Sermon on Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts 2:1-21, Pentecost Sunday, "Languages, Unity and Disunity"

            Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Today our two readings are both about languages, and unity or disunity. In the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel, all the earth once spoke one language and had the same words. But because of what happened there, God confused their languages, dividing them, so they couldn’t understand each other. The story of Pentecost, in Acts, is about how people of many different languages united across language barriers to hear a singular, important message. Let’s look at each story in turn, and see how Pentecost starts to reverse the age-old division of languages at Babel, and create a new unity around Jesus Christ. In the words of the crowds on Pentecost: “we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

            At the Tower of Babel humans unified in their defiance of God, so He scattered them. All through the Bible, God repeatedly humbles or brings low everyone who pridefully exalts or lifts themselves up against God. It’s no different today, as people unite in rebellion against God. He may permit human arrogance to climb higher and higher for a time, but it only makes for a greater fall. As the Bible warns: “let anyone who thinks that he stands, take heed, lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Don’t let pride be your undoing. God saw what they were doing at the Tower of Babel, and He put an end to it. The Tower of Babel is the Biblical explanation for the origin of the different languages and people groups on earth. Many people scoff at it as a myth, even though it fits with what we know about languages today—and they don’t have a better explanation of how all of the languages came to exist.

            Do you know how difficult a problem it is to explain the origin of human languages? There are 6,000 to 8,000 languages across the world. Linguists group them into somewhere between 130-430 language families. And although some related words can be found in many different languages, these bigger language groups are very foreign from each other. There seems no way to connect them back to a single language. It’s a puzzle to linguists. But for all the diversity of spoken languages, the top 23 represent half the world’s population; and nearly half the 7,000 or so languages in the world are estimated to become extinct within 100 years.

            But if human pride and defiance of God were so great that God scattered and confused the languages at Babel, then why did God reverse that confusion at Pentecost? For one simple reason: so Jesus’ disciples could immediately bridge the language barrier to speak Jesus’ Good News to the crowds. The crowd was a diverse slice of Mediterranean cultures and languages, across the North coast of Africa, Southern Europe, and the Middle East and Arabia. But they had something in common: they were the ancestors of Jews scattered to distant lands, who assimilated to the language of their new homes. They made the long pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for Pentecost, a harvest festival at the Temple. It was one of three major Jewish holidays of the year. So this Old Testament holiday and international gathering, became the stage for what happened next.

            Pentecost means “Fiftieth”. 50 days after Passover, which also happened to be when Jesus died on the cross. Now on the 40th day after Jesus rose from the grave, He ascended into heaven. We call that “Ascension Day”, and it was ten days ago on a Thursday. Jesus’s parting words on that day were instructions for the disciples to stay in Jerusalem for the promised baptism of the Holy Spirit. He told them: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This special outpouring of the Holy Spirit was so they could be witnesses of Jesus’ mighty works to many peoples and languages. This was the stone cast into the pond; the epicenter of the ripples circling out to the world, with the Good News of Jesus Christ. 2,000 years later, we still celebrate Pentecost, thanking God that the Gospel ‘ripples’ have now circled the world many times over, and reaching each of us.

            Yet many have not yet heard. It’s estimated by Bible translators that 1 billion people still don’t have the Bible available in their “heart language” or “mother tongue.” Translations of the whole Bible exist for over 700 languages, and the New Testament in over 1,300. That number is growing all the time as translators work to bring God’s Word to more and more people in their “heart language.” On that 1^st Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection, God’s miracle was that He supernaturally broke down the language barrier and the disciples became His mouthpieces, to speak in the heart languages of all that gathered crowd. They were shocked and amazed that these Galilean fishermen were suddenly “telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” On that day, they didn’t have to wait for any translator, or for the disciples to first learn their language. The Gospel was told to them clearly and immediately, and they understood. Supporting Bible translators is very important, both with our prayers and gifts.

            Peter’s Pentecost sermon declares the “mighty works” of Jesus to the crowd. He tells how Jesus of Nazareth was “attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst….this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.” What a wonderful message to conclude these past 50 days since Easter! Jesus was crucified for our sins, but the grave could not possibly hold Him! Jesus, a man of flesh and blood, died. His heart and breathing and brain waves ceased. Three days in the grave—but He rose to life again. This was no mere resuscitation, but a singular miracle never before seen. Jesus, the Son of God, shattered the power of the grave and broke its chains. His living, healed body, pulsated with new life—scars on His hands, feet and side, visible reminders of His love for us and what He endured. But in every way a living, breathing, human being, in His renewed and resurrected body that shall never die again! These are the mighty works of God that Peter and the disciples proclaimed.

            The crowds gathered at Pentecost urgently needed this Good News. They didn’t yet know their responsibility for sin; nor did they know their Savior. All that changed on Pentecost. This message had to pierce the language barrier, and by God’s hand, it did. Jesus calls us sinners out of our sin, rebellion, and gloom, and into His light, forgiveness, and joy, still today. Our need is as urgent as theirs. Sin is real and deadly, and exacts an awful price—seen in the wounds and death of Jesus. But God has torn through the barrier that divided us because of sin. Jesus speaks new life by His Word. Jesus’ Word unites people across language and cultural barriers, to begin to reverse the curse and disunity of Babel.

            At Babel God scrambled one language into many while men tried to lift up their own glory to the heavens. God scattered them to break apart their ungodly unity. But Pentecost shows this reversal: God brought people of many languages to understand one message. The glory of God’s mighty works was lifted up to the heavens and God drew scattered nations together in a new and godly unity. Unity in Jesus’ Name. All who call on that Name 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 understanding. The Tower of Babel was an attempt to lift up men’s names to the heavens in glory—Pentecost, on the other hand, 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.

            Another key truth reflected in both readings is that all humans share the same ancestry. With all our diversity of languages, colors, and cultures, we still all come from one common human family. This flies against the evils of racism that would try to divide us, create hatred and suspicion, or cause us to treat others as less than ourselves. Racism ignores that we are all made in the same image of God, from one man and one woman. Racism pits our differences against us, instead of recognizing our common humanity, and finding the beauty in how God has made us different. The Bible presents the beautiful truth that we are one human race, united as one blood.

            But still we are in need of being called together into a common unity. God calls us to that higher unity in the Name of Jesus, given for the salvation of every tribe, every nation, every people and language on the earth. God began creating that godly unity on Pentecost with the miracle of languages, and He continues to create the unity of faith in all who hear the word of God and believe it. We see that unity in the Church of Christ, where people around the world, of every tribe and every nation gather in common purpose to glorify and lift up Jesus’ name to the heavens. This work of unity is the glory of God, not the glory of men. Today, and every day, may we be witnesses of the mighty works of God and pray for that day when we reach perfect unity in Him. Amen, Come Lord Jesus!