Text:  Acts 2:1-21                                                                                                                Pentecost

What Does This Mean?

In the name of him who pours out his Spirit upon us today, dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

There’s an old saying that goes: "Never underestimate the ability of some people to misunderstand you." It’s a sound bit of advice for everyone - but it’s an especially critical consideration for anyone who speaks publicly or who has a position of leadership or authority of some kind. Why’s that? Well, anyone can be misunderstood, but as a rule public personalities have more folks listening to what they say; and the more people you have listening, the more likely it is that somebody’s going to take it the wrong way. It’s simply a question of having greater exposure. But there’s another reason, which, depending on the speaker, may be even more important. And that’s that people in high profile positions always have their detractors. There are folks who oppose them for any number of reasons, and because of that, no matter what they say or do you can bet it’s going to be misunderstood. Some people out there actually want to misunderstand them.

We see this with politicians all the time. One of them will stand up and say something, for example, about the need to support the community’s traditional nuclear families. Now, the comment is made in good faith. The politician really means it. And he or she is actively seeking ways to use their office to do something about it. And, c’mon, it’s a statement that no one should be able to argue with: strong, two-parent families are good for any community. But it doesn’t matter: sharp-shooting political opponents are already taking deadly aim. "Just what do you mean by that? What’s all this about traditional families? What about nontraditional families? Why don’t you think they need support?" "And what about single people? Why are you picking on them?" "It’s obvious that you think single parents can’t properly raise their own children; isn’t that so?" "Traditional families? Hah! We know what you’re really up to. That’s just a code phrase for your real agenda. You’re another one of those fundamentalist wackos who thinks women should be at home, barefoot and pregnant. Next thing you’ll be trying to make all women wear those black burqas like they do in Saudi Arabia." And so it goes, people taking a simple comment and deliberately spinning it to mean whatever negative thing they want to interpret - presumably in order to justify their own opposition to the speaker.

And it doesn’t just happen to politicians. I’m sure that just about every one of you has had the experience of having something you said come back to you after having been received by someone in the worst possible way. You ended up saying something like: "Well, yes, that’s what I said - but that’s not what I meant!" It happens all the time. But, like I said, it’s a very common problem for anyone with a lot of exposure, and especially if they have authority of some kind: civil leaders, managers, supervisors, teachers, ...pastors (boy, don’t I know it!); and it seems the more people you deal with and the more authority you have, the more likely it is that somebody’s not going to understand what you say - either accidentally or on purpose.

And so it really shouldn’t surprise us that He who has by far the highest profile and the greatest authority is also the One who is most frequently and most completely misunderstood. I speak, of course, of the Lord God whom we worship. Though he has spoken clearly on just about every issue pertaining to our human existence, and he has painstakingly ensured that it has been recorded and handed down to us in the Bible, relatively few people know even a small fraction of what he said, and even fewer understand what he means by it.

It has been that way since the beginning. Already in the Garden of Eden we see the Lord’s chief detractor spinning his words and bringing confusion where there was before absolute clarity: "Did God really say? He did? Huh, what do you suppose he means by that? You shouldn’t eat this fruit? You’ve gotta be kidding! No, no, no, that’s not what he meant; what he really meant to say is this."

And unfortunately, since that time, people have ever more increasingly misunderstood the Lord. Sometimes it’s been because they were deceived, or because they didn’t like what the Lord had to say, or because they were afraid of the truth. But the biggest factor all along has been because fallen mankind’s spiritual understanding has been darkened by sin. Our ability to comprehend and appreciate what the Lord has to say has been crippled. As the apostle Paul wrote, "Those without the Spirit cannot understand the things of the Spirit. They are foolishness to them." And so we see that since the fall, the history of the human race, and more specifically the history of the nation of Israel, which more than any other nation had the continuing revelation of God through the prophets, is one of taking the words of God and twisting, opposing, ignoring, ridiculing, and otherwise failing to understand them.

