A Welcoming God: A Sermon for Pentecost

This is a sermon that I'll be preaching this Sunday in Rwanda. I hope you enjoy it!

(Read Acts 2:1-21)

Our text this morning gives us a glimpse into the reason for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The people of God before this time, of course, had moments of receiving, relatively, short experiences with the Holy Spirit, like what we see in King David’s life, but never was the Holy Spirit “poured out”, as Joel prophesied, in such a way until the Day of Pentecost. However, we need to recognize that, at that point, the disciples knew very little about what the Holy Spirit was capable of and what would happen when it arrived.

We know from the Gospel accounts that Jesus taught about the Holy Spirit while with the disciples, made a promise about its coming and was baptized in the Holy Spirit in Luke 3. Before the Day of Pentecost Jesus was the only person to be constantly filled with Holy Spirit. But, Jesus’ explanations of the Holy Spirit’s power seem more pastoral than specific to help the disciples be less worried about His return to the Father. This is probably why earlier in Acts 1:6 the disciples ask Jesus when He tells of the Spirit’s coming, “[…] Is it at this time that you are restoring the Kingdom to Israel?”. It was hard for them to figure out what the purpose of the Holy Spirit was. Almost in a typical Jesus way, He didn’t give the clearest answer to the question, the disciples had to trust, wait and see (1:7).

However, Jesus’ followers were very aware of who Jesus was. When they first began following Him, He probably seemed to be yet another religious teacher, but then they experienced His miracles, His steadiness when religious leaders challenged Him, His death and resurrection and His ascension. As much as the disciples didn’t know very much about the Holy Spirit, they did know, without a doubt, that Jesus was the Son of God and they knew that whatever Jesus promised was worth the wait. Whatever the Holy Spirit would bring, the disciples knew it would be great, but you can imagine that it was difficult for them to envision. Jesus, after all, was a hard to predict, surprising leader. He always kept the disciples curious.

In the beginning of our text, Jesus’ disciples are doing as Jesus instructed them, waiting together for the Holy Spirit to come. They are in the upper room in Jerusalem with a large group of, according to Acts 1:15, approximately 115 people. It’s unclear if all the people gathered are worshipers of Jesus. The description given to us in the text is that these people are Jews and specifically men with notable devotion from many different places (2:5-7). You can imagine that some of the people gathered recognize Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah and some others might be there to investigate to find out more. It seems they all wanted to know what would take place after Jesus returned to be with the Father.

We see in verse 2 that a sound like a rushing wind comes and it gets everyone’s attention. As this happens, different language dialects are mysteriously made known to the Apostles and they are given the ability to speak of God's works in languages they didn’t previously know. It’s described here as “Tongues of fire”, but it’s probably not actual fire. Fire seems to be used as a way of describing a very mysterious event. Fire itself is a very mysterious thing. The idea here is that it was a miraculous experience brought about by the Holy Spirit that, in some way or another, people could feel and see. It made a strong impression.

Then, the Holy Spirit begins giving the Apostles “utterances” in verse 4. The word used for utterances in Greek is not a very common word in the New Testament. It’s only used three times. In most cases, it means to “speak forth” but speaking forth something that is of God. In this case, the word is used to say that the Holy Spirit is speaking through the Apostles. The Apostles are not just saying, “Hi, how are you?” or talking about other common things. They are speaking forth messages directly from the Holy Spirit. This is clearly a rare event.

Whatever they are saying gets everyone’s attention. The Apostles are speaking divine messages in the mother tongues of all who are there! Now if, you consider the location of this event, Jerusalem, it would make sense for whatever message declared by the Apostles to not be in only one language, or in a language that most would understand.

Israel at this time was colonized by Rome and Greco-Roman culture loved the Greek language. It was a very common spoken language throughout the Empire. However, the Romans respected the Jewish religion quite a bit. They viewed it as a religion of notable wisdom. Hebrew was viewed as an acceptable, religious language. They even allowed the Jews to have their own money with Jewish religious images and Hebrew writings on them. Jews cherished their language. Afterall, that’s what most of the Old Testament was written in. However, the common language of the day in Jerusalem, and even what most think Jesus spoke, was Aramaic, which belongs to the same family as Hebrew. So, given the place and list of the different people there, it might be a good idea for someone giving an important message to give it in Greek or Aramaic, or both.

But those aren’t the only languages being spoken in here. Look at the list in verse 9-11. You can imagine that some of these languages could have been viewed as unimportant or not very sophisticated. Here these small, seemingly insignificant languages are being used to declare the mighty deeds of God (2:11). However, not everyone is amazed. We see in verse 13 that some of the people present think they are simply drunk saying: “[…] They are full of sweet wine” (2:13).

