Daily Worship

The Challenge

Fergus Buchanan May 29, 2015 0 0

Acts 2:1-13

A Sound Like a Strong Wind

1-4 When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.

5-11 There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were thunderstruck. They couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, “Aren’t these all Galileans? How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues?

Parthians, Medes, and Elamites;
Visitors from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene;
Immigrants from Rome, both Jews and proselytes;
Even Cretans and Arabs!

“They’re speaking our languages, describing God’s mighty works!”

12 Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: “What’s going on here?”

13 Others joked, “They’re drunk on cheap wine.”

We saw the challenge.
People thought we were drunk.
Not surprising really,
And in a way we were.
Out of our heads with God.
And if they had heard the wind, saw the fire, experienced the filling,
They would understand.

We talked about it later,
In days of pain and prison,
We returned to that moment,
And that jab from the world.
A reminder:
Not all heard Jesus gladly,
Not all were healed,
Not all believed.

But Peter preached,
As we still preach,
For the harvest is promised,
For the Kingdom is assured,
For the sheep will be gathered.