Acts 2:1-21 This solemn feast that we celebrate today is one that the church is to remember forever and ever. We often make the mistake in saying that if something happened only once or twice in the scriptures, it is therefore less important than recurring words or actions. The day of Pentecost is central to the life of the church. While it seems to be the answer to Christ’s words to “go to all nations baptizing and proclaiming,” it holds a deeper meaning for the church.
The sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is the answer to Christ’s own words in St. John 16:8, “...for if I don’t go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.” The Holy Spirit given at Pentecost to Christ’s people in a house (we can call it a church), is the uniting of Christ’s people to Himself in a way that wasn’t possible before Christ’s ascension. In Genesis, we are taught concerning the tower of Babel. God had told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and inhabit the earth. They were to be God’s people, and the Lord would be their God. But a man named Nimrod came along and he was a great hunter. He stood against the face of God. His name, Nimrod, was derived from a word meaning, “we will revolt.” Nimrod instructed his people to build the tower of Babel. He was going against God’s words to Adam and Eve, for he wanted a central location with a tower that showed his dominion over all creation. They were of one language, but their hearts were far from God. In between the lines, we could say that while they spoke one language, they had differing thoughts on who God was. God, then, came down from heaven to see this tower they were building. The Lord’s response in the midst of His descent from heaven was to confuse their languages and make them just as they already were: confused. Hence, the name “Babel,” “confusion.” The world remains in this state of confusion. It marched in this way all through the Old Testament, while God led His people forth. Jesus was incarnate and made man in the midst of this world of confusion. Jesus hung from the cross beholding a lost, condemned, and confused world, while He paid for the sins of the entire world. It is of little wonder, then, that we look around today and see the same confusion. The confusion of languages hinted at the deeper confusion the world faces with its lost and aimless wandering, as it struggles to understand God and the world. The Feast of Pentecost is, therefore, about the church--and unity. God’s people, who would later be called Christians at Antioch, are gathered in a house--a church, if you will, and they began speaking in different tongues. The preaching at Pentecost is the great reversal of Nimrod and Babel. Whereas the people spoke one language but were lost concerning God in Babel, the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost-different languages but with one sermon--the gospel of Jesus Christ. What would unify was not the revolt of Nimrod and the individual rising above God, but God unifying the nations through the preaching of Christ crucified, dead, and risen. It would be, then, that Christ would establish a new unity, the unity of the church, and they would know God through the preaching of Christ. This is striking for our day as we watch individualism run rampant in many and various directions. Pop culture is consumed by the importance of the individual. All one needs to do is watch TV commercials to see that companies try to market to “individuals” in addition to “groups.” Walk down the cereal aisle at the grocery store and note the number of different cereals and you will see how important individual taste is in our culture. Compare the cereal aisle 50-75 years ago and the difference is amazing. The incident at Babel is indicative of the pluralism that exists in our world. Hearts are far from Jesus as the world blindly gropes for its own understanding of things. As Peter rightly says in Acts 2, in the last days, God will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh: there will be prophesying, visions, preaching, and whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. What is running in between the lines in these words is the realization that the Holy Spirit comes through the gospel and pulls people out of the spiritual Babel (confusion), as they stagger alone in the world, and they are suddenly grafted into Christ’s body, the church. Pentecost, therefore, is not about the emphasis of each person being an individual missionary so much as it is about the unifying aspect of the Gospel. One sermon, yet different languages reach into a lost world and draw their net from the depths of Hell to redeem those lost and unite them to Christ. St. Paul picks up on this in his writings concerning the church. St. Paul argues against this incessant sinful desire of the individual to elevate the self: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith”(Romans 12:3). Then a few verses later, St. Paul makes the important remark that, while acknowledging the work of individual members of the church, “we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members of one another”(Romans 12:5). The individual and the gifts given him or her from God are meant for the good of the whole body of Christ. The body of Christ is our home. Jesus is our peace. Our home is in Him and we enter Him through the sacrament of holy baptism and the gospel. We become a part of that which is greater. While Jesus knows us individually by name and cares for each one of us, our protection is in being “in Christ.” This is the love of Christ as St. Paul writes it: “For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all were dead. And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again”(2 Cor. 5:14-15). We, being in Christ, are a new creation, who are bathed in the forgiveness of Christ from the cross. We are a part of something greater that is not located in one central location like Nimrod tried to do in Babel. St. Paul says that the marriage between Christ and His bride, the church, is a great mystery....and what a blessed mystery it is. We are set apart from the world, clothed with the holiness of Jesus and His love that continues to come into us through preaching and Christ’s body and blood in the sacrament. We behold this gospel today as it rings forth in the air that we breathe, as it enters our ears, with the Holy Spirit given through it that sustains and saves us...while it unites us to those Christians who have gone before us and to Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. -- Rev. Chad Kendall Trinity Lutheran Church Lowell, Indiana www.trinitylowell.org http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=243282012833
