This Holy Spirit chooses to use the vehicle of real human language, of His almighty, energic, performative, and effective Word (Hebrews 4:12) to convict and to save.
The Feast of Pentecost mixes up the readings on either side of the “epistle” lesson through the three-year lectionary series, but that second lesson is always the same. It is the Acts 2 narrative at the center of the celebration, the rushing wind, the flames of fire, the tongues speaking the mighty works of God, and the fulfillment of Joel’s prophetic song about the aftertime. Here is where God pours out His Holy Spirit. Because the reading is always the same, it may be tempting for the preacher to simply go back to the pot and pull from previous years, but we encourage you to notice the nuance of any given year. This offers not only variety of course, but most importantly the unique theological gems which might otherwise get ignored in this dense text, any of which is worth a meditation.
Year A contextualizes the reading between Moses’ prayer in Numbers 11 that all of the Lord’s people would be prophets (after Eldad and Medad get tattled on) and Jesus’ Isaianic, “Ho all who thirsteth,” in John 7. Year B’s focus is between Ezekiel’s dry bones and Jesus’ John 16 promise of the Paraclete. But, Year C introduces the Word with the Genesis 11 confusion of languages at Babel and caps off Sunday’s public reading with Jesus’ promise that He will manifest Himself to the disciples through His Word (John 14.23-24), through which the Holy Spirit will teach, and the Lord will give them peace, not as the world gives, but as He gives. The Year C readings on either side of Acts 2 invite the preacher to meditate on and deliver the miracle of God using something so simple, so mundane, as human language, human words, to save the world. In Christ the Word of God, this mundane preaching penetrates time and space through his irruptive Spirit to proclaim the mighty works of the Word made flesh, crucified, raised, ascended, and gifting on Pentecost. He breaks into time and space to provide a cure for Babel.
A few exegetical notes. In Acts 2:9-11, the catalogue of nations whose tongues are heard is a nerdy type of fun, if not slightly sadistic opportunity to throw a lector under a bus. I find people trip up most on the pronunciation of “Phrgyia,” “Pamphilia,” and “Cyrene.” It can be great entertainment in the middle of the worship service. But more importantly, notice how this catalogue directly corresponds to Genesis 11:1: “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.” Confusion and diaspora (Gen 11:7-9) are the Lord’s consequence for man’s sin. Diaspora is described by Luke’s 16 proper place names in the Pentecost narrative, the dialects of which these Galileans (Acts 2:7) are speaking in. The confusion of language seems to be cleared up by the singular content of their confession: The megaleia (mighty works) of God (and in our own tongues!). But a different kind of confusion (diēoporoun 2:12; also refer to synechythē 2:5) reigns as the people witnessing the miracle ask, “What does this mean?”
This particular confusion evokes a direct response from Peter, the spokesman of the apostles (“standing with the eleven,” Acts 2:14), who addresses the question with a “this is what it means” (Acts 2:16). He points them to the fulfillment of the saying of the prophet Joel (3:1-5 in the Masoretic Text (MT) and 2:28-32 in the Septuagint (LXX) and English translations). The pouring out of God’s Spirit is the meaning of the miracle, the mighty megaleia made known to the many. And the centerpiece of those mighty works is the Christ who was crucified and raised, the content of Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2:22-36).
And the centerpiece of those mighty works is the Christ who was crucified and raised, the content of Peter’s sermon at Pentecost.
