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S. Day of Pentecost.26 Acts 2:1-21

‘…and they were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language’

The irony in this sentence is often missed, and not getting the joke, you miss the sheer magnitude and joy of the Pentecost miracle, I think. Really, the OT reading for Pentecost should always be Genesis 11 especially vs. 7 where the LORD says ‘Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech…” (because having one language—and being evil—they had begun to do monstrous things like building their own ‘Stairway to Heaven’—I’ve always thought there’s something demonic about Led Zeppelin 🙁

The Pentecost miracle is simply the undoing of the Babel miracle. Because now that Jesus is glorified, now that the Spirit is come with forgiveness of sins for all, and by faith in Jesus our sins are wiped out (being good again 😉 we can have one language and sing together the song of Heaven.

So, the joke is that they were confused because they were no longer confused by different languages, but all heard the apostles with one voice telling, each in the hearer’s own tongue, the wonderful works of God in Jesus. Confused that you’re no longer confused! A funny kind of confusion, right? OK, I know: a good joke loses most all of its goodness when it has to be explained to you…

Sorry for the man-splainin’, but I couldn’t see how you’d get it without explanation—though maybe I’m mis-underestimating some of you? Apologies, from the heart, if that’s you 😉 I guess this is why my old tutor Paul Holmer was always going on about indirect communication? I mean, I suppose there’s a way to show you the humor in this without explanation, but I can’t see how to do it in less than an hour (or so 😉 by telling lengthy stories that seem, at first, like pointless meandering down rabbit trails having nothing to do with the topic at hand (which, thank God!, I never do! 😉 but we don’t have that kind of time since modern technology has destroyed our attention spans, mine included… (but that’s what Sunday morning pastor’s bible study can fix; and you’re all invited… 😉

Anyway, as I was saying, the sheer magnitude of the Pentecost miracle is missed by the modern age. Pentecostalism and their babbling in nonsense baby-talk has done much damage in our ability to actually see what happened on the Day of Pentecost. The modern Azusa St. Pentecostals have made everyone think it was a simple trick of the apostles babbling away in nonsense sounds and everyone miraculously hearing intelligible words in their own heads.

That’s NOT what 1900 years of Christians heard or saw going on that Day! And since Pentecostalism—like praise band contemporary rock services—is something you simply can’t unsee, it is not easy for any of us to hear and see all that went down on the NT Pentecost 30 AD.

I gave it to you in a nutshell though, with that opening line that they were confused that they weren’t confused anymore; that this new un-confusion was (with delicious irony) confusing to them!

All the millennia since Babel we’ve gotten used to being confused by each other’s language. We expect it, unconsciously! If someone says something plain and understandable, we think we’ve missed something crucial! Even when someone thinks they’re speaking English, you know how some versions of English are just babble to some of us—whether it’s rap or an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, or an article in the Concordia Journal of Theology.

Especially with theology! I think I understand rap better than the Concordia Journal! It seems when we try to tell the wonderful works of God by using the plain words of the holy scriptures, we get all tangled up (not in blue, like Bob Dylan) but in hermeneutics, dogmatics, confessions, philosophies, human interpretations and tomes of Systematic Theology that turn the simple good news of Jesus into an Alice-in-Wonderland upside down world we can’t understand at all. And the scholastics who’ve done this have bamboozled most of us into thinking we’re the stupid ones, when it is really true! as my old teacher Louis Brighton used to say: “Gentlemen! There is no one dumber on God’s green earth than a higher critical scholar!”

On the Day of Pentecost 30 AD—49 days after Jesus died on the cross on Golgotha—the apostles gathered it would seem the other pastors of the church (120, total) for what (I think 😉 was the first Christian Church Council. And, after selecting a replacement for Judas, they were continuing to meet together on the Day of Pentecost, probably with the rest of the disciples who would admit to being followers of Jesus (about 500 or so St. Paul says) when the Holy Spirit came down (as Jesus promised he would 😉 upon them, a rushing mighty Wind (the word πνευμα in Greek means Spirit, Wind, Breath, always all three) with dividing tongues of fire resting in each of their mouths (where the tongue is located—duh!, as Luther points out, not on the top of their heads as most paintings have it 🙁 and being filled this Way with the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit-Wind-Breath gave them utterance…

Jerusalem was filled then with probably 300,000 or so native-born Jews and god-fearing Gentile converts from every nation under heaven (because Israel had been scattered all over the earth by various Diasporas, starting in the 8th century BC, and were required to come to Jerusalem for the 3 major feasts, and Passover was one 49 day feast (like Easter 😉 that culminated on the Day of Pentecost when most of the pilgrims to Jerusalem would disperse back to their own various countries…

And they heard the apostles telling in their own tongues the wonderful works of God in Jesus. And it wasn’t just that each heard their own native tongues spoken perfectly, but they heard the same Gospel of Jesus—the justification of all humanity by grace alone through faith alone in the crucified and risen Christ alone! It’s not just the language, but the content that was the same!— though 120 different mouths spoke at the same time, in a hundred and twenty different languages, still, somehow everyone heard IT as ONE, with perfect clarity…

This miracle gets repeated not on the Azusa Streets of the world, but in churches like ours where, by the old apostolic Liturgy conducted by the shepherds apostled (sent by Jesus), the Gospel gets spoken in our own tongue into our ears, and the Supper of the Lamb is put in our mouths so that we become one body with Jesus—by eating his body crucified and raised for our justification and drinking his blood that takes away the sins of the world.

The miracle isn’t just our hearing the wonderful works of God. The miracle is that we BECOME wonderful works of God—simply by hearing HIM!

The Pentecost miracle happens here, now: out of confusion, clarity. Out of many, one. Out of sinners, saints—wonderful works of God—who enjoy Peace, surpassing understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.