Chapter 1 - Peter - Doing the Impossible
...God’s love could never be earned, it was and is always freely given… And each little thing we do is magnified by the power of the Spirit and used by God....
Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acts 2:41)
All scripture quotations taken from
The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®
Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
They listened to me. To me! Hah!
I stood at that window on the day of Pentecost, the words flowed out of me like a river, and the crowds in the street below got it! They listened to me...
The fisherman from Galilee, who started following Jesus just 3 years earlier, would never have believed it. Even as it happened, I wasn’t sure I believed it. Me! A nobody who had messed up so often, who had denied even knowing Jesus, who was so full of doubts... They listened to me.
They listened because it wasn't just me... it was the Holy Spirit working through me, and in the hearts of those that had ears to hear.
Even now, all these years later, I still get a tingle down my spine when I recall the wall of sound as that vast crowd shouted, ‘Yes!’ when I asked if anyone wanted to be baptised in the name of Jesus.
I was full of joy and certainty in that moment… and then reality hit home... How? How were we going to baptise this number of people? It had all seemed so clear when I was speaking, but I was suddenly unsure about what to do next.
Still buzzing with joy, I held up a hand to the crowd to ask for silence and turned round to face the others in the room.
They were smiling and laughing with excitement. ‘This is incredible!’ John laughed and shouted, ‘Praise God!’
Some of them were still speaking in tongues, and all kept calling out praises to God. I'd felt their prayer buoying me up as I'd been speaking, but all faded to silence as I asked, ‘What next?’ I continued with a low urgent tone, ‘How are we going to baptise this many people?’
‘Could we send them to use the mikvahs[1] in the city?’ Philip asked, ‘There are hundreds of those and they could immerse themselves.’
‘Hmmm... It's an idea Philip... but... ’ Nathanial hesitated, ‘I don't think so. That wasn't the practice of John the Baptist, he physically pushed people under the water, they didn't do it themselves.’
John's eyes closed for a moment as he thought, then flew open, ‘Siloam!’ he blurted out, ‘We'll baptise them in the pool of Siloam.’
‘But there are hundreds of them.’ I objected, ‘It will take hours, and...’
‘We can do it as a team.’ Thomas interrupted, ‘If we get about 20 of us doing the baptisms, it should take less than an hour.’
‘What about the women?’ Mary Magdalene asked, ‘There are many women in that crowd. Jesus included us as his disciples, but for many women being baptised at the same time and place as men would make them uncomfortable.’
‘Bethesda.’ Salome said, ‘We can take the women and baptise them in the pools at Bethesda at the same time as the men are baptising at Siloam.’
‘Just one more question.’ John caught my arm as I was about to turn back to face the crowd, ‘When you were speaking to the crowd, you talked about them being “baptised in the name of Jesus.”... That's new, what did you mean?’
For a brief period when Jesus was starting out in his ministry, we'd baptised people in the Jordan. We'd followed the pattern set by John the Baptist... baptising people for the forgiveness of sins, but we hadn't baptised them into the name of Jesus.
‘I... I... To be honest, I'm not sure.’ I replied, ‘The words were just flowing out of me, and I said it without thinking.’
Thomas had been looking thoughtful, ‘I think your words were God-inspired.’ He said, ‘When we baptised people before it was a cleansing ritual, a washing away the old, and a commitment to a new way of living... but this is far more than that. This baptism will be into the name of Jesus; into the community of his followers, into his family, into the promise of the Father, into the blessing of the Holy Spirit.’
‘Yes!’ Mary and John said together.
‘That's it!’ I smiled, ‘As we baptise them, we’ll pray that they too will come to know the promise of the Father.'
It was all coming together. As each idea was shared I felt a wave of approval from the Holy Spirit, and the others felt it too. It was as if God was applauding our ideas... like he was encouraging us as, together, we worked out how to navigate this exciting situation.
The crowd below the window was alive with the buzz of many conversations, but they fell silent as I turned back to face them. I explained what we were going to do, and a murmur of excited chatter went through the crowd.
People who were keen to get there first, went ahead of us to the pools, but most waited to follow us as we emerged from the house. Mary and the others led the women north to Bethesda, whilst we led the men south to the pool of Siloam.
The crowd filled the width of the street as they followed behind us... a river of humanity wending its way through Jerusalem to the pool of Siloam. The air was charged with excitement and people kept shouting, ‘Hallelujah!’ and, ‘Praise God! We were all caught up in the moment and joined in, expressing our joy in praise and prayer, the Holy Spirit often moving us to shout out our praises in tongues.
We’d only gone about a hundred paces when Thomas leaned in towards John and I, ‘This is going to be impossible to hide from the religious authorities.’ He had to shout to be heard above the crowd.
My confidence and excitement faltered for a moment. A wave of terror threatened to drown out my joy, as I remembered my fear of being arrested on the night that Jesus was betrayed. Then John spoke, ‘I don't think we need to worry.’ He said, ‘It's the morning of Pentecost... all the religious leaders and devout Jews will be busy at the temple for at least the next hour or two.’
