“And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia…” (Acts 2:8-9). This famous passage documents Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit miraculously enabled the Jewish followers of Jesus to speak new tongues to be able to share the Gospel with hitherto unreached ethnic groups. This past Sunday marked a significant day for me as a missionary. After much hard study (unfortunately, not instantly, like at Pentecost)—and with lots of help from my Persian language instructor and my missionary colleague Rev. Marko Turunen—I held my first Divine Service in the Persian (Farsi) language at Zion, Hamburg. While I’ve learned Persian in its Arabic script, I am not yet fluent enough to conduct a worship service, so I read the liturgical text in transcription. I preached in German, with an Iranian assistant (who also did the lectionary readings and prayers) reading from a previously prepared translation. This was truly a team effort and the Lord blessed it. The congregation was very pleased to hear me preach the Good News of Jesus Christ in their native language. One Iranian lady came up to me later, wanting to connect with me on WhatsApp. This is what she wrote: سلام روز خوش ممنون میشم منم تو گروه کلیسا باشم ..مرسی از شما . As “St. Google” rendered, “Hello, have a nice day, thank you for joining the church group. Thank you.” Computer-generated translations aside, some 2,000 years after Pentecost, the Holy Spirit has built yet another bridge between individuals from two different language groups, communicating to our Persian friends the most important message on the planet: In Baptism the Holy Spirit makes you a child of God the Father, and Jesus Christ forgives you all your sins. Or, to quote my Iranian parishioner, the Holy Spirit let me “join the church group”!
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