curious to ask my seven-year-old, Isaac, what he thought.  “How did you like my sermon, Isaac,” I asked. 

“It was OK,” he said.  “but it needs more pizzam.”

When you think about, there are times in our life when we could all use a little more pizzam. There may be mornings when the alarm clock goes off and we would give anything to just stay in bed.  Our days can seem like one string of energy-draining incidents after another ­ work, kids, accumulating bills, arguments, broken cars and appliances.  We go to bed at night, exhausted with too little energy to even fall asleep. Each day that cycle starts again.  Each day drains a little more energy, and can leave a little less hope that things will be better.  

Can any of you relate to at least some of that?  Your life is OK but it needs more pizzam?   Granted, this is not the life anyone set out to have.  We all envision much more for ourselves.  In pursuit of that, we picture making changes in our life ­ going back to school, changing careers, improving our marriage, taking up a new hobby.  It all sounds so wonderful, but we don’t have the energy to begin those pursuits, let alone complete them.

To make matters worse, we look around and see people, even busier than we are, who appear to have all this energy.  They have full schedules and every time you talk to them, it seems they have taken on even more.  Here’s the part I really hate.  They even seem to look good too.  Always in shape, perfectly dressed, good hairstyle, and makeup, if they’re a woman.  We see people like this interviewed on TV and they say things like, “I just jump out of bed every morning and can’t wait to get to work because I love my job!”

That’s when we look at the screen and think, “Oh just shut up!”

Well, if it’s any consolation, as I have gotten older I have learned.  The people you think have it all together, usually don’t.  A lot of times what outsiders perceive as an energetic person is really just a frantic person who keeps busy so they don’t have to deal with other issues.

Still, wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of energy?  What if there was a source we could go to for that energy?  Right about now, you’re probably thinking, “He’s going to say that source is God.”  To which many of you will respond, “Oh great.  God.  One more thing I don’t have the energy for.”

I imagine that after Jesus’ death, his first followers felt the same way.  The crucifixion was not an energizing experience.  At the worst moment in Jesus’ life, when he needed his friends most, they betrayed and deserted him.  Imagine what failures they must have felt like.  What kind of future did they envision for themselves?  I doubt they were in a locked room discussing grand dreams of one day being a world religion.  Instead, they were cowering behind a locked door, withdrawn, hiding out.  Not a whole lot of energy flowing around that room.  No one was using words like “pizzam” or its Aramaic equivalent.

If there was to be any hope for this fledgling Jesus movement, something drastic would need to happen.  These disciples did not have the energy to just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and start a mission.  They didn’t even know what their mission was.  Any re-energizing of their spirits was going to have to come from outside themselves.

In fact, this is something that perplexes many historians. We know the disciples behaved in cowardly and duplicitous ways at Jesus’ execution.  This is fairly undisputable since no new religion would make up unflattering stories about its founding members.  Yet, just a few short years later, the writings of their opponents show that they were willing to die for their beliefs about Jesus. What accounts for the change in his disciples?  History can only take us so far.  To discover what accounts for this re-energizing, we need to look beyond our Western notions of rationalism and explanations.

The Gospel of John tells us the disciples were energized and recreated by an encounter with Jesus, after his death.   In that locked room, they experienced him in a new mysterious way.  It was not just a wishful thinking that denied reality.  For them the crucifixion was still very real.  The Jesus they experienced still had a wounded side and hands.  But rather than leave them comfortable in their lethargy, hiding in a locked room, Jesus energizes them with a mission.  He sends them out.

Going outside the locked room.  Not the safest thing to do, but Jesus never calls us to do the safe thing.  He says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  In other words, “You are to continue my mission.  You are to be me for the world.  You are how the world will experience me.” 

Sending is an important concept in John’s Gospel.  Repeatedly, Jesus refers to himself as sent by God for the purpose of doing God’s will.  Jesus was sent so that we would know what God is like.  Jesus is sent to give us life, real deep and abundant life.  In turn, he sends the apostles (a word which means “sent ones”) into the world so that through them, people would know Jesus and, in turn, know the one who sent him.  And what are they to know about God?  That God loves them.  That God pours out spacious, infinite and unconditional love to everyone.

