The Spirit Enabled Them to Proclaim

Pentecost - Acts 2:1-11

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,

they were all in one place together.

And suddenly there came from the sky

a noise like a strong driving wind,

and it filled the entire house in which they were.

Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,

which parted and came to rest on each one of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit

and began to speak in different tongues,

as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven

staying in Jerusalem.

At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,

but they were confused

because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,

"Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?

Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?

We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,

inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,

Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,

Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene,

as well as travelers from Rome,

both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,

yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues

of the mighty acts of God."

One of the things that strikes me about the account of Pentecost is just how authentic the description feels. Though we are used to thinking of it in concrete terms of wind and fire, Luke uses similes to describe what the Apostles experienced. There was a “noise like a strong driving wind,” but it was not wind. There were “tongues as of fire,” but it was not fire. It seems that the Apostles struggled for words to describe what had happened to them in that room, and that is an authentic feature of an encounter with the divine. Words, however lofty and poetic or precise and scientific, ultimately fail to capture the experience of God. I know from my own experience that trying to describe how the Lord has spoken to me often makes the profound experience sound silly as I grasp at similes and metaphors that only sort of work. That was the experience on Pentecost, and it probably is your experience as well. 

While words failed to describe the experience later, the Holy Spirit made sure that words would not fail that day by giving the gift of tongues. This phenomenon of glossia, or speaking in a language you do not know, is one of the hallmarks of Pentecost. Yet when the Apostles go outside, the phenomenon changes: they now speak in their native Aramaic while the crowd hears them in their own native languages. The first manifestation of tongues was in the mouths of the speakers while the second was in the ears of their hearers. In a superabundant way, the Lord completely reversed the linguistic deficiencies brought about in the Tower of Babel incident (see Genesis 11:1-9) to make sure the Gospel message would spread. 

In the providence of God, Pentecost was an existent holy day in ancient Judaism, called the Feast of Weeks in the Bible and Shavuot today. It celebrated the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai, and adult men were expected to travel to Jerusalem. The nations represented in Jerusalem are listed in a geographical sweep beginning due east of Jerusalem and moving counterclockwise to make a complete circle, listing every nation surrounding the Holy Land. While Jesus had given the Apostles the task to go to the ends of the earth, he first brought the ends of the earth to their doorstep. Those pilgrims would return home and talk, likely also in confused ways, about what they experienced, preparing the nations for the missionary spread of the Gospel. 

And so with Pentecost we have the coming together of seemingly disparate historical events and circumstances: a pilgrimage feast, national boundaries, the evolution (or de-evolution) of language, and a fundamentally indescribable experience of God. These events came together as a perfect storm of sorts, almost as if someone had planned it this way, to allow Jesus’ message to spread like wildfire. This week the Spirit reminds us of many things, not the least of which is that the Lord is working the seemingly disparate events, not just of history but of your life, into a cohesive and purposeful narrative too. Perhaps it is not as dramatic as Pentecost, but perhaps it is. You likely will struggle with words to describe some of the scenes and how they connect, and you may not even know yet how some of them connect. But that is the way the Spirit works, and he is at work in your life.