Photo and Commentary ©2023 by Robert Howson
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
It was a strange gathering, in fact it caused us to turn around and take a second look. Perhaps it was the unusualness that caused us to give notice and speculate the reason for such an assembly. Maybe there had been a work bee and all the crew had just taken a lunch break. Or maybe someone had a strange fascination with wheelbarrows. Or just maybe the homeowner decided to start his own business and elected to specialize in wheelbarrows. None of these alternatives seemed reasonable, but then people do strange things for their own reasons.
It was a strange group that gathered there in Jerusalem 50 days after Passover for the celebration of First Fruits. True, they all had something in common, similar to having just one wheel, but beyond that they were so different. Locals from Judea were joined by those from Mesopotamia, and Cappadocia. Swarthy Arabs and Egyptians rubbed shoulders with those from the capital in Rome. A more ethnically and linguistically diverse group could hardly be imagined. Acts 2 tells the story of their coming together and the confusion that resulted from that meeting. Verse 12 makes that very clear. “Amazed and confused, they kept asking each other, ‘What does this mean?’” (TEV)
What it meant was God had a special message he wanted each to hear, and hear they did, each in their own language. The message that was so important was that the person of Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. And even though He had been crucified, He had risen and was now at the right hand of the Father. I still have no idea what the congregation of wheelbarrows meant, but I do know that the other meeting announced that salvation was now available to all!