This really becomes apparent as we study the ministry of Jesus. As he goes from place to place teaching, the vast majority of people never seem to understand what Jesus is talking about. Now, to be fair, that’s often because he speaks to the crowds in parables. But we see it’s that way even for his closest disciples to whom he explains the meaning of his parables. He’ll spend hours teaching them something when all of a sudden one of them will pipe up with a question that proves he hasn’t got the slightest idea what Jesus has been talking about. Jesus will throw his arms up and say, "Are you still so dull that you don’t get this?" And then he’ll patiently explain it all to them again - but more often than not, they still don’t understand.

The clearest example of this is when he tells them several times point blank, "I’m going to Jerusalem. When I get there I’m going to be arrested and crucified. Three days later I’ll rise again from the dead." They nod blankly like the students in Monday morning Confirmation classes. "Uh huh. Okay." But then they’re all completely shocked and surprised when they get to Jerusalem and, sure enough, he’s arrested and killed. They’re even more surprised when they see him alive after the resurrection. "Who have guessed that was going to happen?" But even then, they still didn’t get it. Last week, in one of the readings, we heard how on the day of his ascension Jesus gathered the disciples on the Mount of Olives. Now, bear in mind that Jesus has told them time and again that his is a spiritual kingdom, and that their long held dream of an earthly messianic kingdom was a nothing but creative Jewish mythology. Nevertheless, some of them ask him, "Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?" Incredibly (to us), still, they do not understand what his mission of salvation to lost mankind is all about. They just don’t get it - nor can they.

Jesus tells them to go back into Jerusalem and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit whom he promised to send. The Spirit, he told them, would remind them of and explain to them all the things he had taught them. We heard in today’s Gospel reading another occasion shortly before his crucifixion when Jesus promised to send the Spirit. This time Jesus refers to him as the "Counselor", or as you’ll sometimes see in other translations he calls him the "Paraclete". The word actually means someone who walks along beside you, talking to you, directing your steps, and encouraging you. Imagine a person who’s undergoing therapy to relearn to walk after months of reconstructive surgery and recovery following a terrible accident. That physical therapist who helps the patient up, and supports his weight, and says, "Okay, first the right foot. Good. That’s right. Very good. Now the left", that’s the kind of picture given by the word Jesus uses to describe the work of the Spirit - except it isn’t physical therapy that we need, it’s spiritual therapy. We need spiritual therapy to understand the Word of God and to apply it to our lives.

That’s the work of the Holy Spirit whose pouring out upon the church we celebrate today. He makes God understood to those who are in spiritual darkness, who otherwise could not make sense of anything the Lord says. We all said that just a bit ago when we said, "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts" and so on "in the same way that he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth."

That’s exactly what we see happening in today’s reading from Acts. We find the disciples together in one place - probably in one of the temple courts, as we know that the disciples gathered on Sundays to worship and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. So here’s a group that had been called by Jesus and gathered by him, and they’re here remembering his words and actions - but the light has not yet come on. And Whoosh! All of a sudden it happens. With the coming of the Spirit, the light does come on. The Word of God is opened to them. What Jesus had taught them makes sense. There’s even a physical manifestation of it, the little flames on each of their heads, to show what’s going on in the inside: the enlightenment of their minds, hearts, and souls. The communication barrier between God and man is suddenly ended.

We see that communication barrier even collapsing between people as the disciples begin to speak the Gospel message in languages they had never spoken before. Through them the Spirit calls, gathers, and enlightens more people to add to the church. A large crowd comes over to the disciples. The sound of the Spirit’s coming has attracted their attention. They’ve been called. They gather around the disciples and are astonished to hear these uneducated Galileans all speaking the native languages of the lands they came from. The words are clear - but they still don’t get it. They stand around asking, "What does this mean?" [Which, by the way, proves that the first Pentecost Christians were Lutheran. Anyway] Peter stands up and begins to address them to answer the question, and what’s most interesting about Peter’s speech is that the vast majority of it is him quoting Scriptures that he had not understood before.

