There came a sound.
Can you hear it?
Fire spreads.
It is an important lesson.
A friend of mine had a very dry yard. The grass had turned to brown stubble.
He wanted to show his son that you had to be careful with fire during a dry spell, so he demonstrated by lighting a small corner of the yard on fire that he could carefully contain and control. Well, that didn’t happen.
After the fire trucks intervened and rescued the neighbor’s house, they stood their gazing upon the desolate landscape, and his son said, “I see what you mean. Thanks for the lesson, Dad.”
There came a sound.
Like the rush of a violent wind.
Can you hear it?
One of my favorite stories as a child was the story of Samson and the 300 foxes. Samson and the Philistines were having ongoing disagreements so he captured 300 foxes, tied the tails of each fox to the tail of another fox, end to end with a lighted torch.
So, 150 pairs of foxes ran around catching pretty much everything on fire. This started a cycle of escalating revenge, that like a Shakespearian tragedy pretty much consumed everyone.
I read the story now and am horrified, but as a young boy, just imagining 300 foxes running around like crazy catching everything on fire was an awesome spectacle to ponder.
Fire spreads.
There came a sound.
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.
Can you hear it?
In the Epistle of James he writes that the human tongue is a fire, it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is set on fire by hell. No one can tame it.
The tongue is a fire. And fire spreads. A desolate landscape.
There came a sound.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit., and began to speak.
Can you hear it?
Tongues of fire. A violent wind. A sound.
A different fire. A holy flame.
Pentecost.
The flame that restores and renews all things, the burned and brown stubble sprouts green anew.
Words for everyone, language for everyone to hear about God’s deeds of power, spreading like a fire, the holy flame that brings life, rather than desolation, setting the captives free.
The fire that restores a burned over landscape, a burned over history, of the same sin and destruction that happens over and over, mind numbingly repetitive. A history bound in chains.
The Acts of the Apostles, the book of Acts is the short name, the story of that holy flame being passed down across the book of history, person to person, the word that is good, spoken and heard, like a flame crossing a book of matches, all the way to us here today.
Some people call today the birthday of the Church, but it is more than that, it is the birthday of the new creation, spreading like fox fire.
Fire spreads.
Both kinds of fire, they both spread.
It is an important lesson.
An important choice.
There came a sound.
The sound of many tongues, the sound of our native tongue, the sound of freedom.
Can you hear it?