What in the World is Jesus doing? Acts 2:1-13

Gumbo

I’ve only been to New Orleans once… for a convention in the late 90s. One highlight for me, like many places I’ve visited, was the food, especially seafood gumbo. Multiple nights, multiple restaurants, multiple bowls of seafood gumbo. Seafood Gumbo typically includes a combination of shrimp, crab, oysters, even clams. It has a host of other ingredients and is usually served over rice. What’s fascinating about the history of Gumbo is that the dish is a combination of French, German, Spanish, West African, and Native American Choctaw dishes. It is literally a world dish thrown together by the nations landing and staying at the Port of New Orleans.

Too often we miss the world in our story today. Like Jesus’ ascension, what took place on the very first Pentecost has been misunderstood and misconstrued. We approach this text as if we must somehow find the ingredients to recreate the spectacular, when in fact, the spectacular has already been made fore us and is present among us.

Pentecost Sunday

Our story takes place 50 days after the Passover during which Jesus was crucified. Pente means 50. The Feast of Weeks was the festival at the end of a seven week period celebrating the end of the grain harvest. Like the Passover, it was an occasion for Jews all over the Roman empire to travel to Jerusalem for the big holiday. The particular Pentecost was not only 50 days after Jesus was crucified, it was also 1 week to 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven.

From Heaven

The disciples saw Jesus go into heaven itself where he ascended to the right hand of the Father so that he could fill all things. That becomes important because of what happens on Pentecost:

Acts 2:2 A violent rushing sound came from heaven

We will get to the sound in a second, but don’t miss what Dr. Luke is saying… whatever is happening in that moment is from the very place where Jesus is… from heaven. And once again what we have is another event in which the very glory presence of heaven is intruding into time and space. Here’s how Dr. Luke describes it:

A violent rushing sound + flames of fire

If you the congregation hearing this for the first time, your hair stands up. You’ve seen this before in your Old Testament. When God was present with Israel at Mount Sinai after they went through the Red Sea, he made himself present and known with thundering violent sounds and a blazing fire on top of the mountain. Elijah himself heard the violent sound and saw the fire on the same mountain. And now here, one week after Jesus ascends into the glory of heaven, the glory of heaven is back again, only this time it is to be seen and heard by everybody in a majestic way.

And it’s coming from heaven. When Jesus gives the gift of the Holy Spirit, there is no ascent to heaven to get him. Once again, God is descending from heaven to earth because we cannot climb to heaven. Heaven must come to us.

All Together, All Filled

What’s fascinating about the way this chapter begins is that while Jews had come from all over the empire to the temple, Jesus’ followers were not there. They were still together in a house, again, probably part of that Upper Room that they had been operating from since the Passover and Jesus’ Last Supper. But Luke takes pains to make sure that we see this:

Acts 2:1 They were all together in one place

Acts 2:2 The whole house was filled

Acts 2:4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit

Nothing is not touched by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Nobody is not filled. They were all together, they were all filled, the whole house was filled. It fills everything and everyone. Jesus had promised that he would send the gift of the Holy Spirit and this is Jesus making good on His promise. This gift of the Holy Spirit is for all.

“In our own language”

But Jesus is also making good on his other promise. Jesus had promised to make his followers his witnesses. I always find this fascinating here that the gift of the Spirit wasn’t more subtle. It’s anything but subtle. It is loud and it is visible, just like Sinai. The flames of fire look like tongues because the descent of the Spirit isn’t a gift just for the people in that room. This gift is for the whole world.

Acts 2:4 “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them.”

They are speaking in different tongues, and the question becomes “what tongues?” and Dr. Luke immediately answers this:

Acts 2:6 Each one heard them speaking in his own language.

Four times this is described here:

“In different tongues”

“In his own language”

“In our own native tongue”

“In our own tongues”

In order to understand what is going on here in this amazing moment at Pentecost, we have to go back to the Tower of Babel. We read the story moments ago from Genesis. God looks down from heaven and he sees and hears humanity in rebellion. Humanity had been told to fill the earth with God’s image and glory and humanity says “nope”. Humans decide they will be God and that they will set the rules. They decide that they're going to build a tower to reach up to the heavens in order to show God a thing or two. Humanity has been rebelling since the beginning of the world. God says “I already sent a flood, but this time I'm going to do something different.” He scatters the population of the Earth across the entire globe by confounding the languages. And ever since then humanity has been in confusion, fractured, and at war with each other.

