Unless you are a young child or you are very gifted, learning a new language is not easy and it can take years of hard work to master that language. Even after many years you can still get caught out with words or phrases or idioms that you don’t understand. That has been and is still my experience with English. Not understanding another person’s language can also create a barrier between people.
When Keith wants to talk to my mother, he needs me to translate what he is saying into Mizo. Sometimes when we try to speak in another language the words just don’t come out right. Once when Keith was trying to speak in Mizo, he said, ‘good night’ instead of ‘thank you’.
Last Sunday, we celebrated Pentecost Sunday and we had some wonderful thoughts about it in Catherine’s message and in Lottie’s pastoral passage. The story of what happened at Pentecost is in Acts chapter 2. One of the wonderful things we remember about Pentecost is the apostles speaking in tongues. When they spoke in tongues, they weren’t drunk as some suggested or babbling things that no one understood. No, the Holy Spirit miraculously gave the apostles the ability to speak in other known languages that they had never learned. Because of this they were able to share the gospel to the many Jews who had gathered in Jerusalem from around the known world. There was no more confusion, nothing was lost in translation and barriers were broken down.
A few weeks ago, Kyla spoke about the many reversals in the book of Esther. At Pentecost there was another dramatic reversal, and it is very well put by John Stott:
All the nations were, of course, not present literally, but they were representatively, for Luke deliberately included in his list descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and has given us in Acts 2 a “table of nations” comparable to the one in Genesis 10. Ever since the early church fathers, commentators have seen the blessing of Pentecost as a deliberate and dramatic reversal of the curse of Babel. At Babel human languages were confused, and the nations were scattered; in Jerusalem the language barrier was supernaturally overcome as a sign that the nations would now be gathered together in Christ.
May God bless you over Kings birthday weekend and in the coming week