The Still, Small Whisper of God's Love - 1 Kings 19:8-19

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Old Testament lesson, 1 Kings 19:9-21.

Do you ever feel like you've got God all figured out? I not asking if you comprehend the deep mystery of the Trinity or if you can fathom how it is that God is without beginning or end. No, I'm asking if there are times in your life when you're sure you know what God is going to say or do next - like the way spouses or best friends can sometimes predict each other's thoughts or words?

There was a time when the Prophet Elijah was pretty certain that he could predict God's next move. Elijah was riding the greatest high of his ministry. Through him God had just brought about the defeat of hundreds and hundreds of false prophets, the prophets of Baal - a false god that had stolen the hearts of minds of all Israel. In a very public ceremony at the top of Mount Carmel, Elijah had proven that Baal doesn't exist. At God's command, 850 false prophets were put to death that day. After that event, everything made sense to Elijah. He was sure he knew were God was going with this. In the spiritual vacuum created by Baal's defeat, God, by default, would recapture the adoration of every man, woman and child in Israel, including the heart of Israel's ungodly king and queen - Ahab and Jezebel. It all made perfect sense.  

Not all surprises in life are pleasant ones. For example, you go to the dentist for a cleaning, only to discover two cavities. Or, a Sheriff’s deputy knocks on your door to inform you that a drunk driver plowed through your yard, took out a hundred feet of chain link, and wiped out your custom John Deere mailbox.  Those are merely unpleasant. Now, imagine how surprised Elijah was to discover that Baal's defeat had only deepened Queen Jezebel's hatred of the one true God. Rather than send Elijah news of her repentance, she told the prophet that he had less than twenty-four hours to live. Rather than thanking him for pointing out her damning sin, she declared Elijah, "Public Enemy Number One" and ordered his picture to be hung in every post office in Israel.

As Israel's most wanted criminal, Elijah saw no other choice but to flee. He went south, stopping in Judah just long enough to pray, "I have had enough, LORD. Take my life;" (1 Kings 19:4). But instead of bringing Elijah's earthly life to an end, God told him to head for Mount Horeb - the same mountain where 600 years earlier Moses had seen God's glory, first in a burning bush, and then again on the mountain's peak where he received the Ten Commandments. Elijah traveled to Horeb as God had ordered. When he arrived God asked him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" That question may seem odd since it was God who told him to go to the mountain. But God was really asking the prophet why he had run away from his home, from his life as God's spokesman.

"I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."

Did you count how many times Elijah referred to himself:  "I have been very zealous. I am the only one left...now they are trying to kill me too." This is all about me…poor, pitiful me. Now, don't misunderstand me, he was right – he had indeed been zealous for the Lord. No prophet during his time had worked harder. But to what end? He had fought the fight and was now on the run for his life because he was God’s prophet. From Elijah's perspective all his work had been a gigantic waste of time.

Have you ever felt like Elijah? Have you ever worked hard in the Lord's name, raising your children, working on your marriage, sharing your faith, trying to live God's will, but no good seemed to come of it, or worse it all seemed to go wrong? You keep trying but the harder you try, the harder it gets. Have you ever felt like just giving up, telling the Lord, “It’s not fair” or "I quit"?  I have. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve had my own Elijah moments. “God – I’ve tried this and I’ve done that; I’ve preached to the congregation and talked to individuals but it’s not enough. I must be a failure. I let you down.”

There’s a certain, simple human element to this, feeling disappointment and frustration. But, if we’re honest, it’s also our sinful nature talking - that selfish nature of pride, self-worth, that’s within us and simply not having a clue as to what it really means to serve the Lord. Serving our God isn't about us and how much we accomplish. It isn't about getting the credit for hard work or even about enjoying the fruits of our labor. If that's what we're looking for to get some blessing or benefit from our service to the Lord then we're worshiping ourselves, not God. And when that happens, only misery can follow - earthly misery and eternal misery in hell. That's the penalty for idolatry.

Elijah was getting a taste of such misery. His zeal was gone, replaced by self-pity and fear, fear that came from failing to trust that the same God who had destroyed the prophets of Baal could just as easily protect him from Jezebel's murderous threats. Elijah couldn't see that because he was focused on himself rather than on God. How often we have suffered from that same kind of blindness! How miserable we make ourselves because we do not trust our God as we should!

