Pentecost

An artist’s depiction of a scene from the Pentecost appears in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

Pentecost Year C
Jun 8, 2025
Acts 2:1-21

In case you were wondering what all the red is about, today is Pentecost, known in the Christian tradition as the beginning of the church. So it only makes sense for me to start this sermon by wishing you all a Happy Birthday!

The term Pentecost comes from the Greek term meaning “fiftieth,” in reference to the fiftieth day after the start of the Passover festival in early spring. In Hebrew, Pentecost is known as Shavuot, or the Festival of Weeks. It marked the conclusion of the springtime grain harvest. For this reason, it is also referred to as the Festival of the Harvest (Exod 23:16) and the Day of the First Fruits (Num 28:26).¹ By the 1st century, Shavuot became the celebration of the giving of the Torah from Sinai. Luke is likely making a parallel here: just as for Jews the exodus revelation signals the birth of the chosen people of God, for Christians, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit signals the birth of the church.²

Over the centuries, Christians have celebrated Pentecost fifty days after Easter to commemorate the receiving of the Holy Spirit by followers of Jesus during the time that Judeans from around the world would have been gathering in Jerusalem for the festival. It is easy to see, then, how deeply connected our birthing is in Jewish tradition. The Gift of the Torah, which unites a people as a holy nation and priestly kingdom and the Gift of the Spirit, which unites all people. 

Most of those arriving in Jerusalem and those who had settled there permanently provide a scene of great diversity of people with different cultural traditions, ethnic practices, and languages who are gathered on the day of Pentecost. The beginnings of the church were immediately diverse and people from all ethnicities, races, and customs were part of the initial spreading of the Gospel. 

Jesus, who had ascended just a few days before, had told the disciples to stay in the same place in Jerusalem to await the promise of God, so they were all together in a house, waiting. I don’t know if they really knew what they were waiting for and if, after a few days, they weren’t starting to feel a bit ridiculous. They knew to expect an Advocate but what did that mean when their Advocate, Jesus, was no longer around? John records in his Gospel, during his farewell discourse before his crucifixion, Jesus telling his disciples, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.”

I imagine that after witnessing the Resurrection and Ascension though, by now they were going to trust that Jesus was going to make good on his promise. They knew enough to just do what he asked them to even if they didn’t understand it.

God operates on trust. And in the way of God, there’s no siren announcing the promise is on its way nor was there an information flyer detailing what to expect. Another Advocate, is all they know. And it just comes, whether or not you’re ready. It came as a sound, like the rush of a violent wind–not a wind, but the sound of a wind. It must have been like the sound of a derecho or tornado or a hurricane and if you’ve ever experienced wind like that, you know what I mean. The Spirit does not come in on this day like a gentle dove.

The Spirit rested on them like flaming tongues–I still cannot imagine what that was like to witness. From the sound of wind to flaming fire. It is interesting to note how closely the Spirit is connected with creation. Earth, wind, and fire. Then all of them began to speak in other languages. Now, this wasn’t the speaking in spiritual tongues like we find in 1 Corinthians, this event at the first Christian Pentecost was literally speaking in the native languages from different parts of the world that the disciples had never spoken before. They tell of the glories of God, not in the language of the empire but in the languages of the people subject to empire. The Greek is literally, “each in his own language in which we were born.”

This gift was speaking in other people’s languages so that the things that can divide us, like language, are overcome in the Holy Spirit. It is not an accident that this happened at a festival in a city where many people had settled from other parts of the world. On the very first day of the church’s initiation into its calling these very people heard the Gospel in their native tongue. There was no official language of the church, not Greek, not Latin, but in the multiple languages of common  people. 

Of course, when some folks don’t understand what is happening or things stray from normal acceptable public behavior, people will scoff. Just a bunch of Galileans, those weirdos who followed that guy Jesus, and now they’re drunk. So Peter jumps in in the middle of this cacophony and confusion to say it’s only 9 o’clock in the morning, of course they’re not all drunk! And he begins quoting the prophet Joel.

In doing so, he’s reminding people that there is a connection with the Old Testament to the Jewish tradition that the Spirit was promised. The Spirit has been around since the beginning of time, working closely in the process of creation. I think that’s why Jesus was confident in saying the rocks would cry out if we didn’t! The Spirit isn’t a new thing but what is new is that now on this first Pentecost it is given indiscriminately. Instead of being given to just Jesus it is given in an expanse to everyone. Now everyone gets the Spirit because everyone is engaged in the work of prophesying, seeing visions, witnessing to God. Not just priests, not just a select few prophets. This is the symbol that something new is happening, the beginning of a new age–the end of times awaiting the Day of the Lord. Which ultimately is not an ending, but a beginning.

Walter Bruegemann, one of the great theologians of our time who died just this week, wrote: “For Joel the outpouring of the Spirit [is] a prelude to disaster, but for Peter these wonders have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ… and their purpose… is nothing less than the redemption of humankind.”³ The early church was to bear witness to the ends of the earth in the languages of the people of the world; on the day of Pentecost, Christianity became a religion with a divine sanction to multilingualism and to translation.

For Peter—and for Luke, who tells his story—the unusual tongues of fire and abilities of speech are signs that God’s reign is imminent, that God will ultimately redeem God’s people. 

It points to the end of the age in which Peter is speaking and Luke is writing. Luke affirms that on that particular Pentecost—when all Jesus’ followers, named and unnamed, all humankind, young and old, every gender, every ethnicity were given the power of the Spirit of God to bear witness in every language of the good news of Jesus Christ—the coming of the day of the Lord is beginning. While we do not yet see the fulfillment of that promise, as we retell the story of Pentecost one more time, we remember that, according to Luke, it will surely come.

And how are we, the church, to be in this age?  the Kingdom of God is now, as also in heaven. We do not sit back and just wait–we live out this salvation now. As a reminder from last week, Salvation to the disciples in the 1st century did not mean what it came to mean in medieval times and has carried over into today. Salvation comes from the word salve, a balm, a healing ointment for wounds. Jesus is our salvation from whatever each of us needs rescuing from, needs healing from; our restoration from the ravages of sin, he restores us to wholeness. 

And while we are living in the last days, it is not The Last Day and The Spirit comes to us as a breath, a gentle dove, or it comes like the sound of a violent wind that breaks through our barriers to open the Gospel of salvation not just to all people, but to you, to us as a church. The Spirit is our advocate and guide in these times. Its wind may break down the barriers that hold you back from being free, and may break down the barriers the church has built up to release the Gospel to all people we have been kept out. 

The church has too often been known as a place of unforgiving judgment and barriered doors. The Spirit may come like a flame of fire to burn in our hearts to fling the doors open so that the Gospel message of Jesus the Christ will burst forth in a way we never⁴ expect and speak a language of love so profoundly to people who desperately need God’s restoration and healing power, including all of us here today. On this Pentecost may we truly learn to speak the language of love that so desperately needs to be heard and witnessed.

1.  Werlin, Steve. Pentecost, Bible Odyssey. 2019. https://www.bibleodyssey.org/articles/pentecost/ ↩︎
2.  Margaret P. Aymer, Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 3 ↩︎
3. Brueggemann, Texts for Preaching, Year B, p. 349) ↩︎
4. Margaret Aymer ↩︎