Oh, Pentecost

  I grew up in "tornado country" - the area of the U.S. where every spring we hid from tornadoes.  Friends of my family had railroad tracks through their farm and whenever a freight train came through we kids would run to put our ear to the ground next to the tracks.  The ground shakes and the roar drowns everything else.  When you hear people say the sound of a tornado is like the sound of a freight train, they are telling the truth.  They sound exactly alike.  It is a fearsome noise.
  At Pentecost the disciples heard the sound of a violent wind.  I imagine this to be like the noise of a tornado.  "It filled the whole house where they were sitting" (Acts 2:2). Based on our knowledge of the disciples since the death of Jesus, and the noise of a tornado, one would expect the next sentence to be:  And they were afraid.  But it's not.  Instead Luke says, "Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability" (Acts 2:3-4).
  They got hit by the freight train, the tornado of God.

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