A sermon on Acts 2:1-13 for the Feast of Pentecost. Delivered by Pastor Caleb Strutz.
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ Θεοῦ Πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Gratia vobis et pax a Deo Patre nostro et Domino Iesu Christo. Que Dios nuestro Padre y el Señor Jesucristo les concedan gracia y paz. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
How you’re feeling right now probably isn’t entirely dissimilar to how the crowds gathered on Pentecost felt. You’re hearing several different languages from someone you weren’t expecting that from. When I finally got to a language that you could understand, then things made sense, but you’re still left a little confused and not quite sure of what’s going on. This miracle of speaking in tongues was a sign that the Holy Spirit was working and active among Jesus’ disciples, but the people that heard it weren’t quite sure what to think. At Pentecost, we see the true power of the Holy Spirit. Not the signs themselves, but the wonderful Word and works of God.
I. Confusing Signs
So one thing we maybe have to talk about a little bit on Pentecost is exactly what’s happening with this whole speaking in tongues business. This is especially important to iron out because some groups of Christians claim that speaking in tongues is still this sign of the Spirit and if you don’t, you’re not really or fully a Christian.
One simple way to debunk this claim is to compare the events of Pentecost with the practice of speaking in tongues today. On Pentecost, the disciples are coherently speaking human languages that they did not know before in order to communicate more directly with those who did know those languages. “Speaking in tongues,” as it is commonly practiced today, is ecstatic gibberish that really serves no purpose. It’s apples to oranges, quite obviously not the same thing.
But I don’t feel like I have to dive too far into that because it’s not really a threat or a danger to us. You maybe know someone who does it at their church but it’s not a super prevalent thing and if you have seen it happen, you know it’s just kinda weird, the alarms are going off and justifiably so. But I think it’s worth touching on in order to dig a little deeper and see what’s under the surface.
At its core, there is this desire to find proof that God is active in your life. And the more obvious, the better, right? Again, I think we do a pretty good job of detecting when things are more obviously out-of-bounds. I’m sorry, but I don’t think God spoke to my neighbor by sending her a cardinal when she was in her garden. But that impulse is still there in all of us.
We want to know that God is active in our lives. We want assurance that He’s real and, if He’s real, that He is on our side. So we look for things, we look for our own signs of the Spirit to tell us that we’re on the right track.
What signs do you look for? Is it the desire to pray or how you feel when you’re praying? Is it when you read the Bible or listen to a sermon and feel like something is really speaking to you? Is it when everything in life works itself out and things seem to be going alright?
Now those are all good things. Those can all be blessings from God. But what do you do when you have to force yourself to pray or when you’re distracted during prayer? What do you do when you pick up your Bible and it’s just not doing it for you or when you come home on Sunday afternoon and couldn’t remember a single thing from the service? What do you do when everything seems to be falling apart and you’re not sure whether you’ll make it through?
Has God abandoned you in those moments? You begin to wonder whether He really is on your side after all. We look for these signs where God has not spoken and set ourselves up for disappointment. We go beyond the promises of God and all of a sudden we’re unsure of His presence. Looking for signs is a dangerous thing that only leaves us doubting and confused.
II. The Word and Works of God
But that’s the problem with signs. Even on Pentecost, when the gift of tongues was genuine, the people were “perplexed, saying to one another, ‘Whatever could this mean?’” The gift of tongues, along with the sound of the wind and the fire was this demonstration of power, it got their attention, but it’s not where the true power lay. Rather, it was in the content, that the people heard in their “own tongues the wonderful works of God.”
This demonstration of power really only set the stage for the main event. Since he now had their attention, Peter stood up and gave a wonderful sermon. Read the rest of Acts chapter 2 today when you get home. He opens the Scriptures, preaches from the prophets, proclaims the death and resurrection of Jesus. He powerfully concludes, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (v 36).
At this message, they are cut to heart. Now they know what to think. They ask, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Peter responds, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (vv. 37-38). Here’s the true power of the Spirit. Here’s where He’s really at work. The signs got attention but only caused confusion. The preaching of God’s Word is what got the job done.
If you’re looking for the power of the Spirit, here it is. If you’re looking for a sign from God, you get one every Sunday. The Spirit is just as active now as He was then. Just as active in God’s Word, and even more, than He was in the fire and the tongues. Because here is God’s Word preached to you. Here is the message about Christ.
The Savior, promised by the prophets, has come. He lived a perfect life, free from sin, in your place, and took all of your sins on Himself. He was put to death, but by His death won forgiveness for you. He rose from the dead, proclaiming His power and giving you His victory. In this message, the Spirit is at work, just as Jesus promised, “He will testify of Me” (Jn 15:26).
Luther has this wonderful quote for us in the Book of Concord, “Therefore we should and must insist that God does not want to deal with us being human beings, except by means of his external Word and sacrament” (SA III, 8, 10).
These are the signs that God has given so that you can be assured of His presence. If we look anywhere else or to anything else, we’ll just be left disappointed. But the Word and Sacraments have God’s promise. We know without a doubt that this is how He wants to deal with you.
The Spirit works through the Word, just like He did at Pentecost, as He proclaims to you the message of Christ. The Spirit works in Baptism, where you have the eternal promise that you are a child of God and all your sins are forgiven. We can be assured of God’s presence as we come to the altar and kneel [bow] before Christ’s Body and Blood.
Here are the signs that you have been looking for. Here is how you know without a doubt that God is on your side and at work in your life. Here is where we find confidence and assurance and comfort, no matter what’s going on, no matter how you feel. Here are the wonderful works of God for you.
Maybe you feel a little left out that you’re not speaking in tongues. You don’t have to be, those aren’t the signs we are to look for. But, every Sunday, you have been speaking words in a language you don’t know, whether you know it or not. Across our liturgy, there are four Hebrew words that have always been in Hebrew. Even when the liturgy was in Latin, these four words were still in Hebrew, to show that we worship the God of the Old Testament.
The first is “Amen.” We say it throughout our service, at the end of every prayer, it’s the very first word of the congregation in our liturgy. “Amen” means “truth.” Or, as Luther puts it, “Yes, it shall be so.” We conclude every prayer by saying “truth,” trusting that it will be answered and what we pray for will happen.
The second Hebrew word we encounter is “Alleluia.” We sing this especially before our Gospel lesson. It means “Praise the Lord.” We praise God before hearing the words and works of our Savior.
The third and fourth words are in our communion liturgy, in the Sanctus. We sing, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.” That last word is the Hebrew word for the heavenly hosts, the mighty armies of God. We recognize His awesome power and might as we enter His presence. And then, in that same song, we sing, “Hosanna in the highest.” “Hosanna” means “Save us!” This cry for help. We recognize that the Lord God, as high and mighty as He is, condescends to us, comes down in the bread and the wine to save us with Christ’s Body and Blood.
So every Sunday, we speak in tongues. You speak and sing words in a language you don’t know to communicate the wonderful works of God. We have the same gifts of Pentecost.
The signs that the Spirit gives us today don’t seem as powerful as the signs on Pentecost. I think we all secretly long for the fire and the tongues as if that’s going to give us the assurance that we need. But we have something better than that potentially confusing, flashy display. We have the true power of the Spirit, the true power of Pentecost. We have God’s Word, written and preached. We have that same Word applied and made concrete in the Sacraments, in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We have all the signs that we need that give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. You don’t have to go looking anywhere else. What a blessing to have these sure signs. Amen.
