What Does This Mean?

Our text for this evening's message is a portion of our second reading from Acts.

"And all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another, "What does this mean?" And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

What does this mean? Anyone growing up in the Lutheran Church, understands that, "What does this mean?" is a pretty often-used phrase in our Christian formation. You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? You shall not commit adultery. What does this mean? I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth? What does this mean? Our Father, Who Art in Heaven. What does this mean? And thanks be to God that Luther gives us a very simple answer to what is meant by the basic teaching of the Christian faith.

The small catechism. In his day, The People's Bible, because they couldn't afford a scripture of their own. They had to rely on windows and the pictures of windows to understand the scripture. And then Luther simplified in a simple way that they could understand the basic teaching of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. On that first day of Pentecost, there must have been an awful lot of confusion.

That sound of the rushing wind. Now, I don't know. Did they have rushing winds in Judea? Probably. If we heard a rushing wind right now, what would we immediately think was going on? Probably a tornado. And it's like "Oh, great. We're stuck up here. We should be downstairs." But have no fear, Pastor's preaching on and whatever. But anyways, so this rushing wind must have been a surprise, and then to see these little, sometimes they're pictured like little Bic lighter flames up above people, the disciple, the Believers' heads. What's that all about?

I wouldn't recommend trying to put together some gadget with a Bic lighter and walk around on Pentecost with little flames sticking up above your head. Might set your hair on fire, or somebody else's sitting next to you who may have used hairspray But for those first Believers, I mean, Jesus says He's going to send The Comforter, the Holy Spirit. But He doesn't say how He's going to send it.

I have no idea what the Spirit is like, other than Jesus says that it is The Comforter. The one who will guide you into all the truth. The one that will help make sense of all of this stuff that's happened over these years that right now doesn't make a lot of sense, or how does it all fall into place?

And so, it wasn't like they had a picture of what the Holy Spirit was going to be looking like. But apparently it was such that they understood that that which was taking place, was the coming of the Holy Spirit, the sound of the rushing wind. It's interesting in both the Greek language and the Hebrew language, the same word is used to translate wind, breath and spirit. Wind, breath, spirit. All the same word. And in fact, Jesus is talking about the Spirit - I believe it was part of His conversation with Nicodemus, you know, about being born from above and baptism. And the reason the Son is going to be lifted up for the salvation of mankind. And Jesus says: the wind. You can't control the wind, can you? Now, we may be able to harness the wind to make it useful for us, by a windmill, or for a sailor by our sales, or for an aviator, by the wings of our plane. We can harness the wind, but we cannot control the wind. And Jesus says the wind comes and goes, it blows hither and yonder wherever it wants to. But you can see where it's been. You can see where it is. You can hear it in the rustle of the leaves. You can see it in the rustling leaves. If you're a sailor, you might put what they call a Telltale on the top of your mast. Now, one of my friends, his Telltale was a cassette tape, you know, that stuff that, you know, your cassette goes kaflewey in the player and it's not good for anything. Well, it was so light, he put it up there because, as a sailor, even the lightest wind is going to help you, and that would show which direction it was coming from. So, obviously, it's the opposite direction of the tail where the things going. So if the tail is pointing this way, the wind's coming from that direction. And then you can steer the boat.

So that's found, those flames certainly were indicators of the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples.

And along with that, each of them were able to speak in - our translation says different tongues. Basically, they spoke in different languages. They all new Greek, all those lists of people citizens that were living in Jerusalem and Judea could speak Greek. So they could have communicated God's word by just speaking in Greek. But rather instead, God enabled each of those disciples to speak about Jesus Christ and the good news of what he's done in the language, the native language of each and every one of those people. And they say, "What does this mean? Aren't these men Galileans? How is it, then, that we hear them each speaking in our native tongue?" It's like they wouldn't know Parthian, or Mead, or Latin. And yet the Holy Spirit, God enabled them to speak in that language. And in those different languages, God would unite His people. In one faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior.

You remember way back in the Old Testament, book of Genesis, after the flood, God wanted the people to spread over the earth, to populate the earth. And they all they wouldn't move, they would not move. They said "Let's make a name for ourselves," so they built this tower up to heaven, and God came down to see what they were doing. And He said, "You know, these people are not going to get moving unless I get them moving." So he confused their language. Hense the Tower of Babel, but only one B. Not like the Babble, that is the thing that teaches you languages. But on that day, God separated, dispersed all those people, because they wanted to unite under their own achievement. They didn't want to obey God. But, now on Pentecost, all those that have been scattered by language, God uses that same language, even in our very own day, to bring people together in faith in Jesus Christ as His Son. We're still sending out missionaries to parts of the world where languages are being discovered. There may be just a spoken language and they have to put it into a written form. And then in written form, then they have to teach the people. That hey, this is what you say. This is how you would read what you say. That's a long process. All to get them to be able to get God's word in their own language. So that they can know the wonders of God, that they can read about Him in their own language as Creator of the universe. As well as Savior of the world from sin and death. As well as the Holy Spirit, the Comforter who guides and leads and directs us in our faith.

And some are confused, and they wonder, "What does this mean?" And some would say, "Ah, they're only a bunch of drunkards. They're drunk on wine." And Peter steps up and says, "Hey no. It's only the third hour." That is its 9:00 in the morning. It's too early to be drunk. But then Peter - now we may be wondering how in the world was Peter so skilled and knowledgeable as to be able to put together that what was happening was a fulfillment of what the prophet Joel had said, centuries before?

