I recently saw the movie the A-Team. When I was younger, I used to watch the TV series with the same name and loved watching Col. Smith’s plans come to fruition. He would say, “I love it when a plan comes together!” We marvel at the military, political, or social insight of someone who can make a plan and see it through to the end.
I marvel even more at the plans of God. God has a plan of salvation and even though we try to thwart His plans with our sin and disobedience, God’s plan always comes through. God had told us this day would come, a day the followers had been instructed to “wait” for (Acts 1:4). The word for “Pentecost” literally means, “fiftieth day.” It was used by Diaspora Jews for a day-long harvest festival more commonly known as the “Feast of Weeks” (Shavuot) and scheduled fifty days following Passover. Pentecost was one of three pilgrimage feasts when the entire household of Israel gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the goodness of God toward the nation (Acts 2:11). “I love it when a plan comes together!”
NRSV says, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages” (Acts 2:4). The presence of the Holy Spirit in the community’s life is indicated first of all by the miracle of speaking in unknown foreign languages. This miracle indicates the importance of the proclamation of God’s Word, which is central to the church’s responsibility to the risen Christ (Acts 1:8). The dramatic speech is neither ecstatic nor unintelligible; it is language that communicates to others “the wonders of God” (Acts 2:11). The community is filled with the Spirit to express the wonders of God in intelligible and intelligent tongues. “I love it when a plan comes together!”
As you read on in Acts, we should be left with one comment, “I love it when God’s plan comes together!”