To think about words and language on this particular Pentecost day, consider the vocabulary of saying and utterance in this passage:
- forms of glōssai, laleō, legō, and dialektos: “tongues” and “talking” (2:3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12)
- corresponding forms of akouō: “hearing” (2:6, 8, 11)
- apophthengesthai: as the Spirit gave them “utterance” (2:4)
- diachleuazontes elegon: “mocking, they said” (2:13)
- epēren tēn phōnēn autou kai apephthengxato: Peter “lifted up his voice” and “spoke” (2:14)
- ta rhēmata: my “words” (2:14)
- eirēmenon: the “saying” of the prophet Joel (2:16)
- legei: God “declares” (2:17)
- prophēteusousin: they will “prophesy” (2:17, 18)
- epikalesētai: all who “call upon” the name of the Lord will be saved (2:21)
If word studies are your thing, it is also worthwhile to consider the domain of “universality,” “fullness,” and “fulfillment” which Luke traces through this passage. For example:
- symplērousthai: when the day of Pentecost “arrived” (2:1)
- forms of pās, hapās, and holos: “all,” “whole,” “entire” (2:1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, 14, 17, 21)
- forms of (heis) hekastos: “each one,” “everyone” (2:3, 6, 8)
- forms of pleroō: “fill” (2:2, 4)
- to plēthos: “the multitude” came together (2:6)
- memestōmenoi: they are “filled” with sweet wine (2:13)
Notice the corresponding theme in the Genesis 11 Babel narrative, with the repetition of col ha ’aretz: “all the earth” (Genesis 11:1, 4, 8, 9). This reinforces the Pentecost narrative as more than simply a “fulfillment of prophecy,” but on another level as a full-scale reversal of the damage done in this final, pre-Abrahamic episode in Genesis.
Furthermore, it is key to see that the “filling” vocabulary in Acts corresponds to the verb the prophet uses to describe the delivery of the Spirit, ekcheō: “I am pouring” my Spirit (2:17, 18).
What are the possible pitfalls of preaching Pentecost? I can think of a few. Like the decision to launch into an ill-advised pietistic rant against getting drunk by 9 a.m. (Acts 2:13, 15); although even this line discourse can yield some great intertextual fruit if you start with Luke 7:18-35 and follow it with a side of Deuteronomy 21:18-23 and Galatians 3:10-13. But I digress.
Other hazards I have seen in this text through the years come to mind. Some evangelical church bodies can be accused of giving short shrift to the person of the Holy Spirit. A preacher from one of these traditions may be tempted to make up for lost time by focusing a day on extracting trinitarian trivia on the Paraclete at the expense of delivering what the Holy Spirit is actually delivering in the text: The megaleia of God, the content which leads all Israel to know God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ... whom you crucified (Acts 2:36). In other words, a sermon is not an opportunity to talk about the Holy Spirit, any more than it is a task to talk about Christ. It is much to the contrary. The sermon is the Holy Spirit’s means of delivering the Christ for the slaying and raising of His hearer! It is the acknowledgement that the Spirit worked and is working, and His work is always and ever delivering the Christ, even through your contemporary message from this text.
The sermon is the Holy Spirit’s means of delivering the Christ for the slaying and raising of His hearers.
Another pitfall would be deciding to focus on charismata (miraculous gifts of the Spirit like tongues or healing). It is not a poor move to focus on tongues (language) as the miraculous vehicle for the Lord’s message, but it would certainly miss the mark to lecture on glossolalia and other charismata as “marks” or “proofs” of a “baptism of the Spirit” (especially tempting for those with a charismatic agenda or motivation). Staying with the text invites the contemporary preacher to hear the true Preacher in Acts 2. He is the Holy Spirit, who speaks through Peter to deliver the meaning of the miracle.
Above all, as with every sermon, the major pitfall to avoid is losing sight of the primary purpose of pulpit time. The goal is to preach the megaleia with which the gathered Galileans were gospelizing their first congregation: The killing and vivifying work of God in Christ. Joel (via Luke) emphasizes the universality of the Spirit’s outpouring. It is for girl people and boy people, old people and young people (2:17), slave people of both genders (2:18), all people will see it (2:19-20), and all people who qara’ b’shem Yahweh, who call on the name of the Lord, will be saved (2:21). The sermon that hits the nail on the head will welcome all people, all flesh, all nations. Welcome to the revolution! God in Christ has poured His Spirit out over all the earth (Genesis 11). This Holy Spirit chooses to use the vehicle of real human language, of His almighty, energic, performative, and effective Word (Hebrews 4:12) to convict and to save, to kill and make alive, to break down the works and the towers of human pride and striving, and to restore and deliver salvation and peace.