The LORD said [to Elijah], "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave" (vv. 11-13).

We self-absorbed sinners may well expect a word of anger from God. We deserve no less. How easily God could use the forces of nature - wind, earthquake and fire to forever remove us from his presence. But though they are all at his command, he speaks to us through none of them. Rather than treating us as our sins deserve, he speaks to us in ways we don't expect. He speaks in tones of love through the gentle whisper of his gospel. On every page of Scripture Jesus whispers, "I love you. I love you so that I've taken your sins of idolatry, your doubts and despair, your self-pity and fear, I've taken and claimed all your sin as my very own and I've paid the price for all of it by facing the blast of God's anger and the fires of his judgment in hell in your place. Your sins are forgiven!" So that we may never forget it, Jesus whispers this same good news to us and our children in the waters of Baptism as he gently washes away our sin. And so that we might know the intimacy of his love for us, he speaks to us in the bread and wine of Holy Communion as he feeds our souls the very body and blood he gave and shed to make you and me his dearly loved children forever.

Wouldn't you agree - God speaks to us words of love we don't deserve in ways we don't expect? But the wonder of God's love doesn't end there. Although we have often failed to serve our God as we should, doubting his promises to help and quitting when things don't go our way, still with his forgiveness in Christ, God wipes our slate clean and gives us a new opportunity to serve him in a spirit of thankfulness and praise. Now we might imagine that God would send us out on our own as people who have something to prove to him. But that is never the case. No, our God is full of surprises! When we serve him, we are never alone. He goes with us everywhere and according to his own promise he works through us in ways we can't imagine.

After gently whispering to Elijah the news of his love and forgiveness, God once again invites his prophet to speak what's been placed into his heart. Elijah does so, but now, having been renewed in spirit by God's grace, God has made him ready for service. He tells Elijah, "Go back the way you came..." (v.15). God has work for Elijah to do, but God assures him that he will not have to do it all by himself. He is to appoint kings to help, and also a prophet, his own successor, Elisha. God would use these men in his service too. At times he would use their swords to drive home the preaching of his law, and with it bring sinners to their knees. But the law's thunderous threats would not turn hearts away from Baal or any other sin. Only the gospel can accomplish that, because it alone is the power of God for the salvation of sinners. Working through his gospel God had already accomplished more than Elijah could have ever imagined. In his despair Elijah thought he was the last believer on earth. How wrong he was! His service to the Lord had not been in vain. He just couldn't see what God can accomplish through a gentle whisper. So God tells him, "Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel--all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him" (v. 18).

Here is what this means for you.  As you fulfill your vocations as mother, father; husband, wife; child; neighbor; employee or employer; family or friend - as you serve your neighbors as the voice, hands and feet of Christ, God is working through you in ways you can't possibly imagine, in ways you may never know until you reach heaven above. So don't despair. Your efforts are not in vain. As you work on your marriage, as you train your children to know Jesus, as you share him with others through your words and actions, he is pleased with your service whether you see its results or not. He regards all you do in his name as an act of worship, and he accepts that worship as a fragrant offering of thanks from you a redeemed sinner to himself, your loving Savior.

Should all this surprise us? Our God has pledged to show us unconditional love. He never changes. But we do. Sin keeps changing us, ruining our thinking and spoiling our actions on a daily basis. Yet in his constant love for us, God chooses to keep calling us back to his grace-grace so refreshing that it seems brand new to us every time we experience it. So is God really full of surprises? No. It just seems that way to us sinners whom God keeps loving for Jesus' sake. Amen.

 

Even the Demons Obey Jesus - Luke 8:26-39

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hmm. Interesting reading from Luke, isn’t it? Sort-of a Hollywood-esque spooky narrative about a naked, demon-possessed man who lived out in a cemetery. The demons gave him extra-ordinary strength, so that when he was caught and locked up with cuffs and chains, he could break them and escape back into the desert, the place of the dead. Hello, Stephen King.

