Day of Pentecost June 4, 2017
Day of Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21
June 4, 2017
“Jesus in Many Languages”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Pentecost Day, as we heard in Acts chapter 2, is the day of many languages. All of a sudden, these apostles were talking about Jesus is a number of languages they hadn’t spoken before. So we’re going to be spending some time today talking about language.
I would think that almost every one of us in this church building today share the same “mother tongue”. That would be English. But I might be surprised. So maybe one of you in here today grew up with your mother speaking German to you. Or maybe another language. It’s very possible. But for most of us, the “tongue of our mother” or “our first language” is English. Your mother tongue usually is thought of as the language your mother spoke to you. The language you grew up in as a child.
Now that right away makes us different from Jesus. Definitely English wasn’t His language. Do you know, for instance, that Jesus never actually said, “I am the Good Shepherd” or “Lo, I am with you always.” But what I mean, of course, is that He didn’t say those words in English. He said them in another language. All these words that are so near and dear to us in our mother tongue such as, “I am the light of the world,” or “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,” or “I am the way and the truth and the Life”—were never spoken by Jesus…in English. The Gospel of Jesus has had to come into our language. It has had to come to us.
Jesus spoke Aramaic. I should note that it’s very easy for us to confuse that with Arabic because the two sound so similar. Aramaic came before Arabic. Today many in the Middle East speak Arabic. But very few still speak Aramaic at all. The main languages of that time were Hebrew—which had become less common and was used mainly when dealing with religion. Then there was Greek and Latin which were becoming more and more common because of the Roman rule. And then there was the common language of the Jewish people—Aramaic. So if any of you remember watching the movie, The Passion of the Christ, you heard a lot of Aramaic in that film. Jesus spoke Aramaic in there.
Now why does any of this matter? Because you and I need to see the bigger picture for a minute this morning. Look beyond your one language. How many languages does the Gospel of Jesus need to come in? Just English? Just Aramaic? Just Greek? Just Latin? All languages. All languages. There are estimated over 6,000 languages in the world today. How many of those languages need the Gospel of Jesus? All of them.
This is where Pentecost Day is such a big deal. There is only one Gospel. One. Not 6,000 different Gospels. Not an English Gospel and then a Greek Gospel and then a Chinese Gospel. There is ONE Gospel. He is Jesus. The one Gospel is Jesus, God’s Son, died for your sins and raised from the dead. And that one Gospel—Jesus Christ—needs to be heard in every language.
So the Holy Spirit gives Pentecost Day. And I want to explain briefly again what happens there. It’s fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead. Fifty days after Passover was when they celebrated the Jewish festival of Pentecost. So all kinds of people were in Jerusalem for this festival. All kinds of people. All kinds of languages. Kinda like when you go to Disneyworld or someplace like that and you’re hearing all these different languages everywhere you go. That’s what it was like in Jerusalem during these festivals.
So the disciples of Jesus are there also. In a house together. It’s been ten days since Jesus ascended into heaven. He told them to wait in Jerusalem until they received the promised Spirit. So they’ve been waiting. And all of a sudden there’s a huge loud wind. You hear people talk about a “roaring” sound when a tornado comes. Almost like a freight train sound. The sound on Pentecost must’ve been something like that. Everyone hears this loud sound and they go out to investigate. And what do they hear? The disciples of Jesus talking in their languages.
What happened? The Holy Spirit had come with the ONE Gospel of Jesus Christ. So it says it appeared as fire. It looked like fire. So picture this big ball of fire—the Holy Spirit with His ONE Gospel of Jesus Christ—and that one Gospel then divides or distributes and appears above the heads of the disciples. That’s why it’s called “divided tongues”. The One Gospel divided into a number of different tongues or languages. Do you see what’s happening there then? The ONE Gospel of Jesus Christ is coming in MANY languages. The Holy Spirit is giving, this one time, a supernatural ability to the disciples to speak languages that they’ve never actually studied or learned. All so that…they can speak the One Gospel of Jesus to many people.
All languages—all peoples—need to hear the Gospel. Remember where all the languages came from. It was a curse. We heard it in the OT reading today from Genesis 11. The tower of Babel. They disobeyed God. They weren’t filling the earth and multiplying. But instead they were building this huge tower to show how great they were. Well, God saw that the limits of their sin were going to be impossible—so He came down and confused their language. They couldn’t understand each other. So all these different languages are, originally, a curse on us.