I felt a surge of relief as I realised that he was right, quickly followed by a pang of guilt at how quickly I'd allowed my old fears to resurface. ‘I'm a fraud.’ I told myself, ‘Here I am, filled with God's spirit, on the day that our whole nation has been eagerly anticipating for centuries. Everyone has been longing for the promise of the Father, and here it is... but I still walk in fear of death. Even after all that I’ve seen and done, I'm still a coward.’
I fell silent. Sensing what was going through my mind, John put his arm around me. ‘Peter, we were all afraid and no doubt we will be again. But what you have done today, and what I am sure you will do in the future, bears out the faith that Jesus put in you when he said, “Feed my sheep.” You were an inspiration today... the very rock that he said you'd be. Thank you for your leadership.’
A few months earlier we'd have been competing, each looking for any way we could gain advantage over the other. But now, in the wake of the experiences we'd shared over these last months, the openness we'd grown into during the week leading up to this day, and, of course, with the Holy Spirit living in us, we were truly loving each other as Jesus had loved us. We were looking out for each other and building each other up. A wave of gratitude swept through me, ‘Thank you, brother.’ I smiled and hugged him as we walked.
Overhearing our conversation, Thomas chipped in, ‘Anyway, if all the devout people are in the temple, then those that are following us to Siloam aren't going to be the cream of the crop. Jesus chose us despite the fact that we are ordinary and fallible, and it seems to me that the first group of people that God has chosen to build his church have been cut from the same cloth.’ He laughed, ‘So at least they will relate to our failings!’
As we made our way towards Siloam, the crowd grew! That massive number of noisy people moving through the streets drew a lot of attention. People were eager to explain what was happening to anyone who asked, and more and more people joined the throng! By the time we'd reached Siloam the number of people in the crowd had nearly doubled.
Because of the feast, all the action was at the Temple, so there was no one around the pool. We quickly got ourselves organised and started baptising. Some of us paired up and waded out knee-deep in the water, whilst others organised the crowd into lines to come forward for baptism.
We could only manage to fit fifteen ‘baptism stations’ across the pool, not the twenty that Thomas had suggested, because we had to leave room for people to get out after they’d been baptised.
As we'd agreed in the upper room, we didn't just push people under the water, we prayed that they too would come to know the promise of the Father. And they did! They too were filled with the Spirit! Some spoke in tongues, some wept, some laughed, and some just came up smiling... but one after another all experienced the touch of God’s love, and knew the same joy that we were experiencing.
Shouts and songs of praise echoed around the pool, growing louder and louder as more people were baptised. The noise drew in even more people, and when what was happening was explained, many of them joined the queues of people waiting to be baptised.
Doing so many baptisms was physically tiring, and after about 20 minutes I called out to some of those who were organising the queues to switch with us. John and I had been baptising together, and he took a break with me. We made our way through the singing crowds and stood back to take an overview of all that was going on.
It was then that the next problem hit us. Those who had been baptised didn't know where to go or what to do next, and the area around the pool was quickly becoming congested. This slowed down the progress of new people being able to come forward for baptism, and the rate at which we were able to baptise people was dropping significantly.
John climbed up onto a wall near the edge of the area. ‘We have a long way to go.’ He said as he looked back over the heads of the crowd that was slowly making its way down the street. ‘I can't see the end of the crowd, and the pool area is already filling up.’
‘Can we get those that have been baptised to move away?’ I asked.
‘We’ll need to give them somewhere to go.' John replied
I had a moment of inspiration, ‘Let's send them up to the Mount of Olives. They are coming to know the touch of God's love for themselves, but we need to offer them some teaching to help them understand more about the Kingdom of God. There's more than enough of us here, so some of us could go up to the Mount and begin to pass on what we learned from Jesus.’
John agreed and we quickly put the word around the group. And about a dozen of us led the newly baptised away from Siloam and made our way out of the water gate and towards the Mount of Olives. We also sent word to the women that they should do the same with those they had baptised at the pool of Bethesda.
As I walked through the gate of the city, I had a flashback. A few years earlier, Jesus told me that if I followed him, then instead of catching fish for other people, I'd be catching people for God. Until then I'd not understood what he meant, but I suddenly got it. In that moment I had my first real glimpse of the enormity of God's plan, of the sheer majesty of it, and the incredible love and grace behind it.
It was, and still is, exhilarating to know that I'm part of something so huge... so life-changing... so world-changing! God’s love could never be earned, it was and is always freely given… And each little thing we do is magnified by the power of the Spirit and used by God. Like ripples spreading out across water, the things we did, the things we all do even now as we follow Jesus, will echo through all of time.
There have been many times since that God has opened my eyes to see even more of the love he has for humanity, but that moment was one of the biggest. All these years later I can still so clearly recall the deep joy I felt, the sense of belonging and purpose, the confidence and trust I had in God. When I go through darker times, that’s still one of the memories I return to when I need to be reminded of his grand plan.
On that day, as I led a long line of people up the slopes of the Mount of Olives, I was overcome by the Spirit again and started singing one of the Psalms, pouring out my praise to God. And those following joined in.
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long...
[1] A mikvah is a bath used for ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. When the Temple was constructed by Herod the Great, he also had many Mikvahs built so that visiting Jews could immerse themselves before entering the temple for worship.
Copyright © 2004 Barry Jackson