When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
And the Christian church, founded by the followers of Jesus Christ with power from the Holy Spirit, was born. When Peter stood up to preach that day in the center of the city, the followers and those who believed in all that Peter preached about believed that the coming of the Lord would be soon. The prophecy of the signs that would come were expected any moment, any day, any season - over two thousand years later, they still have not occurred. Oh, many people have predicted the last days. They have read the heavenly signs of fire and smoke, they have witnessed the wars and destruction that were supposed to come with the end times, they have used numerical codes to calculate the last days. None of them have ever been right. Their dates have come and gone. We are still here. What is our purpose? What should we be doing in these intervening years that are still ahead of us?
We should be acting as if the Kingdom of God was here and now, following the mandates of Christ, living our best lives as our best selves. Too often we get caught up in the everyday hassles of life, the struggles and the burden of living. We should be a blessing to God, giving thanks to the creator for the creation and honoring one another as a brother and sister. This is the commandment of Christ, and this is what the Holy Spirit filled the believers with on that Pentecost day of celebration. They went among the strangers in their midst and spoke to them about all that Christ had taught them in the languages of each.
Many have interpreted this passage about speaking in tongues about speaking in each language of the people that were there as witnesses that day. But, this is my interpretation: there is a universal language. One that supersedes vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar. It is the language of love, the language of the heart. God spoke in the beginning of Creation - not with recognizable words that we know as words, but rather from the eternal heart of love. If we speak with a heart of love, we too can create; we can create the Kingdom of God here and now.
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