“We hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.”
Luke in the Acts of the Apostles gives us the most dramatic account of the coming of the Holy Spirit. There is wind and fire and speaking of foreign languages. The sound effects, the big diverse crowds, the intimate interior, the grand street scene – this is for sure the basis of a great screenplay.
Now we could be picky and note that the wind and fire is a bit out of line Elijah’s realization that God was not in the wind or the fire. In that sense John’s version, with Jesus offering peace and gently breathing on the disciples, is more in keeping with a traditional view, as it would have been understood by Jews at that time. Luke however was writing for a much more Roman audience and they liked the dramatic climax just as much as we do.
Leaving aside the special effects, which are not a major element of Luke’s telling, what he emphasizes is the “speaking in tongues”. The ability of the disciples to communicate with all these people from different countries in different languages is the point that Luke is highlighting. This is exactly aligned with the core message we’ve been hearing over the last few weeks about the command to go and out and reach everyone with the Gospel news. Of course for Luke this is not a one-off activity on Pentecost Sunday, that is just his grand kick-off event – and the work continues in many ways, as he goes on to explore in the rest of Acts.
As we’ve also emphasized over the last weeks, we need to take care not to get lost in wondering about “how” this all happened. How can it be that all these people heard the disciples talking in their own language? If you are tempted to worry about that then just stick with John’s version of the story. The significance of Luke’s account however is that people heard the message in their own language – the message came to them, where they were. They didn’t have to learn another language, they didn’t have to study a bunch of prerequisites, they didn’t even have to say they were interested – they simply heard and understood in the place where they were at that time.
This is very different from the way that transmitting the faith has often been presented. Start by learning latin, add a good dollop of theology, ensure you are quite clean, clear and firm in your purpose – then jump right in. Of course that’s a caricature, but I suspect at least some element of that thinking has been present for many. But that’s not the way Luke or any of the other early disciples experienced it. They knew the power of God came and grabbed people wherever they were, God spoke to them as they were, where they were, in whatever language was necessary to get through to them. Luke and John told the Pentecost story differently, they were talking to different people who heard in different ways.
Let us try to avoid insisting that the people we speak to hear things the way we do. We need to tell people of the mighty acts of God in their own language, and if we don’t know their language then the Holy Spirit will translate for us.