Sent into the world as Jesus.  Sounds like something that will take a lot of energy.  True.  But it also sounds like something that would be very energizing.  Think of it.  You and I are sent into the world, so that people might know God through us.  Kind of puts a whole  new spin on getting up in the morning doesn’t it?

Imagine a situation you are facing that you think you just don’t have the energy to get through.  Now reframe that scenario.  Picture how you would feel about that situation if you approached it as an opportunity to be a conduit of God’s love.  When we approach life with the attitude that Jesus has sent us into the world, we may even look forward to life.  We come at it with a whole new energy.

Not just individuals, but sports teams, businesses and even churches are always re-energized when they focus on their mission.  Last month, we spent a day in this church re-communicating our mission.  I am sure that many of you observed that just clarifying that mission re-energized us.  Many of you told me that just knowing what we are sent into the world to do as a church, inspired you.

Jesus has sent us into the world but he hasn’t sent us alone.  He said that the one he sent him was with him so he was never alone.  In turn, Jesus does not leave us alone on our mission either. Jesus had a plan to energize his followers and it was called the Holy Spirit.

Some of us are familiar with the story of Pentecost in the Book of Acts.  In dramatic fashion, it describes how God’s Holy Spirit was poured out on the church and manifested itself in fire and wind.  The Greek word for wind, pneuma, is also the same word for breath.  In John’s Gospel, the story of the Holy Spirit’s arrival is told using breath imagery.

The scene alludes to the second Creation story found in Genesis Chapter 2.  That is where God, Yahweh, creates the first man out of the clay of the earth and breathes the breath of life into his nostrils.  Yahweh creates human life.  In John’s story, Jesus breathes on his disciples and re-creates their lives.  He invites them to receive God’s Holy Spirit, the presence and energy of God.

Jesus challenged his disciples by sending them on the same mission on which he was sent.  He sends them, but he also gives them what they need for the mission. When God calls us do something, he gives us the energy we need to accomplish it.

However, simply being sent by Jesus did not guarantee that all would go well with them.  When we look at the opposition they fought, the trials and dangers they faced, it is obvious why they needed that divine energy upholding them.

We should expect no different.  As apostles, as ones sent by Jesus into the world we face challenges.  Just knowing that Jesus sent us on this mission of connecting people with God’s love does not automatically mean we are on easy street. 

Being sent by Jesus takes us to a lot of places that will knock the wind out of us.  That is why we need places where we can get some CPR.  Places and moments to catch, not our breath, but the breath of Jesus. 

A few years ago, I was working on a video project at Snowbird Resort in Utah.  A beautiful place, but I spent the three days I was there trying to catch my breath.  It wasn’t the scenery but the fact that I was 8000 feet above sea level.  At night, I would try to sleep but I would lie awake, trying to catch my breath.

You can’t catch your breath when you hang out in places that don’t have much breath to catch.  Too often, we spend our time in paces in situations where the air is too thin and the breath of God is too hard to catch.  Surrounded by negative people and influences, our energy just dwindles.  We need an alternative.

When we lack physical energy, the antidote, although difficult is obvious.  We need to eat right and exercise.  Try as we might to take the short cuts of caffeine, alcohol or other drugs, the best way to have more energy is to live a healthy physical life.  God wants us to be good stewards of the earth but he also wants us to be good stewards of our bodies.  That doesn’t mean we have to work out to Christian music or eat a diet from biblical times.  Science is science.  Health is health.  Start living a healthy physical life, developing healthy practices, and your energy level will increase dramatically.

Our spiritual life is no different.  To get energy in our spiritual life, we need to develop some healthy spiritual practices so we can inhale the breath of God.  We need to develop habits of prayer and meditation.  We need to spend time entering the sacred stories of the Bible so that the pages live and breath in our lives.  We need to share and support one another on the journey in Vision groups.  We need to gather here, to experience God together.

Most of all we need to let the breath of Jesus enter us and re-create us.  That same Spirit which Jesus breathed into the disciples is still being breathed into us.  That breath is our inexhaustible energy source.