Noisy neighbours

Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to have been one of the neighbours watching what happened to the disciples at Pentecost. This is what this story is about.

Well you could say I have noisy neighbours. And this past month or so has been noisier than most. It has been a hysterical roller-coaster of a month. I have seen it all - Riots, celebration, tragedy, madness. And I haven't even had to leave my house to witness most of it. It has been happening right in front of my windows.

I suppose I ought to introduce myself. My name is Miriam and I live with my ageing husband in a tiny house squashed in the cheapest quarter of Jerusalem. Certainly not the posh end of town. I live opposite old Asaph. He owns a few houses down this street, and rents rooms to pilgrims. Makes a tidy sum at festival times, but then he needs the money really, he's getting on a bit. Once he ran a shop near the temple, but he's not really up to that anymore so the rent money is badly needed.

Anyway I digress. I was going to tell you the stories of what I have seen. Well it all started not long before passover. A bunch of pilgrims came to stay for the festival, and quite a mixed bag they were. By their voices most of them were Northerners, from Galilee. But I heard the rumours round town that one of them was a prophet. We heard the shouts of the crowd when he came into town, shouting and singing, culminating in some sort of huge commotion near the temple area. But then the sound just melted away, and after that the prophet seemed to keep a low profile, leaving and returning to the house once the sun had gone down. Creeping in by cover of darkness. Then I heard that he'd been arrested. The following days were like one of those Greek tragedies my neighbours have told me about. A tale of a crowd who were determined to kill a man who had never done them any harm. The Galilean prophet was such a nice man too, he had kind eyes. The governor crucified him, after whipping him and torturing him within half an inch of his life.

That Friday I could hardly watch the houses opposite. My heart was breaking for them. I could see the shadows of those Galileans, hiding in the corners. They barred the door and peered through a tiny spy hole if a visitor knocked. They were terrified of being arrested themselves. I heard the echoes of arguments, of recrimination, and some nights I just heard sobbing. Heart rending sobbing, as if everything of beauty had gone from the world, leaving nothing more to live for.

But then something changed in that house across the street. There was a sense of peace. The doors were still barred but when visitors came and left they had secret smiles on thier lips, as if someone had told them an amazing piece of news. I didn't know what it was. But I did hear that someone had stolen away the body of the prophet. Perhaps the pilgrims thought he's walked off by himself? Not very likely. I saw the state his body was in by the time they'd finished torturing him. A while later the pilgrims left. I'd heard that they were going back to Galilee. Yet when they left, they were singing, songs of passover, of freedom, of a coming kingdom. It was strange.

It was a good while later when I saw them again. They'd come back to Jerusalem a few weeks before the harvest festival, Pentecost. Always good for a feast. Yet they seemed to spend a long time indoors. They were so quiet, apart from the visits to the temple. Old Asaph said he saw them in there once. Their hands raised to Heaven. praising God. He thought they were heartless. They didn't seem to mind that they'd lost their prophet.

And now for the strangest part of my story. And this is pretty strange. There were other people staying in our street too, who had come for the festival. Persians, Libyans, Asians and some people from as far away as Crete and Italy. On the morning of the festival they were awake preparing for the feasting. But the door of that room rented by the Galilean pilgrims was locked. Then I saw my first odd thing of the day. I saw others coming to that place. Lots of others. They almost seemed drawn to that place as if an inviisble string was pulling them. And as they met at the doorway their faces registered surprise. It was like an immense atmosphere of expectation was in the air. These people were gathering, but they weren't really sure why they were gathering. The pilgrims unlocked the door, and let as many as they could inside, but it was obvious that this crowd was going to spill out into the street, and so it did. The pilgrims unlocked and opened their door, and unbarred the shutters on their windows for the first time since passover, flinging them open, letting in the light.

Then I heard a noise. It was a rushing noise, like wind, or the beginnings of a sandstorm. It started as soft as a summer breeze gently stirring the pigrims clothes. Then intensified growing louder, and stronger, becoming a rumbling rushing blast like the waves of the ocean pounding on the shore. But there was something strange about this wind. I have seen winds coming from the East, the West, the gentle South and the icy North, but never in my life have I seen a wind that came from top to bottom. From sky to earth. But this is the way this wind blew. I was riveted, and I confess that in my nosiness I leaned out of my window to see more. And then I saw fire. It scared me at first. Like the wind this came from above, like lightning, but not like white daggers, rather like, oh in some ways this was terrifyingly like nothing on earth, but if I had to describe it I would say it reminded me of the red tongues of a campfire. Then the flames divided, separating like falling leaves from a tree - one landing on each of the strange visitors. I was amazed. I had to pinch myself to check that I hadn't fallen asleep. Was this real, or some strange vision like our prophet Moses and his burning bush, for, like the bush, the pilgrims weren't harmed by the flames, rather they basked in them, their faces shining with joy, raising their hands to heaven and crying out shouts of praise. Some of them had tears in their eyes. Some of them were laughing lhe most musical laughter I had ever heard. And this is where things got really weird. For as I listened I realised that these pilgrims were not shouting their praises in Aramaic anymore. I caught some words of Latin and Greek from some of them who didn't look educated enough to be speaking Greek. Not that I speak Greek either, but I recognise it when someone else is speaking it. Others of them were speaking far stranger tongues, full of clicks and grunts, but passing pilgrims from other lands smiled and pointed at them, nodding and throwing questions in the same tongue in reply.

I wanted to see more, and went down into the street, just as these followers of the prophet also began to spill from their rented room into the street too, like a flowing river, gathering in the nearby square. Some passers-by shouted at them. "You're drunk. Shame on you. The festival has hardly started. You could have waited till the evening!", and in some ways they did look drunk with their infectous laughter, red glowing faces and shining eyes. And as the crowd in the square grew more cosmopolitan, so I heard more languages on the lips of the followers of the prophet. I watched, waited and wondered. What could all this be about? Then a person I recognised stood up. He was the large fisherman who had been a constant companion of the prophet. As he raised his hand, voices died to a hush. "Let me explain" he said. He certainly needed to explain these mysteries! He told us that they were not drunk. I knew that! It would have needed a lot of wineskins to make that lot drunk and I'd not seen a single drop carried into that house since Passover. But then He quoted the prophet Joel. "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Holy Spirit on all people." Was this what was happening? The spirit of Yahweh himself coming down upon them? Not onto important people, priests, kings or prophets, but ordinary peasants. Onto people just like you and me. And then he filled in the mystery of what happened to the prophet Jesus. Not only that he was alive, but that it was prophesied long ago that things had to happen this way. That, like the passover lambs, Jesus had to die. Everything he said seemed to make sense, in a deeper way than I have ever known. It felt true in the depths of my soul. And as I heard just why he had to suffer, it cut me to the heart, as I remembered that wonderful Galilean who had never done a soul any harm, with his flesh ripped open. Tears came to my eyes. Many of us were asking what we should do?