With these things in mind, here is a possible outline for preaching Pentecost in Year C:
“Gifted with Language”
- Ever know someone “gifted” in something? Sometimes it is music, sometimes it is sports, and sometimes it is language.
- I am so jealous of those people. It just comes naturally to those people who have a certain “knack.”
- Language is the bit that hits me viscerally. I have had to study, study, study! I am not particularly “gifted” with languages.
- Language is what is at issue at Pentecost. But it has been that way since Babel.
- On the one hand a gift, to be able to communicate, to God, to neighbor.
- On the other hand, all of God’s gifts in the hands of sinners are twisted – “incurvatus in se.”
- Babel narrative – Here, language is used to advance human self-sufficiency.
- The Law is curbing. The narrative reveals not so much punishment as preservation, not so much retribution as relief. That is, to eliminate potential possibilities of rebellion (Genesis 11:6-7), a divide-and-conquer kind of curb from rebelling as one human race is put in place by the Lord.
- Divided languages are not a gift, really – not a gift like the gospel anyway – but not specifically a punishment. Nevertheless, the results of the curb are crushing for future generations.
- Ever try to communicate and not quite get your message across?
- Ever try to hear what someone else is saying and not quite get it (cognitive dissonance)?
- Illustrations abound - The crushing nature of confusion.
- In the end, whether curb or another use of the Law, it is crushing and condemning. Only the Spirit knows how to use the Law properly and will do so to kill. He will curb you to death, mirror you to death, or rule you to death, but always to point you to your true need as He does the people at Pentecost who saw the miracle of confusion cleared up.
- Israel and language
- Israel’s language.
- The mighty works of God are an occasion for astonishment, particularly when the gathered Jews hear the vernacular of the nations of their origin.
- The Gospel cures the confusion of language by proclaiming the singular object: Jesus dead and raised.
- The Gospel cures the confusion over the meaning of the Holy Spirit being poured out. It is a proclamation that the end of time has come, and salvation is for all flesh (young, old, man, woman, from Jerusalem to the end of the earth).
- For the Jews who used their language to shout “Crucify!” the word of the Law convicts (Acts 2:36).
- The language of Israel reduced to One: Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.
- Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews - written in three languages on His cross.
- Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews - proclaimed now in all the languages of the Jews... to the ends of the earth.
- The Holy Spirit opens your ears to hear and your mouth to confess. No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).
- Israel’s language.
- We have, in a great reversal, been gifted with language.
- Nothing magical here. These are human languages.
- There is nothing mystical, esoteric, or hidden about how God communicates. You do not need a talisman or decoder ring to hear what He says.
- We do not have to study to get a graduate degree in learning what Jesus wants us to hear (“the Word is very near you,” in Romans 10:6-13, which also has a nice tag back to Joel’s prophecy!)
- How does God gift you with language?
- He speaks yours.
- He signed you with His name, in His language, at your baptism.
- He forgives you in His name, in His language, daily, and every time you join in the Confession and Absolution of a worship service.
- He pours His Word of forgiveness into you as often as you eat and drink His body and blood in the Sacrament of Communion.
- He calls you, His workmanship (Ephesians 2:10, one of His mighty works), by your name.
- He calls you to trust in His language rather than your own.
- Your language may seem powerful. It can unite, inspire, and change the world around you. But you are not called to trust in your words (no self-sufficiency here).
- But His language (from your lips!) is a confession of faith that encourages your own faith and invites the confession of your neighbor.
- He speaks yours.
- Nothing magical here. These are human languages.
- The Word of God made flesh is the gift delivered at Pentecost.
- The Holy Spirit delivers Him in time and space on the first Pentecost of the Christian Church.
- The Holy Spirit delivers Him in the same gift, the Word, human language, as His body the Church shares in word and deed the mighty works of God through our confession of Christ crucified, raised, and coming for our salvation.
- You – and the world! – have been gifted with language. Rejoice! Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead! And confess with your mouth - real human language! - the mighty works of God which proclaim that Jesus is Lord.
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Acts 2:1-21.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you preaching Acts 2:1-21.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaeching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
