Capiche?

One of the many part time jobs that I had when I was in college was in the security department at a department store.  In addition to traditional security duties, we would get called for the unusual events that no one knew how to handle.   So one day I got called to handle a customer complaint (I know this seems like a job for customer service, but that's not how we did things.)  Anyhow, this person was quite agitated, but only speaking Spanish.

I don't speak Spanish.

So things were tense for a while, then we found one of the sales people from a different department that knew some Spanish, though limited, and it had been a while.  Let's just say that it was a long broken conversation while we worked it all out.

It makes me think about early missionaries to the new world, like Pierre Marquette.  They came to spread the gospel to the Native Americans living here, but there was this massive language barrier.  Marquette would have known very little, if any, of the language and his goal was to communicate the gospel in such a way that the people hearing it would understand and believe.  That is a challenging task when everyone is speaking the same language.

I think that the key would be that it all takes time.  He couldn't walk into a village, preach and expect results.  He would need to live among them, build credibility, be seen as a person with insight.  Then those around him would want to find out what he had to say.

I think that it is a similar story on the day of Pentecost.  Jesus has died, rose from the grave and ascended to Heaven.  There are about 120 followers living together in a community.  The Holy Spirit comes upon them like flaming tongues.  They go out in the city and 3000 people were saved that day.  

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

I think it went something like this.  The followers of Christ have been living in Jerusalem.  Others see how they live in a spirit of peace and joy and love.  They have heard the words of Christ, they see the life that the followers have, but they think it's too late.  They were the ones who hollered, "crucify!".   

So when Peter speaks, he opens the door and says, "Forgiveness is still yours if you want it." And the crowd is only too happy to accept.

I think the challenge for Christians is to take the joy, hope and love of the Christmas season and carry it through the rest of the year.  So that others, seeing this in our lives, will want it for their own. 

Understand?