Jesus the Christ (Acts 2:22-37)

Last week we left our heroes, the apostles, in the temple courts of Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. Peter was explaining the apparent drunkenness of the believers to the crowd that gathered when they heard the siren sound of the mighty rushing wind that came when the Holy Spirit fell upon these individuals. He explained the strange excitement of these 120 people, and also their strange utterances, their speaking the praise of God in many languages, even though they were apparently peasants from the province of Galilee. He said this was what the prophet Joel had predicted would happen: that God would begin a new age, what we now call "the age of the Spirit," and that it would begin and be characterized by a proclamation of the truth by all kinds of people and all classes of society -- men and women, young and old, servants and masters, Jews and Gentiles -- all kinds of flesh. The Spirit of God would come upon them and they would be able to speak the truth about Jesus Christ. The age, Joel said, would begin by proclamation, but it would end with tribulation. At the end there would be the strange darkening of the sun and moon, and signs in the heavens and on the earth.