R is for Ruach

On days when the wind is nice and steady but not overwhelming and the waves are gentle and low, also not overwhelming, sailing can be most enjoyable and invigorating. (There are other kinds of sailing, too; I will get to that.) One can set the sails, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. It was on one such sailing day that I sat and thought about all the many great metaphors sailing has for the Christian life, and since this is the season of Pentecost, I thought I should explain.

The basic connection is, the Spirit is Wind. In fact, the Hebrew word ruach (pronounced rue-ahk), stands for both "spirit" and "wind." In the very second verse of the Bible we read (or at least I do) God creating a perfect sailing day: "the Wind (Spirit) of God was moving over the face of the waters."

In sailing, wind is everything. Sailors must first and foremost pay attention to it. They've got to. Without it, sailboats don't move, they're lifeless, "dead in the water." Worse, they are dangerous. For without forward motion, there is no steering them. They are out of control, unable to negotiate rolling waves or avoid rocks. Empty sails are not just annoying, they are downright perilous!

Like boats without ruach (wind) are people without Ruach (Spirit). Without that indispensable third person of God, people are lifeless. (Of course they have the biological kind of life, but not the lasting kind, the ever-lasting life that believers already have and enjoy.) People with empty sails are also dangerous, to themselves and others. Without the Holy Counselor, who is left to lead them but flesh, world and devil? So they live toward money or sloth, toward anger or controlling others, toward self-righteousness or despair, and become menaces to all involved.

But, more happily, when a boat's sails fill with wind? Oo-la-la, the power displayed -- heavy boats whisking through boisterous waters -- is awesome. Wind invigorates sailboats, brings them to life. No longer pitching and rolling out of control, but driving forward purposively to a charted goal with the smooth, strong, silent grace of sail power. Exhilarating, even to see.

And indeed the people full of Ruach are like boats whose sails are filled with ruach. For one, they are beautiful to watch, sometimes even exhilarating. They sail ahead on the course set for them, sometimes having to fight their way through opposing seas, but still moving ahead. For they are, and they know they are, moved by a power greater than themselves. For Christians do not possess the Spirit as something they can direct, but the Spirit blows through them giving them power to move.

As wind metaphorically enlivens sailboats, so the Ruach literally enlivens people, for that flexible word also means "breath" (as in, "Breathe on Me, Breath of God"). In the very second chapter of the Bible, God makes a mud person, breathes into his nostrils God's own Ruach and "the man became a living being." In fact, all breathing creatures receive life from the Spirit and ex-Spir-e when the Spirit is withdrawn by God (Ps. 104:29-30). But this biological life is biodegradable, perishable, as in "use before ex-Spir-ation date." Still, it is life and that is why in our Nicene Creed we confess the Holy Ruach to be "the giver of life."

Or is that only half the reason? For as in Hebrew so also in the New Testament's Greek, the one word "pneuma" (as in pneumatic) stands for "wind" and "spirit" and "breath." So Easter evening Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Jesus gives his Pneuma who, he said earlier, gives new birth into the kingdom. Jesus' Spirit gives life without an ex-Spir-ation date.