Re-living the drama of Pentecost (Acts 2 v 1 – 17)
This dramatic imagining of the events of Pentecost can be used without any props but if you do have a paper dove (an origami bird, or drawn, or printed from the internet), a paper flame, and a Bible map of the middle east (one from a website without copyright restrictions is reproduced overleaf), so much the better.
If you are with someone else:
One person read the narration and the other person provide the voice of Peter. Be the different sections of the crowd together. If you have a third person they can read the prophecy from Joel. Read the story through first so that you know what you need to do.
Read through the story and decide which bits you want to act out yourself, if any. Go through the events as they happened and try to put yourself into the scene as you read the Bible text in black and blue type. Bring everything alive in your own mind and take time over imagining what it must have been like.
Narrator When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
Imagine the group of disciples (probably with the women who had also been with their group) gathering early on a morning during the important Jewish Festival ‘Shauvot’ (known as the Feast of Weeks).
Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
Make the sound of a violent wind, imagine it rushing through the house
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
If you have a paper flame then hold it, or hold it above your head. Otherwise, imitate the movement of a flame with your hand.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…
If you have a paper dove hold it in your other hand. Otherwise, cross your two thumbs and move your hands in imitation of a bird’s wings.
and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
See if you can reproduce a babble of voices by one of you saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, glory to God in the highest!’ and the other saying, ‘The Spirit has come! The Spirit has come!’. If there is a third person, they can say ‘Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised’ or similar.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked,
Crowd (1) Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? [We are from many different places] – yet we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!
If you have access to a Bible map, look for all the places that the visiting Jews came from: Parthia, Media, Elam, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Cyrene, Rome, Crete, Arabia.
Narrator Some, however, made fun of them and said,
Crowd (2) They have had too much wine.
Narrator Then Peter stood up… raised his voice and addressed the crowd:
Peter Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams."
Put together by Jacqui A Horton 2020