Here at Pentecost, the languages are not unified. What is unified is the message of the Gospel. The story of Jesus and His Good News is One Message for all of humanity through His Spirit. Jesus had said “I'm going to use you as my Witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.” He also said “I'm going to send you My Spirit and through the power of the Spirit you're going to accomplish what I have promised. You have everything you need in order for the gospel to go from Jerusalem to the ends of the Earth. And when they open their mouths that day, everyone hears the Good News of Jesus in their own language.

Mythbusting Pentecost

It’s impossible to come to this text in 2025 and not acknowledge that there are misunderstandings of this text that run deep through our American Christianity. From time to time I get asked what we believe about this event… I think this is the place to make a couple of comments. We stick to what the Bible actually says about this. And that saves us from all sorts of extra stuff and speculation. Our rule of thumb for all things: If it’s not in the Bible, or runs contrary to the Bible, it is not something that we affirm.

First,

This is a one time event.

This event isn’t to be duplicated, or even attempted. First, off… remember what Luke has described: this is God coming to his people uninvited. This is a descent from heaven where Jesus dwells with the Father. But more importantly, this is a salvation event that has everything to do with the Gospel. A lot of people come to this passage, and all they're looking for is how to duplicate what happened. We need to understand that this is an event just like Christ's birth, just like his death, just like his resurrection, just like his Ascension. This is a salvation event in Redemption History in which Jesus sends the Spirit because he has ascended to the right hand of the Father. And while the Spirit will descend on Gentiles in chapter 10 so that the church knows this gift isn’t just for Jews, there is no mention of an event like this in the rest of the New Testament.

Second,

The Holy Spirit is a person.

The Holy Spirit is a person. He is not a force. He is not a feeling. He is the third person of the Godhead, three-in-one, that we confess and affirm what the Bible is saying about Him. I’m often surprised at how often this comes up. All of church history reads the Bible this way. The Trinity is not an invention of the church. The Trinity is explained throughout the Bible. God is three persons, yet one God. The Bible doesn’t explain how that is. Just that it is.

Third,

The tongues were commonly known languages

A lot of people want to know, “What was that miracle again?” There's a lot of confusion about this, which is ironic. There's a lot of bad information about what the tongues are. Tongues, according to the Bible, are nothing other than somebody opening their mouth and speaking a language that isn’t theirs to communicate to someone with a different language. If I'm an English speaker, and you're a Spanish speaker, what comes out of my mouth is Spanish. So that you, the Spanish speaker, can understand it. Some have wondered if this was a miracle of the ears, so that I'm speaking English, but you're hearing it in Spanish. I tend to think that because the tongues of fire are emphasized here, the miracle is actually at the mouth of the speakers because this is God's word being spoken. So as Peter opens his mouth, as the other Apostles open their mouths, they're speaking in the languages that are represented by the Nations listed here (and we’ll get to this in a second). If you're a Greek, you're hearing Peter speak Greek. If you are Spanish, you're hearing Peter speak Spanish. If you are an Italian.. these languages didn’t exist then, but that’s the example. All the different languages of the known world are hearing the story of Jesus and his death and resurrection in their own language.

Unintelligible languages are not a thing in the Bible. If we're going to stick to what the Bible's doing, and allowing the Bible to tells us what tongues are… tongues are intelligible words and they're known languages. The miracle is that all of a sudden Bresson can speak Spanish so that you hear me in your heart language. Or if I’m in Hong Kong, all of a sudden I can speak Cantonese, or the Philippines, Tagalog. I’m speaking a language that can be understood by the person I'm talking to. If you look at tongues and the way it's practiced today, that is not what you get. What you get isn’t found in the Bible. Every once in a while, when someone points this out, the response is “well, it’s a language somewhere in the world”, kind of like “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere in the world”. Then I want to know, “where’s the person in the audience who has known that heart language all of their lives understanding the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the first time?” Because that’s what’s happening with the tongues in the Bible.

The Gospel for the Nations

But this miracle runs to the heart of the story, which totally gets missed when we start talking about this story. Most of the ink in this story is dedicated to the people hearing Jesus’ followers. They dominate this story. We’re fascinated with the Spirit’s descent from heaven in a blaze of glory and the miracle of the tongues. But the real story is the listeners. The hearers.

Dr. Luke tells us this is the audience:

Acts 2:5 Now there were Jews staying in Jerusalem, devout people from every nation under heaven.