We might say, isn't this a Galilean fishermen? And how does he know this? Well, the answer of course, is the Holy Spirit told him: hey, this is the fulfillment of what the prophet Joel spoke about, how about in those days, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. You see, God is saying, through the prophet Joel, that hey, My good news, My salvation, My grace, it's not just for the house of Israel, but it's for all people all flesh. And in those days, at the right time, or as Paul says, in the fullness of time, God sends forth His Holy Spirit. And Jesus says in our Gospel, "It's good that I go. Because unless I go, the Holy Spirit isn't going to come."

And our Lord wants us to have the Holy Spirit. Because He knows that the Holy Spirit is the one who called us out of the world by His word to be His people. And that it's that same Holy Spirit that calls us out of the world and works faith in us whenever God's word is present. And does great things when it's connected with ordinary water, or ordinary bread and wine. Offering us the water of baptismal grace, cleansing of sin, and the meal of our Lord's very body and blood. And those those days it shall be, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Now, we sometimes get a little confused about prophecy. We think that primarily, or primarily what comes to mind when we hear the word "prophecy" is oh, something about the future. Something about the future.

Guess what? I've been prophesying to you this evening, but I haven't said anything about the future yet, have I? Prophecy, first and foremost, is simply speaking forth God's word, speaking forth God's word. And every time we share the good news, we tell the good news about Jesus, we confess our faith, we're prophesying. We're speaking forth the word of God. We're speaking forth the word of God.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now, that long list of people, they're all Gentiles. I suppose they could add in there - if they wanted, they probably weren't in Jerusalem, but they existed that, you know, the Goths, the Visigoths, the Germanians, you know, our ancestors, the Vikings, the Norsemen.

All people come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the one who defeats sin, death and the devil by His life, by His death, His resurrection, His Ascension, and now calls all people to be part of His body through that Holy Spirit. Who Luther says calls gathers and enlightens us, even as He calls enlightens and gathers, the entire Christian Church.

But that Holy Spirit, He kind of works in the background, doesn't He?

What would it be like if y'all jumped up and started speaking in your native language? I mean, not English but like your ethnic native language. I mean, I'd be feeling pretty good if I could speak German fluently like a German should.

Or if I were speaking Italian. I have no Italian in me, but who needs Babel if you could just, if the Holy Spirit just did that? Or what if during a baptism, you know, not that the ceiling opens up or anything, but what if God revealed Himself in the form of a dove? In the midst of a sanctuary? Be pretty wild, wouldn't it? Maybe even make the front page of the Daily Tribune, huh? Holy Spirit manifest himself at the baptism of whoever. But he does. We just don't see it the same way.

He's active. He's at work. He's at work in your life. He's at work in the life of your family. When you speak God's word to them, He's at work in the co-worker, the neighbor whenever you're speaking God's word to them, because that's His work, but He does it behind the scenes.

It's often like the night shift workers. We're alseep in our bed, sleeping peacefully, restfully, and maybe we don't even give a thought to the EMS, or ambulance, First Responders that are working the night shift or the police that are working the night shift to keep our city safe, our community safe over the overnight hours. We don't see them, so we may not think of them. Likewise, the Holy Spirit, we don't see Him, so then we may not think of Him. Or maybe, because He's so shy, we may over ... Can't think of the word I want. But, you know, play Him up more than He wants to be played up. Make more to do about the Holy Spirit than what we should be. After all, the Holy Spirit is to guide us and show us Jesus, not Himself.

But what does it mean for you and me, that first Pentecost? It meant that God was fulfilling His word. If you were with me last week, you heard Jesus was praying that we would be kept in His word, and that apart from God's word, there is no truth. And so here, now, God is bringing to fulfillment a promise that He made to His people way back in the days of the prophet Joel. And He's still carrying that promise out in our day. Because still in our day, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

That's what it means. That's what that first Pentecost meant. It meant that now, God was moving His focus, not away from His chosen people, Israel, but He was including in His focus, all people. And we sometimes forget that God still has a heart for His people Israel, but He wants them to come to the knowledge of Jesus as their Savior. Not some other Messiah. And so, sometimes we forget. We forget to include His ancient people. You know, St. Paul, he was sorrowful because his people wouldn't receive Jesus. His people wouldn't receive Jesus. And he knew that apart from them receiving Jesus, they couldn't have eternal life. They couldn't share in the benefit of those blessings that Jesus bestows through faith.

And we, too, can identify with Saint Paul's anguish when we, too, have family and friends who are hardened against God's word. And we know that because of that, they won't share in the blessings that our Lord Jesus makes available because of His death and resurrection. No sharing in the forgiveness of sins. No sharing in eternal life in heaven. No sharing in the victory over the devil. No joy of salvation, or peace knowing sin is forgiven. But yet, the Holy Spirit continues to work in our world, not only through pastors and missionaries, but through Christian men, women and children. Because we all are able to speak forth God's word.

Martin Luther enabled that word of God to be put in the people's language which continues today. We continue to speak that good news about Jesus. Yes, in English, but we prepare missionaries to go a nd speak it in native heart languages of people around the world.

And in every place, all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's God's promise. It was a promise made through the prophet, Joel. It was a promise renewed on that first Pentecost. And it's a promise that continues even to our day in the generations beyond.

Thanks be to God. That what He had one scattered by language because of man's sin, now He unites through language to show the salvation from man's sin, in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. And may His word continue to dwell in each of us richly. That we may be assured that whenever we call upon the name of the Lord, we ourselves are surely saved. And may we rejoice in the salvation that we share in those benefits, freely given by God's gracious mercy, through His Son, Jesus Christ, delivered to us in His word and in His sacrament through the Holy Spirit, and accepted by faith through that Holy Spirit dwelling within each of us. Amen. Now may the peace of God, which surpasses our understanding, keep our hearts and our minds in faith in Christ, Jesus onto life everlasting. Amen.