deep breaths

 

Yesterday evening, while we were running, a friend asked me about what parts of a funeral or marriage service are ‘set’ and what parts are tailored. I spoke of the parts that are set, or given, as offering a framework to hold all the emotions, and words to turn to when our own words elude us.

This afternoon I am covering a Communion service for a friend who buried her husband yesterday. The Old Testament reading is from Isaiah 40, which begins:

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

The root of the Hebrew word translated comfort — and repeated, to underline the point — means to breathe, strongly or deeply. The implication is that to comfort someone is to lend them something of your vital breath, when they are breathless, winded by circumstances.

This injunction is given in the context of an exploration of breath. A voice crys out; but the voice is a bleating, it lacks full articulation. The poet — Isaiah — must interpret its longing, give it words. But the poet himself cries out, in response, what could I possibly utter? Human life is as frail and fleeting as a flower, even though it is animated by the breath of God. The poet wrestles with despair.

And yet part of the very answer given is: offer your own breath, to comfort my people. Offer them the breath that I, your God, have breathed into your lungs. Breath that you cannot hold onto — that you must release, trusting that I will give you another — so you might as well gift it to those who gasp for air.

The poet gives away their breath, in deep gasps as he climbs a high mountain from which vantage-point to proclaim, ‘God is on the way to you! God comes, to gather you and carry you.’

Yes, life is fleeting; but it is beautiful in its time. And though we pass from this world, though our breath at the last returns to the One who gave it us in the first place, yet all is not lost. The giver of life will breath life in us again. In this world, and the next.

Isaiah 40.1-11

40 Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord ’s hand
double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord ,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
6 A voice says, ‘Cry out!’
And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.
9 Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah,
‘Here is your God!’
10 See, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.