This is the real story here. Jesus told his followers that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed to all nations. Jesus had promised that He would make them His witnesses to the end of the earth and here we find that all nations and the end of the earth is right here in this moment at this time to hear the Gospel.

And if we miss that point about “people from every nation under heaven”, Luke doubles down:

Acts 2:9–11 “Parthians, Medes, Elamites; those who live in Mesopotamia, in Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts), Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the magnificent acts of God in our own tongues.”

We don’t recognize those ethnicities today, but Luke’s audience sure did. Just like the Table of Nations in Genesis and the Tower of Babel, this is the New Table of Nations who are being united together in the hearing of the Gospel through the gift of the Spirit. That’s the miracle. This is the Pentecost Gumbo! A whole stew of people made from the entire world. The entire known world is hearing the Gospel in their own language for the salvation of their souls. The whole world is at the temple that day. And Peter is about to preach a sermon, and when he delivers a sermon for the ages, every person sitting there is going to hear the Great News of Jesus in their own language.

Pentecost is FOR US

People want to know “Hey, how do we get in on this Spirit thing here? How do we get in on what happens at Pentecost?” Peter actually has the answer at the very end of his sermon. The crowd that is listening to Peter’s sermon are convicted of their sin. Peter tells them that they crucified the very One who made the world, the very One who had been promised in the Old Testament, which means many of these same people had been at this very temple at the Passover 7 weeks prior. This crowd is now cut to the heart and they ask Peter, “what are we supposed to do?” Peter says I’ve got some really Good News for you.

Acts 2:38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

We take Peter’s statement literally here at The Table. repent and be baptized for, first of all, the Forgiveness of sins. And second of all, to receive the Holy Spirit. You want forgiveness? You want this same gift of the Holy Spirit? Repent and be baptized.

What in the World is Jesus doing?

In the Ascension, Jesus goes to the right hand of the Father so that he can be everywhere with us. And now here at Pentecost, Jesus gives us the power of the Spirit who is also everywhere with us. The Spirit is always operating on behalf of Jesus and His Good News. Jesus is using His Spirit Who uses His Word to make the Good News known to the world. The Spirit doesn’t operate on His own; it’s always on behalf of Jesus, making much of Jesus. What in the world is Jesus doing? First, Jesus and the Spirit are

Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) are making sure that the Gospel is known.

The point of the tongues is so that everybody hears the Good News of repentance and forgiveness. Second,

Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) are making sure that salvation is for everybody.

Salvation isn’t just for this group or that group. It’s not for the holy huddle of special people who understand the Bible correctly. Salvation is for all. What we need to see and understand here in San Benito, is that Jesus has given us a building so that the Gospel can be known by everybody. Are the Nations going to come to the building? Before we say “no”, look around. We have multiple cultures here. We truly are bilingual and we truly are bi-cultural. That’s a Jesus thing. That’s a Holy Spirit thing.

But we are also praying that Jesus is going to use this building for all nations, that this facility is used to not only serve our community but also disciple and educate and train people to talk about Jesus in places more than just San Benito. We have an educational wing here. It’s need a lot of work. But it’s a space that can be used by Jesus to help educate and train others to explain the Gospel and the Bible for all people… here in San Benito and around the world.

My hope and prayer is it all of this is used for what Jesus was doing that day where he is beginning to fulfill his promise in Acts 1:8: I'm going to take you and you're going to be my Witnesses. I promise I'm going to make you my Witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the Earth. He's kept that promise. We are here because of that promise.. we are the ends of the Earth so to speak it. The Good News of Jesus moved from Jerusalem down through the centuries and 2000 years and now it's here in San Benito. But he also wants us be in that same mode that this is a Jerusalem, so to speak.. that this becomes a place where the gospel is launched in all sorts of places: across the street, down the street, into our community, but also into other cities and other neighborhoods and hopefully around the world.

On this Pentecost Sunday, let’s pray that Jesus uses The Table through His Spirit to bring the Good News to others, even this week.

Let’s Pray

The Table

This Table is for the whole world. Every nation. Every language. Here Jesus gives us unity. He unites us together in His Body and in His Blood. This Table provides forgiveness. This Table provides salvation and life. If you look at church artwork regarding the Lord’s Supper, you often see the cup and the bread with a dove or with fire. Pentecost lands right here at this meal. Through The Word, Jesus gives us His Spirit. And it is here that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the death of Jesus FOR YOU. Every time we come to this Table, it is Pentecost being made real for us in His Body and in His Blood through The Holy Spirit. And it is for all nations.

Benediction