I’ll be honest – there is part of me that wants to bypass this account for that very reason – it sounds kind of like a script or a novel. And, judging from the market, these kinds of books and movies do well – at least, well enough that they keep making them. And, because we are so familiar with the genre, whether first or second hand – even if you’re not a fan, you’ve seen the commercials, heard people talk about them – that the devil has become sort-of a paper lion, nothing more than a caricature, a myth in the vein of Sleepy Hollow’s pumpkin-toting horseman. Years ago, I had one of my confirmation students tell me that the devil was just something that old people had made up to scare kids into being good.

On the other hand, it’s easy to focus on the devil and his power as the center of the narrative. There’s something fascinating about it, after all; a guilty curiosity about the unknown-ness of satan’s darkness. If I asked you what to title this reading, I would guess most would simply refer to it as “The Demon Possessed Man.” See what I mean? Where is the focus? Where does that leave Jesus? He gets second billing, at best. The demonic gets center stage while Jesus is just a supporting character. Satan and his demons grow in stature and legend to the point that they seem almost unstoppable, an insurmountable enemy against us as God’s people, God’s creation, almost an even match against God Himself.

Hmm. Tough choice. So, do we so neuter the demons so that they are imaginary, or do we inflate them that they are overwhelming and indefatigable enemies? Wherein does truth lie when it comes to satan, his demons, and his power? I said that part of me wants to avoid this text, but the fact that the Holy Spirit saw fit to have St. Luke include this in his gospel tells us that there is something here for us and we need to speak to it. We need to see the truth of who satan is, what he does to creation and to God’s people, and more important, what has been done to him by Jesus.

First and foremost, this narrative is about Jesus. This miraculous exorcism shows Jesus’ divine authority over satan and his wickedness. Where, usually, men would run in terror from the man’s power and demons, when Jesus arrives, it is the demons who recoil. No one else in the Gerasenes meets Jesus at the shore, but this poor man does. Jesus is invading their territory, so to speak, and the demons recognized Jesus for who He was: the Son of the Most High God. It would be funny, if it wasn’t the demonic: they, who had tormented this man for years now beg Jesus for Him to not torment them. They know who Jesus is and they know what He has come to do – do battle with them and all of satan’s powers and satan’s wickedness. Don’t torment us Jesus. Jesus obliges by sending the demons into a herd of pigs which then rush over the cliff, into the water.

These were real demons, not figments of the man’s imagination, not a psychotic episode, not an out-of-body experience. Demons are under satan’s control, part of his domain as prince of the world. Whatever they did to the man, we can only begin to imagine. And, we can’t really hazzard a guess as to why or how these demons possessed this man or any other person in the Bible, for that matter. If I wanted an analogy, its as if demons are a terrible and unwanted spiritual virus, or a thief that breaks into a house to destroy.  There does seem to be some truth to whether a person left themselves, their spiritual door if you will, propped open for satan and his demons to enter. We call it demon possession, but in a real sense, that’s a misnomer: satan can’t possess anything. The best he can do is borrow it since God is the giver of all things. God is the maker of all things, and that is the devil’s greatest frustration. In spite of his desire to become something greater, all the devil is is an inverted piece of God’s creation. Here’s a secret the devil doesn’t want anyone to know: even his domain, hell, is not his; it is not under his control. In hell, the devil suffers most of all. Miserable, he is determined to make God’s creation and God’s people as miserable as possible.

I tell you this, not to scare you, but to alert you. The devil is real; his minions are real. They are not figments of Hollywood. But, at the same time, don’t overdo it. He is NOT God. He is not omnipresent, omnipotent, or omniscient. He cannot create, only cause chaos with his lies and misdirection, his misuse of good for his evil ends.

With this man in the Gerasenes, apparently, the demons had been doing this to the man “for a log time.” The devil has been doing this very thing for a long time – disrupting and separating man’s relationship with God. It began with a whisper of serpentine seduction: you can be like God. The original demonized, homeless man was Adam who runs, naked and afraid into what was suddenly a dying world. Ever since then, he has done what he can to seduce God’s people into thinking he is winning this cosmic battle and God is left playing catch-up, like the proverbial detective who is always one step behind the vicious serial intruder.

