Date: June 8, 2025
Festival: Day of Pentecost
Text: Acts 2:1-21
Preaching Occasion: Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Onaway, MI
Appointed Scriptures: Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21; John 14:23-31
Sermon Hymn: LSB #497 Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Dear saints, today we gather under the sound of rushing wind and tongues of fire. We gather with the Church of all ages around the wonderful acts of God as recorded in Acts 2—the Day of Pentecost. Yet Pentecost is not merely a birthday party for the Church. It’s not a showy display of miraculous tongues for their own sake. It’s not a theological oddity meant only for those who wish to speak in tongues. Pentecost is the divine answer to Babel. It’s the reversal of confusion, the gathering of the scattered, and the burning voice of peace spoken to a broken world. And today, every Sunday and every Baptism becomes a mini-Pentecost. It still speaks to the war within your soul and the loneliness of your days. It speaks to the ache of division in the Church and in the world. It speaks with clarity where the world is still babbling nonsense. So, let us go back to where this age of confusion began.
Babel: Humanity’s Scattering
In Genesis 11, we encounter a proud people speaking one language. United in word, they were united in rebellion. Today, many still commit the error of the ancient Jewish historian, Josephus, which is that the people at Babel built the tower in the attempt to reach Heaven and make themselves God. But that’s not what the text says. In their own words, they said, “Let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole Earth” [Gen. 11:4]. They weren’t trying to reach Heaven and usurp God’s throne. They ignored Him entirely, rejecting God’s benediction to multiply across the Earth and subdue it [Gen. 1:28].
It wasn’t the tower itself that earned divine judgement. After all, humanity has since built many towers that reach into the heavens. The tallest tower in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai at 2,717 feet, or 828 meters. The tallest building in America is the One World Trade Center in New York, standing at 1,776 feet, or 541 meters. It wasn’t the Tower of Babel itself that was an affront to God; it was the human heart beneath it—the heart that believed it could exalt itself on its own terms. They longed not for communion with God but for self-exaltation. Their unity was forged in ambition, not love of God.
So, the Lord came down. And with a breath, He shattered their false peace. He confused their language and scattered them across the Earth to fulfill His benediction for them to subdue it and multiply across it, and to make it more difficult for them to commit acts of evil. Words became foreign, understanding became fractured, and the one voice of rebellion became many tongues of estrangement. Humanity was dispersed, no longer one people but many tribes, nations, and tongues—cut off from one another and from God. And it’s here that we must pause, because every day we feel the echo of Babel.
We feel it in our homes when communication breaks down between husband and wife, between parent and child. We feel it in the Church when Christian brothers cannot agree on the words they’re to preach or sing or confess. We feel it in our hearts, which is pulled in a thousand different directions—God’s will in one ear, the devils whisper in the other, and our own desires arguing somewhere in the middle. We try to speak, but our words fall short. We long to be understood, but we’re met with blank stares or worse: mocking retorts.
Babel lives on in every attempt to find unity apart from God’s Word. Babel is still with us in the smug confidence of human progress, in the politics of pride, and even in the self-help prosperity gospel that teaches you to make your own name great. So now, lift your eyes to Jerusalem.
Pentecost: God’s Gathering Fire
“When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place” [Acts 2:1]. The Apostles, waiting for the promise Jesus spoke about just before He ascended [1:1-11], were not scattered or divided as they waited in Jerusalem. They were of “one accord in one place.” They were not building a tower to reach the heavens; they were waiting for Heaven to come down to them, just as Jesus had promised. And it did.
Suddenly, the text says, there came “a sound from Heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind.” Tongues of fire appeared and rested on each of them. They began to speak—not in pride, but as the Spirit Himself gave them utterance. And what did they speak? Not “let us make a name for ourselves,” but “the wonderful works of God.” That is, the Gospel of Jesus Christ—the crucified and risen Lord who had taken their sin, their shame, their division, their death, and had risen from the dead in victory.
Here is the miracle: Parthian, Medes, Elamites, and men from every nation of the times under Heaven—each heard the same Gospel in their own language. Not the gibberish that goes uninterpreted in Pentecostal churches today, but their own language, even though the Apostles weren’t actually speaking them. Pentecost did not erase the diversity of language, and God did not force them into uniformity, but the Spirit of God spoke through their languages to proclaim one truth, one faith, one Savior, and soon they would receive one Baptism [2:41; cf. Eph. 4:5-6].
