top of page

The Day of Pentecost

June 08, 2025; Rev. Kurt Lantz, Pastor
Pentecost Gospel Procession.jpg


Please use this web site merely as
an introductory step to
attending services in person.
What our Lord does for us in 
His presence in the Divine Service
cannot be recreated here or
through any technological medium.

United only in Him

We join together with other people in order to increase our strength and abilities. In hockey you want all five of your players on the ice. If you get into a four on five situation, the chance to score a goal goes up significantly for the team with more players. Even the basic structure of the family runs this way. Our marriage rite introduces the concept by saying, “The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for the mutual companionship, help, and support that each person ought to receive from the other, both in prosperity and adversity.

 

You can join together with others to accomplish greater things both, good and evil. A police force or even one of their task forces are formed for a more effective defense against both individual criminals and crime rings orchestrating car thefts and human trafficking. Even in the fantasy world of superheroes, the Marvel Avengers and the DC Justice League get together when it is necessary not to fight a single villain, but when the criminal mastermind rallies minions to his evil purposes.

 

It was not fundamentally a bad thing that after the great flood of Noah’s time, people began to migrate together and to build cities. Cities are not inherently evil. It is true that the LORD God had told them to “Be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1, 7). He didn’t say they needed to do it isolated from one another. In fact, we have not been created to multiply in isolation.

 

But what was the purpose of those who came to the plain in the land of Shinar and built a city there? Their motive was not in align with God’s will, but deliberately set against it. “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4).

 

They were determined to bring the dispersal to a halt. And why? Because they knew they could accomplish more working together than apart. But was it to be for good or for evil? They wanted to make a name for themselves, to be the centre of praise and honour. They wanted to take the glory that belongs only to God, whose intention it was to bless them to fill the earth, and keep it for themselves. Instead of honouring God for His abundant provision for people of all lands, they desired to feed their pride for their self-centred community.

 

It is an easy thing to do. We want our communities to have a good name for their achievements. We want to live in the best neighbourhoods. We want our city to rank high in any kind of standing. We want our sports teams to be the best and for everyone to know it. We want politicians to put our needs first or to work for the needs of our country alone.

 

And here, we realize that it is not just about making a name for ourselves, ranked as one of the best places to live, but it is also a failure to trust in God to take care of us if we were to give toward the needs of those outside of our group (whether that means outside of our family, our city, or our country). There is a sinful rejection of God’s providential rule and we are only willing to place our faith in ourselves, provide for only ourselves, be reliant on only ourselves, and live by rules that we set only for ourselves. Not only do we take praise and honour from God’s name to make a name for ourselves, but we take His place altogether in order that we may be our own god.

 

And so along with the city, there was the great idea of building a tower to reach the heavens—a tower that would encroach upon the dwelling place of God, a tower that would be immune to the works of His wrath (you know, if He decided to bring on another great flood or something like that). They would have no fear of God and no need for God. And isn’t that the way of much of the world today, which we see in the gathering of people together into political nations, and cities, and the formation of our family units, and even in the independence we try to assert for ourselves.

 

I don’t know how far they got with that tower. The Bible doesn’t give us a measurement. We know that ancient peoples were able to accomplish some pretty amazing architectural feats, and we don’t quite understand how they were able to accomplish them. Did they get higher than the Schmon Tower here on campus? Is it possible that they surpassed the CN Tower in Toronto, which is hardly even mentioned among the tallest structures in the world anymore?

 

Whatever, they were able to achieve, it got the attention of God, who came down to see the city and the tower, and to do for them what He always does when He comes down to mankind. He came down to save them from their sins and all people from the wickedness of the world.

 

That is what He did when Adam and Eve first thought it would be a good idea to do something for themselves. They took hold of the fruit because it looked good and was reported that it would make them wise and they would be like God. For them, all of that overruled God’s decree that they were not to eat of the fruit of that one tree (Genesis 3). Those are the same sins that came out generations and generations later in the plain of the land of Shinar with the building of a city and a tower to reach the heavens.

 

But God came down and put a stop to Adam and Eve’s eating. Not only did He banish them from the garden, but He gave them a promise that they would have a Saviour born from the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15). Similarly God came down to those who had built the tower of Babel, in order to put an end to their sinning. He came down in a plurality of persons to address the sins of their community. “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech” (11:6-7).

 

And God came down, Father Son and Holy Spirit, including that divine Person, who would later be born the promised seed of the woman. And God put an end to their sinful pride and arrogance by turning their talk into babble. And the name that they would have made for themselves became a name of shame given by God Himself. And generations on and even to this day, the name of the place remains a reminder of God’s intervention in man’s continuing sinfulness, as they strive to babble-on.

 

With their speech confused and their ability to work and plan the schematics hampered, they left off building the tower and were dispersed over the face of all the earth. They settled in different lands with their different languages, but all coming from one common ancestor, to whom was promised a Saviour from sin, death, and the devil, a promise that is for people of all nations, languages, and tribes.

 

Despite all of the evil, sinful scheming of mankind, God’s promise came to fulfilment when He came down from heaven and the Person of the Eternal Son took on our human nature. In submission to the plan of the heavenly Father for the salvation of all, He placed Himself into the hands of scheming men, and was crucified for the sins of the world. His cross is the one piece of human architecture that reaches up to the heavens. It reaches the heavenly throne room of God the Father and stands as a permanent edifice to the full price paid for our salvation in the suffering and death of Christ Jesus.

 

It is only in Him that we have forgiveness for our sins, eternal life, and salvation from this wicked world and all of the schemes of evil men. Only in Him can we overcome and live free. In Him those scattered across the face of the earth are brought together as the redeemed, the holy people of God, the forgiven and living, from every nation, language and tribe. He has brought us together again through the good and glad gospel of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all.

 

And that is what this Day of Pentecost is all about. People from all over the world have been brought together in the salvation that we have in Christ Jesus. And how is this possible except by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. This is the Spirit that came down from heaven to see the city and the tower which the people of Babel had built. This is the Spirit who confused their language so that they might be turned away from their path of sinful, rebellion against God.

 

This is the Spirit that the Lord Jesus promised to send to His disciples. After the Son of God came down to be the Saviour of the world, the Holy Spirit has come down to give us faith in that salvation through the proclamation of the Gospel by the disciples of Jesus. The Spirit who came down to confuse the language of the people at Babel, came down upon the disciples to give them the ability to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus in every language that was present in Jerusalem for their great Feast.

 

That working of the Holy Spirit is no less miraculous among us today, as the Gospel is proclaimed in our hearing and we are united together by faith into Christ Jesus. Along with believers from all nations and languages, we are built up together in Him, like a tower that reaches to the heavenly throne room of the Father, in order that we might receive His blessings of love, mercy, and grace.

 

The apostles preached the Gospel by referring to Jesus as the fulfilment of Psalm 118 which says, “the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the LORD’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:22). The apostle Peter expanded on that in his first epistle to say, “As you have come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5).

 

It is true that when people band together they can accomplish more than when they are isolated and alone. That remains true for good as well as for evil. By the power of His Holy Spirit, God has united us together into Christ Jesus that as the Church we can accomplish far more in the world than we could as solitary believers. And because we acknowledge that our salvation was accomplished alone through the solitary work of Jesus on the cross, anything that we do as His Church, gathered in His name, is for the praise and honour of God.

 

The Holy Spirit acts as the mortar which holds us living stones together by faith through the power of His Word. As His people united by the Spirit we give glory to His name by the way in which we work together. St. Paul therefore urges us to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:1-6). May the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself continue to unite us together in Christ Jesus as we gather to receive His gifts.

20210529_203510.jpg
bottom of page