Chances are you haven’t met and will not meet a person who is demon possessed like this man. If I were a betting man, I would give big odds that you will never witness anything like what is truthfully recorded in the Bible or fabricated by a fiction writer. But you do experience satan’s work and the frustrated efforts of his demons – not in the otherworldly sense, but in his real-world, personal attempt to distract you from the wonderful, life-giving and life-changing Good News of Jesus Christ.

Satan is a defeated enemy. He knew it from the moment in the Garden that God declared that He would put enmity between woman and the serpant and that he would strike her heel but her seed would crush satan’s head. He realized he was living and working on borrowed time. As part of mankind’s punishment for sin, God allows satan limited access to man – remember his mandate that was recorded in the beginning of the book of Job, “Do what you will, but you cannot take his life.” Likewise, God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, and He will always provide a way out of that temptation.

I think we often take the idea of being tempted and do our own Hollywoodizing of it. So, for example, consider the Commandments. Don’t steal – well, of course, I’m not going to go carjack someone sitting at the light at Navarro and the loop. Don’t kill – well, of course, I’m not going to go whack the guy who ordered the last chicken fried steak at the restaurant. The devil knows that, so he’s much more subtle. I won’t steal a car, but I’ll steal time from my company by goofing off, making excessive personal calls, cruising social media. I won’t kill someone, but I’ll think terrible thoughts about them, wish them harm, and call them terrible names. Jesus says if you have done even these, you are guilty of breaking the commandment.

But the devil’s pièce de resistance is then turning the Good News of Jesus against you. And he does it in your own voice, too. “Of course, Jesus died for the sins of the world. But, did he die for yours?” “A real Christian never would have done such a thing.” “Do you really think God can forgive you?” “How do you expect God to forgive you, again – after all, you keep saying you’re sorry but you keep doing the same thing…” “You really need to fix this thing to show God how sorry you are. You need to read your Bible, or pray, or cry harder, or punish yourself or some other mark of penance to prove to God you are worthy of his love.” Demonic confusion penetrates into our belief system, altering the Scriptural truth of saved by grace through faith in Christ to becoming self-worthy and self-justified and, sadly, self-damned.

Never forget this: Jesus invaded the demon’s territory. When He walked ashore that day at the Gerasenes, He did so as the conquering victor. “He’s judged, the deed is done,” we sing in A Mighty Fortress, and Jesus spoke judgement against the demons, yet in a way we might not expect. From His temptation in the wilderness against satan, to His final, dying breath, Jesus allowed Himself to be the target of satan’s worst. Each time, Jesus stomps again on satan’s head, crushing it more and more. Yes, at the cross, satan gets his fangs deep into Jesus, the venom of sin and the Law that poisons sinners to death coursing into Him. His heel is bruised, bruised to death.

I have an image in my mind that when Jesus sighed the final, “It is finished,” satan – misunderstanding – rejoiced. If in heaven there is rejoicing over one sinner who repents, in hell there was celebration that the seemingly impotent so-called savior allowed Himself to die. Salivating over what he could do now that Jesus was out of the picture, the devil was ecstatic. And then, Jesus showed up, preaching to the spirits and demons and even the devil himself, proclaiming that He, Jesus, is God enfleshed; He is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Eve; He is the conqueror who paid the sin-price and death-payment for the world, and satan’s seeming victory was over because he would now spend eternity being tormented by all of the evil he had committed.

You, my friends, are baptized into Christ. His death is your death. His resurrection is your resurrection. As Christ rose, you also will rise. You are forgiven fully and freely in Christ Jesus. Satan’s lies to the contrary, nothing can strip that gift from you. In your baptism, the old adam, the old eve, is drowned. Luther actually calls this a small exorcism. You’re familiar with the question, “Do you renounce the devil, his works and his ways.” Luther actually added the command, in Christ’s name, “Depart you unclean spirit and make way for the Holy Spirit.” I use that when a Christian soul is troubled by the devil’s lies, commanding satan’s departure from the child of God in the name of Jesus, and then proclaiming the forgiveness of sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Trinitarian baptismal formula spoken again, reminding the child of God that He is God’s through Christ Jesus.

Yes; we still struggle with that old adam and old eve. We still struggle against temptations that are real. We still face satan’s minions who want nothing more than to distract us from Jesus’ death and resurrection for us. We still confess our sins, daily, in thought, word and deed; those remembered and those we didn’t even recognize. “Deliver us from evil” is always on our lips. Yet, do not despair. It *is* finished. Satan is defeated. And, remember: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.”

