Sermon on Genesis 11:1-9 & Acts 2:1-21, Pentecost (1 Year Lectionary), "Babel and Pentecost"
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God
our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Today is the
Festival of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples of
Jesus, so that they were able to speak and be understood in a multitude of
known languages, by a large crowd of gathered worshippers from scattered
Mediterranean nations. The apostle Peter then got up to publicly explain to the
crowd what was going on with this language miracle. Pentecost means “fiftieth”,
and it had been 50 days after Jesus rose from the dead, and also 50 days after
the Jewish Passover meal.
Look at our Old Testament reading today.
The Tower of Babel story is paired with the readings about that remarkable
Pentecost. These two events, are separated by a few thousand years of human
history, and take place in very different settings, one on a monumental construction
worksite in ancient Mesopotamia, and the other at a house near the Temple in
Jerusalem—but nevertheless they are intricately linked, and have more in common
than just the topic of languages. In many ways they are a reversal of each
other. The Tower of Babel is the account of God defeating human pride and
scattering and confusing the peoples and languages—while Pentecost is the
account of confused people of many languages being unified in understanding
around the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Let’s look a little more closely. In the
ancient history of humankind, God tells us that there was once a single human
language. This is sometime after the Flood of Noah’s day. God had told Noah and
his family to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. He wanted them to
repopulate the planet, which indicates spreading out and resettling the earth.
But at the Tower of Babel, the people sought a different goal—to make a name
for themselves and to keep from being scattered across the earth, by building a
tower up to the heavens. A monument to their achievement. A friendly observer
might say that they were trying to create “community” and “significance”, which
are not in themselves bad things—but that was not the problem. The problem was
that they were displacing God’s plan with their own plan, and instead of
finding community and significance as God intends to give it, they went their
own way and tried to create it themselves. They were idolizing themselves and
trying to exalt themselves like gods on earth. God saw their unity that was
bent toward disobeying His will, and God determined it was troubling enough to
break their unity and scatter them. Better for them to be divided than to unite
in rejecting God. Sadly, their unity could have been used humbly and with God’s
blessing to fulfill His commands, but instead by their disobedience, He had to
frustrate their plans.
The Tower of Babel explains to us how
God confused the languages and scattered the people across the earth. It’s the
explanation for the different language and people groups we have today—but with
the reminder that we still all descend from one common human race. St. Paul also
taught this to a crowd of philosophers in Athens: that God made from one man
every nation on earth, and determined the periods and boundaries of the places
where they would live (Acts 17:26). Our common human ancestry is a necessary
reminder against the evils of racism, and endless conflicts between nations
over land and territory. It reminds us that whatever else divides us, that we
share the common gift of our shared humanity from God above, and that His
command to love our neighbor as ourselves is universal.
But if the Tower of Babel story has
these features: that God moved the people from one language to many; that men
were trying to raise their own glory and achievements up to the heavens; that
God was going to scatter the nations;
that God was breaking apart an ungodly unity; and that they failed to
make a name for themselves—then the story of Pentecost has these reverse
features: God brought the speakers of many languages to understand a unified
message; the glory of God’s great deeds
were being raised up to the heavens; that God was gathering the scattered
nations together; that God was creating a new and godly unity, and that this
unity came in the Name God glorified for Himself—the Name of Jesus. And that
all who call upon the Name of Jesus will be saved! The trajectory of the Tower
of Babel story is towards disunity, scattering, and confusion—while the
trajectory of Pentecost is towards unity, gathering, and clear understanding.
The Tower of Babel was a vain attempt to raise men’s names up to the heavens in
glory—Pentecost instead raises up Jesus’ Name to the heavens in glory, for our
salvation. In short, God gave a miraculous sign that He had begun to “reverse
the curse” of Babel.
Still today mankind chases after glory
and pride that we create apart from God. Still today we attempt to “play god”
in ways too numerous to mention, and try to sit ourselves on the throne of
God’s authority. Still today God lifts up and brings down the mighty from their
thrones. Human pride and achievement throughout history have never brought
permanent or lasting community, peace, or even monuments, for that matter. At
most, the disrepair of ancient monuments tell us of the collapse of
civilizations that died out centuries or millennia ago. For all their power and
technology, they still have fallen into the dust of history like the rest of
mortal men. But still today God has a bigger plan and better goal for our lives
than our human attempts to etch our names into the heavens. God desires to give
us community and significance, to be sure—but on His terms, and in ways that
honor Him. God has an everlasting Word and an eternal community that will
endures long after all empires and powers have risen and fallen.