But not at Pentecost. All languages are hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All people are being united again in the one saving death and resurrection of Jesus. Think about the book of Revelation when John sees his vision of heaven. It says there’s a multitude of people—“from every nation and tribe and…language.” So now our languages are something of a blessing—because we all, in our many and various languages, are given the one language of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And it unites us. All over the world this Gospel of Jesus unites us. Because all people AND every language needs the Gospel.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is needed in Arabic. In Egypt the most common language is Arabic. Coptic Christians in Egypt speak mainly Arabic. And two Fridays ago, a bus full of Christians headed for a monastery was gunned down by ISIS and 28 people died. The Gospel of Jesus is needed in Arabic. This is after two other attacks that came during April, on Palm Sunday, when bombs were set off in two different churches during Palm Sunday worship. Those two bombs killed over 40 Christians. The Gospel of Jesus is needed desperately in Arabic.
These Christians being persecuted for their faith and dying for their faith need the ONE Gospel of Jesus Christ who died AND rose again. They need to hear of eternal life. Forgiveness of sins. They need to hear Jesus’ words from the Gospel reading today, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you…Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” They need Jesus in their language.
The Gospel of Jesus is also needed in Haitian Creole—the language of Haiti where our own ———— is going this summer. The scores of people living in poverty there—without basic needs of housing and sanitation—they need the Gospel of Jesus in their language. They need to hear Jesus blessing, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” They need to hear of the riches that are ours in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Pastor ————-, one of the pastors at Trinity Lutheran in Bloomington, has been doing mission trips to Haiti for a long time. He will tell you how badly the people need the Gospel in Haitian-Creole.
The Gospel of Jesus is needed in Spanish in Venezuela. Have you heard how sad the situation is for people in Venezuela? According to one survey recently, 75% of the population in Venezuela has lost an average of 19 pounds. A corrupt, corrupt government is keeping basic human necessities like food and water from the people. People’s lives right now in Venezuela are largely spent waiting in lines. Everything is rationed. It’s deplorable conditions. The Gospel of Jesus is needed in Spanish. Venezuelans need the love of Jesus who came to give us a better life. An eternal life.
The Gospel of Jesus is needed in the Dari Language. That’s why we’re doing this mission project with Lutheran Heritage Foundation. To translate the Catechism and Prayer book into the Dari language for refugees coming out of Afghanistan into Europe. Do you imagine these refugees need to hear the Gospel? When they’re being chased out of their homes by radical Islamists? When some of them have grown up their whole lives never hearing of the love of God in Jesus but only hearing about the rules of Allah in the Quran? The Gospel of Jesus is needed in Dari. I hope you will all continue to give to support this mission project.
And finally, friends here at Trinity, we need the Gospel of Jesus in English. Don’t we?! We do. We need to hear of Jesus. We who have lost loved ones in the last few years. We who are fighting cancer or have family and friends fighting cancer. We who are carrying huge burdens in our hearts and consciences from sins we’ve committed and from sins other have committed against us. We who are caught in perpetual sins and addictions and lies.
And there are people all around us in El Paso and Gridley and Secor and Panola who need to hear the Gospel of Jesus. Who need to hear of One who knows them, who knows their heartache, who knows their sins, who knows their weaknesses and their brokenness, and who came to give His life on the cross for them. The Gospel is needed everywhere.
That’s what this day is about—the day of Pentecost. It’s about the Word of God—the Gospel—coming to you and me in our mother tongue and entering into our ears and into our hearts. It’s about that Word of God creating faith in our hearts and turning our hearts to Jesus Christ that we might find hope and peace and joy. That we might hear Jesus saying to us, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you…Let not your hearts be troubled.”
Those of you who have been with us in the Martin Luther study—you know how important Martin Luther thought this was—that his German people be able to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their mother tongue—German. How important it was that they hear the comfort of Jesus Christ our Savior.
After these disciples started speaking in all these languages—what happened? People heard about Jesus, that’s what! 3,000 people were baptized. Because Peter stood up and gave a long-winded sermon about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And people believed.
People just like you. And just like me. We need this Baptism that washes away our sin. We need this body and blood of Jesus that grants us peace. We need Jesus. All languages do. So rejoice today on Pentecost Day. Because you—you have heard the Gospel of Jesus in your mother tongue. And it has given you faith. And Forgiveness. And eternal life.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.