Sunday, June 12, 2011: Acts 2:1-21

I grew up long before the age of YouTube. My Sunday school rooms were in a church basement in western Nebraska. We didn't even have filmstrips! When I think back to the story of the first Pentecost, I remember an illustration on one of those Sunday school leaflets that we kids took home each week. The Pentecost leaflet showed men in robes standing in a room looking out of some windows. I remember thinking it was odd that there was no glass in the windows. All of the men had flames perched on their heads like crowns. I'm not sure I gave a thought to why their hair wasn't burning.

I would have preferred a YouTube video. I would have liked a real-time record of exactly how this inexplicable and indescribable event happened.

But we don't have any of those details. Not only does Luke not provide us with the video, he gives us precious little descriptive detail. Instead he tells us four things: there was the sound of a violent wind, tongues of fire appeared on the disciples, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in other tongues.