Pentecost is not the undoing of culture, as some like to argue, but its redemption. Not the annihilation of cultural differences but the glorification of it, and even more: the transcendence of the Gospel despite cultural differences. At Babel, God confused tongues to restrain evil; at Pentecost, He filled tongues to proclaim His goodness in the Gospel. And at Babel, God scattered to humble man’s self-exaltation; at Pentecost, He gathered to exalt Christ over and for man.
So, the fire of the Holy Spirit is not a fire that destroys or divides; it’s a fire that gathers and purifies. It burns away Babel’s pride and leaves behind peace.
The Promise of the Son and the Peace of the Spirit
But before Pentecost, there was a promise. In the Upper Room, on the night before His death, Jesus said to His disciples: “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” Then He said something even more astounding: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid” [John 14:25-26].
Not the world’s peace—the peace of compromise, self-identity, or being comfortably numb. But His peace—the peace that holds steady when your heart is troubled, a peace not from within but from above. A peace not from choosing your own identity but one given to you in the Holy Spirit: sons of God. That promise began its fulfillment at Pentecost, given to each believer in Baptism, which on that day would begin with 3,000 people [Acts 2:41].
There, in Baptism, the fire of the Helper—the Holy Spirit—comes and teaches. The peace Jesus gave in Word is now poured out through the Spirit’s works. And Peter, filled with this Spirit, begins preaching the first Law & Gospel sermon of the Church—the peace of Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
Peter preaches not with tongues of confusion but through the unifying language of the Gospel. He speaks through the Word written, read, and proclaimed. He speaks through the water of Baptism, which joins you to Pentecost’s fire. He speaks through the bread and wine, where the risen and ascended Lord makes His home with you, just as He promised in today’s Gospel reading: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” [John 14:23].
Do you see, dear saints? Pentecost is not simply history. It is liturgy and worship, happening right now. In this very hour, as the Word is proclaimed and the Sacrament prepared, the Spirit of God is at work. He’s gathering what Babel scattered even here. He’s healing what sin has broken. He’s drawing nations and generations into one Lord, one faith, one Baptism [Eph. 4:5-6].
The Fire that Still Burns
Now, you may ask, “But where is the Spirit’s fire now?” You look around, and the Church seems divided. Indeed, the world is remarkably divided in politics and social movements. You also look within, and your heart has certain doubts. You hear false preachers babbling, and you wonder where the truth really is. But God’s Word assures you today: the Spirit’s fire still burns.
It burns not with spectacle, but with zeal. It burns in the hearts of those who still cling to Christ despite sorrow and the divisions parading in the streets. It burns in the preacher who dares to speak God’s Word in a hostile world. It burns in you—yes, you—whenever you forgive the one who’s wronged you, or speak the Gospel to your child, or kneel in confession, or rise in prayer.
The Spirit’s fire still burns, and His breath still blows in the gathering of the Church—wherever God’s people are assembled around His Word and Sacraments, whenever a new member is baptized into Christ’s Body, the Church, whenever the words of Absolution are pronounced over your heads. His fire burns wherever the Gospel’s comfort is spoken, not where there’s confusion; and wherever Christ is glorified, not where man is exalted.
So, take heart. Although the world speaks many languages, the Spirit speaks Christ through the one language of the Gospel. Although your life may feel like Babel—confused, divided, and anxious—the Spirit brings Pentecost to you in repentance, which Luther calls “a daily baptism” [LC IV, 65, 74]. The Spirit gathers your scattered thoughts, kindles your weak faith, and grants you the peace Jesus promised through the Word and Sacraments He instituted for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. And through you, He speaks that peace to others—whether as a parent catechizing your children, or a co-worker speaking peaceably with others, or a student living a life of godly wisdom rather than debauchery.
For the fire that fell at Pentecost is the fire that fell on you when you were baptized. A fire of renewal instead of destruction. A fire of mercy instead of judgement. A fire of proclamation instead of pride. “And it shall come to pass in the last days,” says the prophet Joel, “that whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” [Acts 2:17, 21; Joel 2:28-32]. These last days are not somewhere far ahead in the distant future. They began on Pentecost, and are still here today, baptizing peoples of all nations until all tribes, nations, and tongues are gathered when the Lord returns in the same way He ascended [Acts 1:11; Rev. 7:9].
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Lutheran Column 