Sermon: Pentecost - 2020

31 May 2020

Text: John 14:23-31 (Gen 11:1-9, Acts 2:1-21)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

“Diversity is our strength.”

Have you heard this before?  Sometimes it’s true, and sometimes it isn’t.  A marriage between a man and a woman brings the diverse strengths of the two sexes into the life of a couple, allowing for the best of both worlds.  A car repair shop benefits by a diverse level of expertise: a mechanic who really knows brakes, another who is an expert in engines, and someone else who specializes in transmissions.  This allows for cooperation and collaboration.

But in the case of the Tower of Babel, in which the people were cooperating and collaborating to defy God’s command to disperse over the earth and repopulate the planet, their strength was not in their diversity, but in their unity.  For “they all [had] one language.”  This unity allowed them to stay in one spot and build a tower to challenge God’s authority over them.  And so, in order to thwart their rebellion and save them from their sinful desire, the Lord gave them diversity of languages, and their project came to a halt.  The people divided along the lines of tribe and tongue.  And this diversity brought division, hatred, and warfare. 

The diversity of languages became a curse.  

And even though almost everyone in America speaks the same language today, this legacy of tribalism and division lives on.

When the Word took flesh and dwelt among us, He came to save the entire world; people of every tribe and tongue.  Jesus did not come only for the people who spoke Hebrew and who worshiped in the temple, but rather He came to offer salvation to all, to spread the Gospel that there is one God in three persons, and that He, the Son, offered Himself as a ransom for the life of the world, and that anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved, and that the Church should make disciples of all nations through baptism and preaching.

After our Lord rose from the dead, He commissioned the apostles to do just that: to make disciples, baptizing and preaching.  But how are they to preach to all nations given the diversity of languages?  How to make disciples of all nations when each nation has its own national language?

Even among the Jews, who after our Lord’s ascension into heaven, came to Jerusalem for the Pentecost holiday, there was a diversity of tribes and tongues: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, and more.  And this is just the Jewish population.  The Roman Empire had many local languages and dialects.  How to preach the Word to peoples of a diversity of words?  How to overcome the curse of sin to a people cursed with a diversity of tongues?

Our Lord had been promising the coming of a Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would guide all people to the truth.  The Holy Spirit “calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies” the whole Christian Church on earth, people of every tribe and tongue.  And so the curse of Babel becomes the gift of tongues, as the apostles are given the gift of the Holy Spirit to preach and teach in languages that they have never studied.  

“And when the day of Pentecost arrived,” the apostles “were all together in one place.”  And it was then and there that the Helper came, amid the sound of a “mighty rushing wind.”  And what appeared to be flames appeared to land on each apostle.  “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

And as the Spirit-filled preachers of the Gospel proclaimed the cross and resurrection of Jesus, their hearers, though cursed with a diversity of languages, each heard the Good News in their own tongues.  It was a marvel, a miracle, and the Gospel was unstoppable.  “And all were amazed and perplexed.”  They asked the question that every student of the Catechism has memorized: “What does this mean?”  And there were also mockers who accused the apostles of being drunk.

Peter stood and “lifted up his voice and addressed them.”  He argued that it was too early in the day for them to be drunk.  Rather they were filled with the Spirit, the Helper, who cut through the diversity of languages by means of a miracle, and faith came by hearing that day, hearing the word of Christ proclaimed by the apostles.  And because of their preaching, dear friends, it indeed came to pass that “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

This Gospel spread across the globe in every known language, and would throughout the centuries be proclaimed in languages that didn’t even exist at this glorious Pentecost when the Helper came to the Church.  And one day, and hopefully soon, our Lord will return, the “day of the Lord” the “great and magnificent day” revealed by “wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below.” 

But what about now, dear friends, as we continue to “make disciples of all nations” by baptizing and preaching?  What about now as we spread throughout the world bringing the gift of Word and Sacrament to sinners seeking salvation and life?  What about now in the face of divisions and hatreds and riots?  The Church proclaims the Gospel of Jesus to one and all.  And through the Holy Spirit, Jesus will deliver the gift of “peace.”  “Peace,” He says, “I leave with you; My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”  And this Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is empowered to go to every corner of the planet because of the “Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send” - whom He has sent - in Jesus’ name.  

The curse of the divisions of diversity are overcome by the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who guides us to the truth of our Lord, His cross, and the Gospel of forgiveness, life, and salvation, of the good news that Christ is risen, and so shall we, of the prophesy that is to come of the new heavens and the new earth, recreated in perfection, where we will live in the flesh for eternity!

And we see true diversity in the Book of Revelation, where the saints “from all tribes and peoples and languages” are standing before the throne of the Lamb, “clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.”  And with one voice, they cry out in unity, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

And, dear friends, it is the Holy Spirit who guides us to the Lamb and to the throne of God the Father.  It is the Holy Spirit who breaks down the barriers between diverse peoples and brings them to the unity of faith and the eternal peace of Christ Jesus.  It is only then that diversity becomes our strength in the unity of our confession of the Most Holy Trinity.

It is fitting that we worship and offer praise to God the Holy Spirit, and to pray to Him in the words of the ancient hymn:

Teach us to know the Father, Son,

And You, from both, as Three in One

That we Your name may ever bless

And in our lives the truth confess.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.