Through the eyes of Jesus’ ‘beloved disciple’
with Acts 2:1–21
I watched as Peter paced up and down throughout the house, edgy and impatient. That man cannot sit still. Others were jittery, too, to be fair, though some were putting that energy to use preparing for the midday prayers and meal, fixing a table leg, mending clothes or shoes.
We had been shut away here for days, excursions for supplies ending with a hasty retreat back behind locked doors, with a tense mood in the city after Jesus’ arrest and death and return. We were known, and we were harassed out there. And yet, we had not left or moved into purposeful action: we were waiting. For what, we weren’t quite sure.
This day was Shavuot, Pentecost – the festival of harvest held fifty days after Passover. Pilgrims were flooding into the city for the Temple rituals from all over the land, and far beyond it. After each exile in past generations, it seemed more people chose to stay where they had been forced to put down roots. I could hear through the windows languages I recognised, some I could speak, and some I did not know at all.
Finally, the room stilled somewhat, as we took our places, reclining at the table. People outside our group had begun to speak of Jesus’ Twelve, but we were at least double that, the inner circle. Jesus counted the women, and so we learned to value them more deeply with him. Close, like family, and the act of sharing the meal brought some comfort, a measure of peace. Peter finally channelled his restless energy into the trading of stories with Mary that often featured during meals. As they helped us remember life on the road with Jesus, we laughed and sighed and began to relax.
WHOOSH!!
Doors rattled off hinges, or so it seemed, as the sound of a great gust of wind startled spurts of wine and food across the table!
What?! Cries from around the room
Just as we caught our breath, we gasped again a collective wow …
A single tongue of fire sat atop each of our heads making us look like human candles. The fire was no hollow image, though – heat radiated from it. I closed my eyes as the warmth melted down through my body like honey and I felt full – I mean full – of holy Spirit love.
Was this what we’d been waiting for?
After the silence, chatter, as if that Spirited Love could not help but overflow from us, and we unlocked the doors and moved out into the street, talking to all we met – this love, this Holy Spirit love, had to tell its story
People were amazed
They said they could understand us in their own languages – all those languages from all those places our people now resided – Medes, Mesopotamians, Parthians, Capadoceans – people from Rome and Persia and more !
I was also hugging people – I am a hugger – so full of joy I was. I felt like Jesus was here again, near us, beside us, within all these people before us – he hadn’t left us after all.
God is here, friends, I cried! Love is here for you! Join in. Everyone! Join in!
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