Tivo-ing History

In Acts 2, the disciples are gathered together during Pentecost--a ceremony that brought together all kinds of Jews from all kinds of places in the known world. The Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples and they begin to speak in all sorts of languages. The people from all over the world hear them speaking in their own tongue.

Some are surprised that these Galileans (read: "rednecks") might speak in foreign languages. Others mock them, suggesting that they've had a little too much to drink. Then the author of Acts records these words: "Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd"

Freeze everything. Forget everything you think you know about the last 2,000 years and Tivo all of history back to this moment. Peter stands up in the midst of this huge crowd. Peter stands up in an odd corner of the greatest military and political empire ever known to "western" humans to that point. One man, uneducated, leading an odd offshoot of an odd ethnic religion, whose founder was crucified by the will of the people about two months ago or so.

Peter stands and addresses the crowd. He doesn't stand alone, the eleven are with him. But he does not simply stand with the eleven. Someone has to address the crowd. Peter is perhaps the logical choice, but not the most stable or the most reliable guy on the planet. His history of being a disciple of Jesus was marked with very high high's and very low low's.

But someone must stand, someone must address the crowd. This movement needs leadership. And so Peter leads.

If you took a snapshot of the geo-political-religious landscape at this point, this would not appear to be all that significant of an event. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of religions in the Roman empire. If you had to put money down on this uneducated quirky religion being around 2,000 years later or the glorious Roman Empire, you would have bet the house, the farm, the land and your local aqueduct on Rome, not on Peter.

But here I am, along with hundreds of millions of others who have taken Peters' message that day seriously: one uneducated fisherman who was willing to stand up and address the crowd in the context of his community of witnesses. And Rome is something we read about in history books.

Behold, the power and the mission of God.