Every Language Understood at Last

By nine o'clock in the morning, the street outside the house where Jesus' friends had been waiting was jammed with people.

It was the feast of Pentecost, the harvest festival, and God's people had come to Jerusalem from all over the world. Now they stood elbow to elbow, staring at some men from Galilee who were loudly praising God.

A boy from Egypt tugged at his father's sleeve. "Father! That man talks just like Grandpa!"

"That one is praising God in my language," said a sailor from Rome, "and he's from Galilee!"

"And mine!" called someone from Crete.

Fifteen countries' worth of visitors were packed into that one street. (Standing there was like taking a trip around the world in ten steps.)

Every one of them heard about the wonderful things God had done, in the words they had learned as babies. "What can this mean?" they asked each other.

A few men at the back were still snickering about wine.

Then Peter stepped forward, with the other eleven apostles beside him, and raised his voice.

Peter had never preached to a crowd in his life. That morning he preached to thousands.

"People of Jerusalem, listen to me!" he called. "These men are not drunk. It's only nine o'clock in the morning!"

"This is what the prophet Joel told us would happen," Peter went on. "God says, 'In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters will speak my words. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit.'"

Joel also spoke of fire and smoke, and then came his best line. "'And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'"

Next Peter told them about Jesus of Nazareth, who had done wonders in their own streets. "You handed him over, and he was nailed to a cross and killed," Peter said. "But God raised him from the dead, and every one of us has seen him alive! Now he is at God's right hand, and he has poured out the Holy Spirit you are seeing and hearing. God has made this Jesus Lord and King!"

The crowd stopped talking. Some put their hands over their faces. "Brothers," they said, "what should we do?"

"Turn back to God," said Peter, "and be baptized in the name of Jesus, and your sins will be forgiven. This promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far away."

About three thousand people were baptized that day.

Ages earlier, at the tower of Babel, God had mixed the world's one language into many, and then he scattered the families, who could no longer understand each other, in every direction. That morning he did not stir the languages back into one. He kept every one and put the same good news into each. But one street was not the whole world. Beyond Rome and Egypt and Arabia lived peoples whose languages none of that crowd had ever heard.

So the news kept traveling, by boat and by dusty road, because the promise was for all who were far away. One day the traveling will be over. Jesus' friend John saw it in a vision: a crowd too big to count, from every nation and tribe and language, standing together before the throne and before Jesus, the Lamb, and shouting, "Salvation belongs to our God, and to the Lamb!"