Note: What follows here is a historical fiction based on the events of Acts 2 and the theology of the Bible, perpared for a recent Worship Night at Calvary Monterey.

I am convinced my life will be divided by yesterday's events—life before and life after. As a priest in God's holy temple here in Jerusalem, I am familiar with the euphoric and powerful. Year after year, I have traveled to this place to participate in and facilitate the worship of Yahweh for his people. I have aided in the sacrifice of bulls and goats for fellowship with and forgiveness from God. I have seen my share of hypocritical rituals, but also thousands upon thousands of genuine worshippers who have brought their stains and sins and uncleannesses to the altar of God.

This temple, this space, this holy ground, ordained from the days of Moses' Tabernacle as Yahweh's meeting place with man, his new Eden, has been my refuge. Countless times, I have washed my hands in innocence and renewed my vows to my God around his altar. I have come to God's house in need of newness—and my God has delivered (Psalm 26:6). I sing in harmony with the Psalmist who sang, "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD!'" (Psalm 122:1). His house has been a place of cleansing, a place of rededication, a place where I and the masses have been renewed by God.

Still, how could one go to God's temple without thinking of the promises of our prophets? Men like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and Joel and Zechariah, under the moving of the Holy Spirit, told us of a new day with a new covenant that would come—a day when God would put his Spirit within his people, give us new hearts, purge us of our sins, and bring us into an inner closeness with him. Daily sacrifice after daily sacrifice, Sabbath after Sabbath, worship festival after worship festival, and holy day after holy day, I have longingly wondered how and when that glorious new age would arrive.

Now I know. The life of a teacher from Nazareth, a man named Jesus, had caused a stir in the holy city these past months. After a few years of teaching and preaching and, many say, miraculous power, he amassed a following, which drew some ire from the religious establishment. I try not to insert myself into such matters, but everyone knew when he was condemned to death during the most recent Passover. I heard a whisper or two that his followers, for almost two months now, have been saying that he came back to life and that they'd seen him. But who can believe such things? How could this be?

But yesterday, on the fiftieth day after that Passover, as I prepared to assist my fellow priests to receive the offerings of firstfruits, a commotion erupted. Some of those followers of Jesus of Nazareth were boldly declaring the wonderful works of God in languages they could not possibly know. Pilgrims from far-off nations recognized their native tongue and flocked to see the sight and hear the words of those men and women. And as we all gathered, a man named Peter stood up. He began to declare from the Psalms and prophets that this Jesus, whom we crucified, was God's Son and our Messiah-Christ, that he had been raised to life according to the Scriptures, and that all we'd seen and heard that day was a result of God's Spirit affirming his message. We all stood mesmerized by Peter's power and persuasiveness and clarity—it was as if the most potent beam of light was penetrating my darkened heart for the first time. Could Jesus be one I awaited, the fulfillment of the prophets who had haunted my heart?

Many of us, struck to the heart, cried, "What must we do?" His answer pierced our hearts as he told us to repent of our rejection of Jesus, trust Jesus, and be baptized in Jesus' name—to receive him. And so I did—heart, mind, and soul, I received him! Thousands of us rushed down to the ritual baths outside the temple mount, and Jesus' followers baptized us in his name for the forgiveness of our sins.

And as I ascended the stairs of the mikveh, dripping with water and saturated with grace, it was as if the entirety of the Scriptures began to coalesce in my mind. All the beautiful blood I had seen poured out on the bronze altar in God's house over my many years had pointed to the blood of Jesus. All the sacrifices for sin and fellowship and peace and commitment and friendship with the living God had culminated in and been fulfilled in God's only begotten Son. All the blood of bulls and goats were mere shadows of the true blood of our sinless and willing substitute, Jesus Christ.

All the Passovers I'd celebrated pointed back to the blood on the doorpost of every Hebrew home in Egypt, but now I realized it spoke of the true blood of Jesus applied to my heart that I might live and be set free.

All the Feasts of Unleavened Bread I'd celebrated pointed back to the removal of leaven from Hebrew homes during the exodus, but now I realized it spoke of the true removal of all sin and defilement from my life.

All the Feasts of Firstfruits I'd celebrated pointed back to God's gift of the land and its abundant crops, but now I realized it spoke of my Jesus as the first of a massive harvest of people for God's family.

All the Feasts of Tabernacles I'd celebrated pointed back to God's provision in the wilderness—how he led us with his light, quenched our thirst with his miraculous supply of water, and met us in the Tabernacle—but now I realized it spoke of the true light of the world, the abundant water of life God had just placed in my heart, and the way he came and dwelt with us by becoming one of us in Jesus.

And all the Days of Atonement I'd observed pointed back to the previous year and our collective need for God's cleansing and forgiveness as his people, but now I realized it spoke of the complete and full and final sacrifice of Jesus for our sins.

Newness of life had rushed into my body. I am now so alive to God. I knew him in shadow. He was behind the veil. But now his Spirit has washed and renewed me. I cannot explain—nothing is more real than this. I am clean. I am pure. I am spotless. I am right. I am holy. I can feel it—I have been fundamentally changed. I don't even recognize the man I was before meeting him, before I encountered our hope, our Christ. I am now full and fulfilled in him. I have been washed from the inside. I know it was his blood, the blood of the Son. All this? It could only have been his blood.