So how do you stop speaking Babel?

You open yourself to the Holy Spirit. Literally, you ask for it to come, and keep asking, and it will show up.

When God scattered the nations, they still held the culture and worldview of Babel even if they spoke different grammar and vocabulary. A new language came to the apostles at Pentecost, one of non-competition and fearlessness through Christ’s victory. And again, like God’s messenger of Gabriel comes to Mary, the Holy Spirit comes to his apostles and disciples. We do not pull him down with a gate or tower. He comes to us.

The old options of fight, flight, or freeze are suddenly lame compared to the new option of faith in Christ. This is what always scares people and leaders about followers of Christ. They don’t want the ordinary things of this world. They fast and pray and don’t care about money. Even sex becomes less interesting. Power is a fool’s game to them. How can this be? This is terrifying to those who play the game of Babel constantly in their lives.

They have spent a life squabbling for honor, to be mildly comfortable, and any threat to their position in society or the system that they sacrificed for to get that honor and status is terrifying because it exposes them. They have sacrificed so much for the promises of the world. If they are wrong, their entire way of life is a fraud, a waste of time. If the poor, the lepers, the insane, the criminals, and the outcasts are finding joy in their poverty, with no status whatsoever, just by believing in this man named Jesus, then everything that they hold sacred will be proved as powerless. To consider this possibility is too much for them. This mirror is too difficult to peer into because the reflection will betray the truth.

What scares them the most, more than anything else, is witnessing people change and convert to worship a man, one man, named Jesus, and seeing these people suddenly find total joy and meaning. This rocks those in power because for the first time they become aware that their foundation is built on sand. They have no idea how it can be possible and don’t want to hear that it is possible. How could happiness possibly come without competition and victory and power and money and pleasure? (from The Fountain of Youth series)

Total openness to the Holy Spirit brings the gift of peace even while you are being persecuted. The old game is powerless over the apostles and people can see it even if they don’t speak Hebrew, Latin, or Greek. 

The new language is victory over judgment. Victory over scapegoating. Victory over needing approval of those with more money or power. Victory over suffering. Victory over vice and false pleasures. Victory over death. 

When the apostles emerge at Pentecost, the opposite of the scattering at Babel occurs. The apostles are understood by everyone because they stop speaking competitively. A miracle happens, yes. Whether you read this story in Acts literally or figuratively, either way it remains a miracle. This is a story where I can read it literally because when you meet someone who is open, and obviously is channeling God’s grace, you don’t need to speak their human language to understand. The joy is springing from the person. Speaking the language of Pentecost is a fearless posture, a hopeful posture, and the complete opposite of the fight, flight, or freeze faces that our instinct makes.

Keep in mind that it was all of the nations who crucified Jesus. It was not one group, but all groups. The nation of Israel handed Jesus over to the gentiles, led by the Romans, who are emblematic of all nations. It was also all of the people not just the people of Israel. Christians have missed this point throughout history and pinned the death solely on the Jews, which is absurd if you actually read the Gospels. The Roman soldiers and the crowds represent everyone, as in, all of the nations. They came back together for this event, to kill God. It’s like a second Tower of Babel attempt, where in the first one the people all speak a common language to manipulate and control God. In the death of Christ, they come together for his assassination, speaking the common language of Babel, again in the title match of man vs. God.

In the Tower of Babel story of stairway was erected to create a gate to bring God down to earth. In the story of Jesus, God voluntarily comes down to earth and the people try to kill him. Building a huge expensive structure to pull God downward failed and resulted in a mess. Then God surprises us and comes down for free, and he is raised up on a simple piece of wood. But rather than take control of him, he sets us free.

When the nations all come together to kill God we see the common language in action. The common language is that of sin and hatred and violence and manipulation and scapegoating. What is not said in the Tower of Babel story is that the language is in our heart, not in our mouths. The common language is that which tries to kill God, and the literal attempted murder happens on the Cross.

The idea at Babel was for us to be elevated over God, to allow our sin to be acceptable. The shouting crowd on the Way of Sorrows shows us the common language, the ugliness of the fallen world.

Then we see something completely different when the apostles emerge on Pentecost. They spoke to the crowds and people of all nations understood them. The crowd that crucified Jesus all spoke the old language. The Cross is Babel, part two, and Pentecost is the world being set free. Just when the demons think they have succeeded in taking down God they only have to wait until the third day to realize he has not been defeated, and that he cannot be defeated, and fifty days later, the new language of the world is introduced for one and all to learn and repeat, and two thousand years later, this new language of fearlessness is still being shared and taught.

The common language of the old world was that of competition, anger, pride, and winning. The next time your school brags about its mascot or celebrates pride in a fight song, you should know that this is the language of Babel. In politics you see it more clearly. As people get closer to real violence, that language becomes more fluent. The evil in our common language is hidden with niceties and uniforms and mascots, but that is the glossy cover on a horror story. 

We all speak the old language and unlearning it means coming to know Christ. God separated us into the nations for a time, and then brought us a solution once we were prepared to learn a new way.

At the Cross we see the fullness of the common language in the outpouring of every sin onto Jesus. Then at Pentecost we see the reversal, a new common language introduced that everyone understands. The openness of truth and the freedom that comes through an emptying of the self. The old common language was based on fear, on walling in the self, on looking out for number one, and the new language is based on Christ himself. And this language, this person, is unstoppable. 

Today we live in an era of rapidly fading faith, and innately we know both the language of Babel and the language of Christ. People are turning back to the old common language of Babel. The old language is seducing billions of souls, and once critical mass is reached, God will return to do more than scatter us. We will be crystallized in our sins, locked forever in that state of accepting or rejecting God’s grace. We will be stuck with the language we chose, either that of Babel or that of Christ, with no more chance to ask for faith. The only time we get to ask for tutoring from Christ is now. Today. This very moment is when we need to say, “God, give me strength and direction. Give me faith and hope so that I may forget the old common language and learn to speak the language of Jesus. Send forth your spirit to me, help me open up my heart to receive the Word.”

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit whydidpetersink.substack.com