So, “go home. Go and tell everyone how much God has done for you.” The man wants to go with Jesus and be His disciple. Jesus has other plans for him. “No, you stay here. Go home to your family and your community and tell them how much God has done for you.” That’s what you do when Jesus rescues you from the darkness of your demons. You return home in right mind and spirit, and you declare the praises of Him who brought you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Go. Tell everyone what God has done for you.

What Did Jesus Do that I Might Be Saved? - Acts 2:22-36

What must I do to be saved? This is the question that continues to plague the hearts and minds of men. Desperate people, seeking desperate answers, hunt anywhere, everywhere, trying to find someone or something that provides a seemingly reasonable answer.

If you did a man on the street interview in Victoria, or Goliad, or Cuero, what might people say? How might they answer that question?

You must always strive to do your best, one says, so that in the end the ledger leans in your favor of the good things outweighing the bad. Another warns that if you are having bad things happening to you, it may be the result of your parents or even grandparents moral failures – and there is no guarantee this might not get passed on to your own children!

You would probably find a good dose of moral relativism, to live a good life, to make wrongs right, and maybe even the well-intended but impossible suggestion of “Do what Jesus would do.” Unless you ran across a Muslim who would instead cite their prophet, Mohammad, from the Quran. And, it’s possible you could find a nihilist or an agnostic or an atheist who would say there is nothing to be saved from – when you die, they say, that’s it. Turn on Willie Nelson, then turn out the lights, the party’s over.

But the men in Jerusalem weren’t asking just anyone. They were asking Peter – the former denier of Jesus, who had been enabled to preach by the power of the Holy Spirit who was sent by Jesus, who was Himself sent by the Father. And, with their hearts broken and cut to the quick with Peter’s clear preaching, realizing they could do nothing to save themselves, they were seeking an answer: what must we do to be saved? The solution was simple and clear: repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Repentance is not a popular message in America because it flies in the face of everything that is our proud American ideology – or, perhaps I should call it idol-olatry – that worships the unholy trinity of me, myself and I to the sad expense of others. Our culture teaches us to be brash and bold, even if that means running over the weaker. Our society teaches us it’s OK to lie about and defame our neighbor, as long as we get something out of it. Our world worships self-happiness, demands individual rights, and refuses to bow down to the wants or needs of anyone else.  God is there, blessing all that we do, because he is a nebulous thing that approves and blesses all that we want.

 And Peter stands in the face of this and calls each of us to repent.

Repentance is humbling. Repentance recognizes that we have done something wrong towards or against another and labels it as it is: sin. Repentance is truthful. Repentance acknowledges that we are sinners and confesses our sins against God and against neighbor. Repentance is submissive. Repentance admits we can’t save ourselves and we desperately need help. Repentance is surrender. The Holy Spirit has worked through the Law in the hearer’s heart and mind and the repentant stands convicted concerning sin and righteousness and judgement (John 16:8). Repentance hurts and it saddens and, to one degree or another, it terrifies the conscience because they recognize what the sinful status deserves.

If that’s all repentance is, leaving the sinner with their own sorrow and despair, he or she is no better off than the man on the street we interviewed earlier.

But Christian repentance is different than what every other religion offers. Christian repentance finds it’s answer, it’s antidote, it’s resolution in Jesus. Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance without Jesus is only sorrow coupled with despair: what must I do to be saved? But Christian repentance finds the answer to that very question in the cross of Jesus, the place of atonement, where Jesus’ blood was shed for sinners like you and me and the Pentecost crowd and all who cry out with the hopelessness and helplessness of this age and who, in faith, turn to Jesus. Confessing our sins, repenting of our sins, and like the Jerusalem crowd, desiring a change in our hearts and minds and lives, turn to Jesus. He hears; He forgives because His blood was shed for you. His life was taken for you. His holiness was traded for you. His perfection surrendered for your imperfection.