But before Peter is through speaking, he will have shown from the Scriptures that the Lord’s Christ had to be crucified for the sins of the world and raised to life again. And the crowd listening to him will be convicted of their sins and ask him what they should do, to which he will reply, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and you [too] will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." That is precisely what happens as the Spirit illumines their hearts and minds as well through the preaching of Peter and baptism in the name of Jesus.

But, sadly, there are plenty of folks standing around who still don’t get it. They are witnessing a miracle. They hear the disciples speaking in other languages, but it sounds like a bunch of gibberish to them because they cannot understand the words. They assume - no, rather they deliberately choose to misunderstand - that it’s nothing more than the incomprehensible babble of drunkards. But what’s really going on is that they are hardening their hearts to the work of the Spirit. They are rejecting what they see and hear and so are closing out the light that would have helped them to see the truth of the Gospel of Jesus. Because they actually prefer to remain in the dark, they cannot understand what God is saying to them.

And so it is even today. Some people continue to reject the work of the Spirit in their lives. We hear them complain that the Scriptures don’t make sense, that they are contradictory, that they are inconsistent with science, or that the moral standards they uphold are hopelessly out of date. Sometimes we hear them denounce the Christian faith because even Christians cannot agree on what the Scriptures mean. Whatever. In their opposition to the Lord, they will grasp at any excuse to close out the light of the Spirit and continue to misunderstand what the Lord has said.

But the readings for today are instructive for those of us who have, by God’s grace, received the illumination of the Holy Spirit. First, they show us that without his work in our lives, we couldn’t begin to understand the Scriptures or see in them the person and saving work of our Lord Jesus. The Gospel by which we are saved would not make any sense without the Spirit, the Paraclete, speaking to our hearts and walking us through spiritual therapy.

Secondly, we should see that with the Spirit’s illumination we can be lead to an increasingly deeper understanding of God’s Word, and by it to a closer and more intimate walk with our Lord Jesus. We know that Jesus is the Word of God. By spending time in the Word and allowing the Spirit to shine his light on it in our minds, whole new visions of the Savior appear before us. That’s what the prophecy from Joel says: you will see visions. And you know it when it happens. You’re looking at a passage or a story in the Scripture, and you come across something rather puzzling. You think, "What does this mean? What is this saying about Christ?" And Whoosh! It hits you. You can practically feel the light go on when it happens. Now, I’m the first to admit that there are other times when it doesn’t happen, when the puzzle remains unsolved. You think, "I know there’s something more here, but I just can’t put my finger on it." It’s frustrating - and yet it shouldn’t surprise us. In the Scriptures we dealing with the infinite mind of God, and though we have his Spirit to illumine our minds, there’s still a lot of darkness in there. Which is why we keep looking in God’s Word and opening our minds and hearts to his Spirit’s guiding light, allowing him to reveal what he would have us see in his good time.

Finally, I think it’s necessary to issue one point of caution. We see in these readings that is the work of the Spirit to illumine what God has revealed to us through his Word. It’s a mistake for us to go looking for revelations from the Spirit apart from the Word. Unfortunately this is done in some quarters of the church. People and pastors will go around saying, "God told me", or "in a dream last night God showed me this vision of the future", or my all time favorite, "God told me to tell you". (Unscrupulous fellows can get a lot of mileage of that one - and a lot of them do. I’ve always wondered why people don’t respond to them, "Yeah, well if God wanted me to know that, he’d have told me himself".) In any case, we will do well to avoid those who claim to have such extra-biblical revelations, dreams, and prophecies.

We need to stick with the revealed Word of God, and remember that we need to rely on the Holy Spirit whom he has given us to open our spiritual eyes and lead us to truth. In this way he will answer the question: What does this mean? And he sanctify us, and keep us with the whole Christian church in the one true faith, and give to us everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!