Pentecost by another voice

There were more of us than usual there that day. Someone said it was around the 120 mark, and as usual we went over recent events, rather the events of the last couple of months. It seemed so clear, Jesus had said we were to stay in Jerusalem until we received ‘power from on high’ and as usual the debate came round to the same thing; what did He really mean? One or two seemed certain they knew what He meant and were only too willing to show us from the scriptures where our belief was deficient. Then there were the twelve, who all seemed rather quiet that day, as if they were fed up with the same discussions and the bickering that often resulted from them. Even Peter, bless him, who could be relied upon to put his viewpoint, was strangely quiet.

Well, we decided that everyone who was likely to come that morning had arrived so we gave thanks and ate breakfast. As usual it was a bit of a feast too; we all put what we had bought on the long table and took what we wanted, and as usual there was plenty to go round, and we fell silent as we ate.

Then as usual one of the twelve stood up to speak, if I remember rightly it was Matthew’s turn but don’t quote me on that as I’m still trying to get my head around what happened next.

I suppose by then it was about nine and we were all about to go our separate ways as some of us had jobs to go to and we all needed to put bread on the table so to speak. When quite out of the blue before the speaker could begin it started, the noise came. First, a sound rather like the ‘great east wind’ that blows in off the desert from time to time. But we were in Jerusalem remember 30 miles from the nearest piece of desert big enough to generate that sort of wind and it wasn’t the hottest part of the year either. The noise quickly grew to a point were we all looked round to see where it was coming from but you couldn’t tell because it was all around us and the hair on the back of my neck began to bristle with excitement.

Then the fire began; I kid you not, fire that’s what it was, but for some reason it wasn’t burning anything. It began in a sort of ball up near the rafters; no one saw where it came in, it was just there; all of a sudden. The noise continued and loud only begins to describe the volume, the fire spread out like a sort of sheet which then fell in pieces landing on everyone, no exceptions absolutely everyone, even the women. It lasted a just couple of seconds and then vanished.

Without warning we all began to speak at once, even the quieter ones and the women too. As I said the fire had touched everyone! I still don’t know how it happened; although we were speaking it didn’t seem like words, but strangely it did make sense. We were all speaking of the things of God. Some were singing in strange languages some were reciting pieces of the law and the prophets and at least one, (standing next to me) was speaking prophetically about the Sadducees. We must have been making quite a racket. Before long someone hammered on the door wanting to know what on earth was going on. Normally when that happened we would all go very quiet and ignore the request while we slipped out by the back door or the windows; because none of us wanted to end up in front of the Sanhedrin or worse still, the Romans. This time however we seemed to be devoid of fear. Justus flung the door open and welcomed the fellow in. He was so overcome at the presence of God in the place that he keeled over. Mary went over to him and closing her eyes placed her hands on his head and in no time he too was up on his feet praising God for all his wonders.

The room had a bit of a balcony and several of us went out and began again to sing aloud and to speak (at great volume I might add) to the assembled folk in the street below. Someone shouted from the back of the crowd outside that they hadn’t seen so many in such a state at nine in the morning that it must have been some party and could they come to the next one. At that, Peter pushed his way through to the front and spreading his hands out indicated he want to speak. As if you could stop him once he got the bit between his teeth!

Anyway the crowd outside went quiet and Peter began. Well, those of us that knew Peter stood open mouthed as Peter, who could quite accurately be described as your average ‘ open your mouth and put both feet in’ sort of guy, delivered a sermon like we’d never heard before. Talk about brass neck; he really laid it on the line, told them they’d been complicit in the death of Jesus and that they should repent, he went on for quite some time.

Well it’s one thing to hear a teacher of the law or an oddball preacher like John telling people they need to repent but this was Peter. Peter a Galilean mark you; who had an accent you could cut hay with. Peter with no more education than any of us; spouting as if he had studied with the greatest teachers in the land. Talk about God’s gifting, he was speaking as a transformed individual, and then some.

Well the upshot of all that he said was that we had a queue of folk wanting to be baptised, it took ages. Young Mark kept count and said later there had been three thousand. Amazing that’s the only word for it utterly amazing!