Baptism without Jesus is just washing – literally. To baptize means to wash. But being washed with the Word, that is baptism in the name of Jesus, is to have sins washed away, to be united to Christ through water and word, enlivened by the Holy Spirit, restored and connected to the Father as sons and daughters of God. In Baptism, the Father declares our debt of sin paid in full and He bestows on us His Spirit, enabling us with hearts to believe and with mouths to confess the saving name of Jesus. And with newly baptized hearts, and with ever-repentant hearts, the Holy Trinity changes us so that we no longer want to live as children of the world but as children of God. The Trinity at work in an extraordinary way.

Today we celebrate the Holy Trinity: God in three persons. A few moments ago, we confessed the Athanasian Creed[1]. It is long and it is monotonous in it’s precise language. The ancient phrasing is a challenge for our modern ears. In the fifth phrase, we confessed that the Father is infinite, the Son infinite, and the Holy Spirit is infinite. In the old, Jacobean language, the phrase was “incomprehensible” – the Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. It’s said that when the British writer Dorothy Sayers read the Creed, she said, “The whole thing is incomprehensible.” Why can’t we just stick with the Apostle’s Creed – that’s so much shorter and simpler – or, perhaps, the Nicene Creed that has a little more weight. Isn’t that enough?  This is important because the Church has continued to use these very words to defend the Christian faith against false teachings for a thousand years. 

I admit – I do not fully and completely understand the Trinity. But, here’s the beauty of it: while we may never fully and completely understand it, you don’t have to understand it to believe it. I don’t understand nuclear fission – but I feel the sun’s warmth. I don’t understand where wind starts – but I feel it’s breeze. I don’t understand how airplanes fly, but I get in one to travel. I don’t need to completely understand the mystery of the Triune Godhead – but, since this is how God reveals Himself to us, as Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and He tells us so clearly, I believe it.

In fact, every celebration of holy baptism and holy communion is a trinitarian celebration, just as every gathering “in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” is done in union with the Sacred three. In the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church gathers on Sunday—the day of the Resurrection—to offer thanksgiving to the Father for Christ’s saving-life given to us at the table of the Word and the table of the Eucharist. Listen carefully to the opening greeting, the baptismal “formula,” the Athanasian Creed traditionally confessed on this Sunday, the Eucharistic prayer, and the final blessing. We are accompanied in life’s journey by a community of persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who together are the one and only living God. And so, we are not alone. Indeed, the Church is intended to be a sign to the world of the Holy Trinity’s unity-in-diversity.

So, back to the question: What must I do to be saved? Nothing. Salvation is the work of the Triune God: The Father sent the Son who delivers the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit enables us to believe Jesus is our Savior, and through Jesus we see the Father’s love.

 

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[1] https://hymnary.org/hymn/LSB2006/319006/319

The Universal Language of the Gospel at Pentecost - Genesis 11:1-9

There are times when communication can be very confusing.  Homonyms are spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings. For example, pen. I write with a pen, I keep hogs in a pen, and I can pen a letter to my Mom. Homophones sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings. I won the one-on-one horseshoe game. On a cruise, you see the sea. Homographs are spelled the same but have different pronunciations. I’ll never forget my 3^rd grade teacher being confused by the word MINUTE. He knew it as minute, 60 seconds. He had never heard of the word minute, a small amount.

If homonyms, homophones and homographs (just those words alone are confusing), aren’t enough, then try verb tenses and how verbs change. I see it now, I saw it yesterday, I will see it tomorrow, I have seen it previously, I will have seen it before. I am, you are, he is.  This is among English speakers! I empathize with people who learn English as a second language.

Communication was not like that before the Tower of Babel.  Everyone spoke the same language.  They could work together as a team – like a finely tuned Swiss watch.  A common language made it so that it almost seemed like everyone could read the minds of everyone else.  God Himself said, “Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”  God was not concerned that they would do something worthwhile and noble because they understood one another so well, but He was concerned that they would use their fertile imaginations to dream up all kinds of evil and then bring those evil things to reality.

In order to slow down the growth of evil in the minds of man, God confused their language.  Vocabulary and grammar changed.  No one made any sense to anyone else.  The Babel Tower project was thrown into confusion and the people dispersed over the face of the earth.  Now Mankind could list confusion of language with all the other frustrating curses that our sin has brought into the world.

