Pentecost and Babel

In honor of Pentecost Sunday tomorrow, I thought I would post an unique message I wrote a few years back.

Pentecost and Babel (Genesis 11 & Acts 2)
Think about the events surrounding the first Pentecost, and let’s look how it fits in the story of the Bible, God’s story—the story of Redemption. All the way back in the beginning, God created human beings in relationship to himself—in Eden, we see a picture of humanity at ease with God, close to him and one another, in a place of their own where they belonged… and it was good. When sin entered the world, God cast them from their home, sent them away from himself and began to tear them apart from one another. The good that was God’s image within his creation was marred and broken—we see this in Cain and Abel, in the evil during Noah’s days, and in the tower of Babel story. But in Genesis chapter 12 in the story of Abraham, God begins the work of redeeming his people, restoring what was lost, the beginning of bringing his prodigal sons and daughters back into the family.

In this story of God’s redemption of humanity, Abraham is the beginning of God fixing the problem and Jesus is the climax (and of course, the great wedding banquet in heaven is the final resolution). So what you have is a kind of roller coaster movement… it starts up with Eden, goes down with the Fall, begins to ascend again with Abraham, peaks with Jesus and resolves toward the restored kingdom at the Day of the Lord. So now at Pentecost we begin to see God working things out, the beginnings of the restoration, the reversal of the curses enacted at the Fall.

If you have studied literature to any extent, one thing you would be taught is to pay special attention to foreshadowing and mirroring in the texts because they bring fuller meaning to what is being said. This happens all the time in Scripture, too. God indeed is the Great Storyteller. The big theme is the curse and its effects and then the redemption—the reversal of the curses—and its effect. People, place, presence taken then restored. God’s image taken away and then restored in us.

But I want us to look particularly at two stories of two communities: Babel and Pentecost. Babel is the last story before the beginning of redemption and Pentecost is the first story after the climax of redemption in Jesus… immediately before the upturn and immediately after the downturn… the perfect spot that you might expect to see some parallels.

In Babel, the evil of mankind had grown and grown, their focus had moved away from God and completely on themselves (v.3-4). They had replaced the worship of the Lord with worshipping themselves and their own greatness. On Pentecost, however, we see a community that was amazingly selfless (v.42-47). Their focus was not on themselves but on God.

Again, in Babel, we see a people building a great tower so as to “reach the heavens,” essentially trying to achieve through their own strength a place with God. You see here humans working upward to God. But with Pentecost, you see God reaching down, entering into humanity’s lowliness. Men and women confessed their weakness and need and God gave himself to them there (v.37-38).

And what was the curse of Babel? What was God’s judgment on their self-centeredness and seeking achievement? Disunity through confused language (v.6-8). Ever since Babel, humanity has been cursed to live separated from one another, primarily by language—but more than that—by a failure to be on the same page and to have a singular purpose.

What happened at Pentecost? I admit there’s a lot about the Holy Spirit evidenced by tongues that I don’t understand, but could it be that Pentecost was an indication of God’s redemption, beginning to reverse the curse proclaimed at Babel? What do we see with this early community of believers? Not just understanding each others’ languages, but the restoration of unity, the beginning of real fellowship and community, living lives together with a single purpose… “All the believers were together and had everything in common…” (v.44-47).

So what does this mean for me? Are you living together with other believers? What is keeping you at a distance from real fellowship and community? Have you allowed all of God’s redeeming grace to work in your life? Have you allowed him to save your soul without letting him repair your relationships with others? Think of the community we could be by living in unity!

Listen to what God says about this kind of unity: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” God wants to make us great and empower us—not for our own glory and not to attain a place with God—but in humility and by God’s Spirit we could make a huge impact for the kingdom of God right here. If what we celebrate at Pentecost is the birth of the church, what does this say about what church should be? I guess it means that church is a community of selfless people where God has come and, therefore, shares in real unity and fellowship with one another.

I love the story of God. Because Jesus has come and died and lives again, God has begun to restore us to his family and is making that family whole once again. Won’t you be a part of that story with me?