Zoom out momentarily to the big picture
of the whole Bible and story of salvation, and you’ll see that God is building
for us a “city that has foundations,
whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10, 16; 12:28; 13:14). He
desires to gather all people to His heavenly Jerusalem, the eternal home of all
who call on the name of Jesus and are saved. But zooming back into our lives
and Pentecost, understand that God desires community, fellowship, and significance
for us, that is centered around Him. And He has a particular plan to achieve
that, that He has carried out in Jesus Christ.
It was the first Pentecost, 50 days
after Jesus’ resurrection, that His disciples went public with that message of
Jesus’ death and resurrection. On Good Friday, they had been reduced to 11 men
frightened for their lives, and a handful of faithful women. They were
powerless, cowardly, and dejected. By 50 days later, just before Pentecost, their
number had grown to 120. On the day of Pentecost, that number exploded to
3,000! (Acts 2:41). A short while later, to 5,000, and then continued growth
beyond (Acts 4:4; 5:14; 6:7). Today more than 2 billion people claim the name
of Jesus. That incredible growth and transformation came because of what the
disciples saw for themselves—the Risen Jesus. It was by their unmistakable
witness of His resurrection and by His gift of the Holy Spirit, that they were
emboldened to proclaim God’s salvation plan to all, at great personal risk and
loss to themselves, but for the gain of God’s spiritual kingdom.
Through the proclamation of the apostles
on Pentecost and afterward, the Holy Spirit signaled to the world that God is
gathering people of all languages to unify around the Name of Jesus Christ. In
2:11-12 the crowds exclaimed “we hear the
telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God! And all were amazed and
perplexed, saying to on another, ‘What does this mean?’” God’s deeds were
being exalted, Jesus’ saving works were being proclaimed in many languages to
many peoples. Peter goes on to explain the miracle by telling them about the
teaching of Jesus, His unjust crucifixion and death, and God’s subsequent
raising of the innocent Jesus to life again. This, Peter says, is the
explanation for the miracle you are seeing and hearing. He called them to be
baptized and saved, calling on the Name of Jesus. He was holding up for them a
godly purpose for unity and community, showing them how God was going to return
the scattered people to Himself.
The Holy Spirit still today proclaims
the Name of Jesus for our salvation—as Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit will
always bear witness about Him and bring to our remembrance all that Jesus has
taught. The Holy Spirt still calls and gathers Christians together in
community—across and beyond barriers of language or culture or class—and to
people of one human race He proclaims the forgiveness of sins and peace with
God that we have in Jesus Christ. He makes the mighty works of Jesus to be
known so that we would have a Name to glory in—but His Name, and not our own. And
He gives us purpose and significance by loving us and sending us out to all the
world to bear witness to His Name and His love for us. So let us rejoice that
God has made a Name for Himself in the sight of all the nations, and that He
gathers His scattered children to be His own under the care and love of Jesus
Christ His Son. In His Name, Amen.
Sermon Talking
Points
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- Compare and
contrast Genesis 11:1-9 & Acts 2:1-21. How does Pentecost (Acts) show
a reversal of many of the details of the Tower of Babel (Genesis)?
- What was the
sin of the people of Babel? Genesis 11:4? What did they seek to gain, and
what did they seek to avoid? Why was that contrary to God’s command in
9:1, 7? How did God ensure that it happened? Genesis 11:7-9; 10:32.
- Why is the
Tower of Babel important in explaining 1) the origin of people groups and
languages, and 2) the common ancestry of the human race? Acts 17:23-27;
Genesis 10:32. What implications does that have towards racism and
relations between different people groups?
- How does Genesis
11:7 hint at, but not fully reveal, the teaching of the Trinity?
Cf. Genesis 1:26; 3:22.
- In Acts 2:11,
what did the crowds hear in their own languages? Where before (at Babel)
they had sought their own glory by their own works, who was now receiving
glory, and whose works were proclaimed and understood by all? What is
God-pleasing and desirable about this unity? 1 Timothy 2:1-4. How can this
basis of unity help to bridge the divisions between people across the
world? Why will Christ still remain a dividing point for many? Matthew
10:32-39
- In Peter’s
Pentecost sermon, he explains that the work of the Holy Spirit, poured out
that day, will culminate in this truth: (2:21) “Everyone who calls upon
the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” Read further in Acts 2:41. How did
this message ignite the “birthday of the Christian Church? What recent
event was the literal life of
this message? Acts 2:31-32, 36.
- To whom does
the Holy Spirit still point today? John 14:26; 15:26.
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