What was the precise sin that the people did to earn this curse?  The direct simple violation of God’s law is the violation of His command to Noah, “Fill the earth.”  God commanded mankind through His servant Noah to spread out over all the earth and care for it as God’s agents.  Instead, the people stayed together and created a city to glorify their own name.

At a deeper level, though, it doesn’t take much unpacking of today’s Old Testament lesson to find the same sin that got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden.  Before we reach for the forbidden fruit or start making bricks for the tower – before we commit any sinful thought, word, or deed – we must remove God from His rightful place in our lives.  We may not think it consciously, but before we can commit any other sin, we must first assume that either God does not know what is best for us or that He does not want what is best for us.  As I often tell the catechumens, when you break any commandment, you must first break commandment number one, “You shall have no other gods.”

This is the lie that Satan told to Adam and Eve when he said, “You will be like God.”  This is the lie that the people told themselves in today’s Old Testament lesson when they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” The seduction of sin really doesn’t change through the ages.

The first breakdown of communication already happened in Eden.  When God created Adam and Eve, they had a sweet, intimate, loving communication with God who was their dear Father.  Then they sinned and broke our relationship with God.  Our communication with God became a time of fear and trembling.  God was no longer intimate or sweet.  God was far away and something to ignore or even despise.

The curse of Babel still affects us today.  We attend seminars on communication and still manage to hurt the ones we love the most.  One person’s expression of concern appears to be a cross examination to the recipient of that concern.  We often accuse those we should forgive and excuse those we should warn.  Mixed signals and misinterpreted words have added to the frustration that is in this world because of our sin.  The misunderstanding of Babel is all around us even if we think we speak the same language.

In today’s Epistle reading from the second chapter of Acts, we receive a glimpse of the reversal of Babel.  The Holy Spirit revealed Himself with an audible roar and the visual appearance of something that looked like flames resting on the heads of the approximately 120 disciples who were waiting obediently in Jerusalem.  On that day, the communication barrier dropped.  The Holy Spirit prepared these disciples to witness to the works of Jesus Christ in every language under heaven.

Because Pentecost was one of the three great feasts that God gave to His Old Testament saints, the city was full of Godly pilgrims from all over the world.  The rumble of the Holy Spirit drew these God-fearing pilgrims to the disciples.  They heard, in their own languages, the mighty works of God.  On that Pentecost, in the city of Jerusalem, there was a unity of communication between people that had not existed since before Babel.  On that day, in that place, there was a unity of communication from God to man that had not existed since Eden.

In the sweet, intimate, unity of the divine communication of that day, the disciples did not utter heavenly gibberish, but they proclaimed the divine story of salvation in the native tongues of every person who was there.  They told how Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies of the Messiah.  They spoke of His perfect life, His innocent suffering and death, His resurrection, and His ascension.  They spoke of sin and its forgiveness.   In the perfect communication of that day, they praised God by telling of His mighty works, especially the work of saving us from our sin.

Through the perfect communication of that day, the Holy Spirit changed God’s church.  Before Pentecost, God’s people looked forward to the day of the anointed one, the Messiah, the Christ.  We, who live after Pentecost, look to Jesus of Nazareth and believe that He is indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God and the savior of the world.  On that Pentecost day, the church of the Old Testament became the church of the New Testament through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Today’s readings are like two bookends in history.  As a result of the Tower of Babel, God confused the language of the people and dispersed them over the earth.  On that Pentecost when the Holy Spirit rumbled into Jerusalem and revealed Himself with a fiery appearance, He drew the people together and clarified their languages so they could hear the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Tower of Babel teaches us what happens when we rely on ourselves.  The fulfillment of Pentecost teaches us about the power of God the Holy Spirit to work faith in our hearts so that we might believe that God the Father has saved us by His grace for the sake of his Son Christ Jesus.

From today’s readings, we receive confidence to confess our faith to the people in our lives.  The pilgrims who were drawn by the Holy Spirit’s rumbling noted that these preachers were Galileans, common laborers, fishermen, tax collectors, liberation fighters, and so forth.  The message of Pentecost encourages all of us to confess our faith confidently, for no matter how clumsy our communication is, the Holy Spirit has promised to use it to bring salvation to the people we meet.  Then they too can participate in the rumble and fire of Pentecost.  Amen.