Sermon Index
Pentecost, June 5, 2022
God looked down from heaven, and way down below, there was some construction activity going on down there on the Plain of Shinar. It was supposed to be a tower that would reach to heaven, but it wasn't anywhere high enough to be near God in heaven. It was like God couldn't see the puny thing, so he had to come down to see the city and the tower that the people were building. They were trying to make a big tower, but they were using inferior building materials. Rather than strong stone, they used bricks that would crumble under the weight when the tower got too high; rather than concrete mortar, they used tar. Tar would stick things together for a while, but in the hot middle east summer, the tar would melt and the whole tower would collapse.
We are told that the reason was to make a name for themselves, to unify themselves as a people, and to become famous. “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
The pride and ambition of people was too dangerous for God to let it go unchecked. So, God confused their language in order that they could not understand each other. In this way the building project was abandoned and the people scattered from there over all the earth. The confusion of languages sounds like a curse, but it is also a blessing to control the pride and sinfulness of people.
But even as people scattered across the face of the earth, so also sin scattered over the face of the earth. The sin of pride too scattered over the face of the earth. People became proud of their nation or their race or their culture or their language.
Then came Jesus Christ. The gospel message is John 3:16, "God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." "God so loved the world." And again, God came down to this world. His love would unify the world and would reverse the curse of Babel. His love was not that he created a new universal language, but that he spoke to all people in their own language. That is the message of Acts Chapter Two.
The Tower that replaced the Tower of Babel was the Tower of the Cross. It was lifted up. It was not that the Tower of the Cross reached up to heaven, but rather it was the place where heaven reached down to earth. There on the cross, Jesus Christ was God Almighty come down to earth. By taking the sin of the world upon himself and dying to forgive that sin, he did what the Tower of Babel could not do: that is, he made a name for us, in baptism he gave his name to all believers and gave them eternal salvation so that they could not be scattered away from him.
This world is still scattered by different languages, cultures, pride, fear, false ideas and lies. We all know the effect of this on our own lives. We know how pride affects us, the pride of others and our own pride, too. There is the fear of others who are different from us, which leads to intolerance, prejudice, hate, and violence. We build walls and towers to protect ourselves and shut others out. But God will destroy our walls and towers because they are built with shoddy materials, that is, with self-love, pride, and sin.
Towers will fall, church steeples will tumble, but the cross of Christ will stand forever. The cross is the tower that reaches to heaven and takes us to heaven.
On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit gathers people from all nations and proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We remember this in our worship and prayer today. We thank the Lord that the Gospel is spoken to us in the language we understand.
Amen.
May you be filled with the grace and peace of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church