Pentecost: The Fire Still Burns

Please enjoy this exerpt from Rev. Dr. Rich Rudowske’s Pentecost Sermon:

As we celebrate Pentecost anew this year, let’s return to that upper room in Jerusalem where tongues of fire rested on the disciples and enabled them to speak in languages they had never learned. That fire hasn’t gone out. The same Spirit who descended at Pentecost is still at work today, still enabling communication across barriers, still empowering people to hear God’s Word in their heart languages.

Through organizations like Lutheran Bible Translators, through local translators working in languages most of us have never heard of, through literacy workers teaching people to read God’s Word for the first time, through technology that makes translation faster and more accurate, the Pentecost miracle continues.

Every time someone hears the Gospel in their heart language for the first time, Pentecost happens again. Every time a new translation is completed and people hold God’s Word in their own language, the confusion of Babel is pushed back a little further.

The tower builders of Babel wanted to make a name for themselves. But God had a better plan: to make His name known in every language under heaven. The work of Bible translation is part of that plan. It’s the continuation of Pentecost. It’s how the Spirit of God continues to rush like a mighty wind across linguistic barriers, enabling people everywhere to hear God’s deeds of power declared in their own tongues.

The question for us today is simple: Will we be part of this ongoing Pentecost?
Will we pray, give, or advocate for this important ministry? Will we cherish God’s Word more deeply in our own language?
The Spirit is still moving. The fire is still burning. The work continues.

And until that day when we join the great multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language before God’s throne, may we never stop marveling at the miracle of Pentecost—and may we never stop participating in it.