In your imagination, take yourself back a couple of thousand years to Jerusalem, the Jewish capital. Imagine the Middle Eastern city on a hill, the buildings of clay and stone, narrow streets, city walls, the hustle and bustle – streets filled with locals and visitors, Jewish leaders and priests, Roman soldiers on top of city walls and in the streets.
You have been one of Jesus’ followers for some time. You remember the day of Pentecost as if it was yesterday. There were Jewish people from many countries who had travelled to Jerusalem for the annual Feast of Weeks. The city was packed with people.
This is an imaginative telling of Acts 2:42-47. It was written as a brief guided meditation for the Bible Studies that I led for the Synod of South Australia in 2017. The text was key for my doctoral thesis and the Bible study preparation gave me the opportunity to explore its background and interpretation.
A guided meditation is a prayer for the participants, in which we hope that God will speak and we may respond. The meditation need not be long. However you need to pause after each paragraph to give people space to imagine the scene
I recommend that you give people the opportunity to write down their reflections after the meditation, and then talk in twos or threes about what stood out to them from the experience. I used this meditation three weeks ago with a church council as part of a day planning retreat. After journalling and talking in pairs, people had rich reflections to share.
Acts2-Guided_Meditation (34 kbPDF)
That’s a remarkable guided meditation Craig, many calling upon the participant to imagine things without success. But this is real, this is tangible and can be re read in The Bible via the scripture verses. Your descriptive words and language has brought it to life right into our immediate day. And me who cannot even picture a spotted dog in my imagine can see this scene in my minds eye or imagination through the use of your carefully chosen words. Thank you for bringing the scripture to life through the lens if a meditation for us to reflect on, ponder and imagine today.
I wonder what it would take to recapture some of that energy and passion for the gospel as if Jesus had just left us. How would we live out a similar scenario in today’s context. What can we live out despite this story being 2000 years old?
It strikes me that the gospel message sounds contagious, like the sharing of faith by a new Christian. I will take away these reflection and ponder them further. I’d love to stir up some of that first century followers of Jesus passion in my church community and yet, I think it needs to start with me.