Peter, though, hearing those mocking, stands up and begins to defend the Apostles and what is happening. They are not drunk. This event took place early in the day. Apparently, according to Peter (2:15), it wasn’t common for people to get drunk that early. The reason for this not normal behavior was the Holy Spirit.

Peter goes on from verses 17-21 to quote the writing of the Prophet Joel who prophesied concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit. Again, there’s a lot of powerful images in this prophecy. But the most central theme in it, and all of Acts, is that in the last days that the Holy Spirit will be poured out on to all people, regardless of gender (17), age (17b) and social status (18). This is highlighted at the end of Joel’s prophecy with the beautiful statement, “[…] And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (2:21).

This event in the mind of Peter is not a party or some other normal social gathering, as some there thought. This event is the day that the Holy Spirit was poured out. A day that would go down in history. Followers of Jesus would never be the same. Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled and like it says, God’s people spoke forth messages of God through the Holy Spirit.

It might seem like the main point of this text is the message from Joel’s prophecy about how everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, but why did the Holy Spirit enable the Apostles to speak of God’s incredible deeds in many other languages? It’s a little odd, isn’t it? Couldn’t God speak directly to all their hearts? Couldn’t he have sent angels to testify? Why did the Holy Spirit speak through different languages?

As many of us know, language is very important aspect of a culture. When we know a language, we feel like we understand the culture the language is from. An example of this is when is when I lived in Zambia. I lived in the capital city of Zambia, which is Lusaka for four years and Zambia is a country with 72 languages and many tribes. Living in the city, it was so neat to see people become so happy when they heard their families or tribes language from one area of Zambia being spoken in the capital city Lusaka (In Lusaka people spoke an almost hybrid city language that wasn't viewed as very authentic). It often brought people into conversation in their first local language when they heard it. This is because when we hear a language, we feel we know about the person who is speaking it. We have something in common. However, this is not always the case. Language doesn’t always bring people together. It can also separate people into groups, and sometimes into religious groups, if a religion has been founded in a specific language.

For example, Islam is a religion that was founded in the language Arabic. Because of that, many Islamic prayers are in Arabic and many pray those prayers even if they don’t fully understand the language. It’s believed by most Muslims that their god spoke Arabic. For them, Arabic is thought to be a divine language. Because of this, we sometimes think of Islam as the religion of Arabic speaking people.

God’s message for many years was viewed in a similar way. The God of the Bible was thought to be the Israelite God. Even Jesus was mockingly given the title on the cross, “King of the Jews”. When a religion is primarily in one language or culture, it is easy for those outside of that language or culture to think of it as  unimportant. People can think: “That is just their culture, not mine. It doesn’t apply to me”.

However, something very different happened on the Day of Pentecost, right? We have a situation in which the Holy Spirit speaks a message not in one, exclusive language that only some could understand, but in many languages so that each person could understand. What could be the message here?

The message from this event seems to be that God is not only God of the Jews. God is not only God of the Americans. God is not only the God of Rwandese. God is God of all people, of all creation. He is Lord of all. God does not desire to be known or to work with one specific group or in one language. He desires to be known by all people everywhere. All people, regardless of language and tribe are invited to know and love God and find salvation in the work of Christ. Christ’s work was done on behalf of everyone. All people should take note that through Christ, God can be known. 

The Spirit’s coming on Pentecost radically changed the scope and reach of Christianity. It was then that the Apostles began to realize that the Holy Spirit was not about excluding, but about bringing others in to know and love Jesus. This took them, especially Paul, to spread the name of Christ to Gentiles in far away places. This started an amazing movement which has made Christianity a religion with no official language or place. It’s for all people. Christianity was, in it's origins, a radically diverse movement.

The Day of Pentecost reminds us that the message of Christ is for all people, not just “us” or people that look like us and share our culture or language. Our job then, as followers of Christ who are filled with the Spirit, is to continue to talk to others and invite them to know the loving and accepting God we serve. However, we know this is easier said that done. Many individual churches and Christian denominations throughout the world are made up of mostly one majority and not the diversity that God appears to be welcoming on the Day of Pentecost. In our local churches, it can sometimes feel as if Pentecost never happened.

You see, in our broken humanity, we are much better at dividing, making groups and excluding others than we are at inviting and welcoming others like God did through the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Sometimes this can even happen within a church. We may even have neighbors very near to us in proximity that feel excluded and not welcomed by Christ and His Church. This realization, and in light of Pentecost, should lead us to repent. We have not allowed the Holy Spirit to work in our lives as God so desires. We have resisted the work of the Holy Spirit.

Let us return to God, gladly welcome His Holy Spirit, tell of Christ’s work and live a life of telling and welcoming others into the incredible, life-changing love of God.

Amen.