Identity Theft by Ron Cantor

day be raised again”
(Luke 24:5-7).
    When Ariel reappeared by my side, I said excitingly something akin to, “You were…you…ah.”
    “Yes, I was chosen to join Alexander in announcing that the King—the King of the Jews—had risen from the dead.”
    I was beginning to understand that I was with no
Private First Class
angel. This dude had some clout. And what did that say about the fact that he was sent to me? What did all this mean? I’m just a writer from Philadelphia.
    “That was an amazing day, that was,” he wasn’t even talking to me. “There was rejoicing in Heaven on a scale none of us had ever seen before; not even when Moses parted the Red Sea.”
    “You were in on that, too?”
    “No, but I watched it.”
    “My rabbi once told me that the Israelites passed through the
Reed
Sea, not the
Red
Sea and that the water was only a few feet high.”
    “Tell your rabbi that if he’s right, then an even greater miracle happened on that first Passover!”
    “What do you mean?”
    “All of Pharaoh’s army drowned in only two feet of water!”
    We both laughed out loud as he took my hand again. Being somewhat analytical, I realized that I wasn’t just laughing because he was funny, but because I was with an angel, 2,000 years in the past and I was happier than I had ever been in my whole life. Happy isn’t even the right word. I was beyond happy. I was ecstatic! I felt a joy beyond my ability, even as a writer, to express. Later I would find the term “joy unspeakable” in the New Covenant—and that summed it up perfectly!
    We were flying again but in daylight this time. When we landed, we were still in Jerusalem, but at the ancient Temple. We hovered above the courtyard and I noticed the city was packed.
    “Why are all these people here?”
    “Today is the day of Shavuot, one of the feast days on which Jewish pilgrims from all over the region come to Jerusalem to celebrate. It marks the ending of the forty-nine day counting of the Omer, from
Firstfruits
, the day Yeshua rose from the dead, to
Shavuot
, the Feast of Weeks. Sadly, most Christians know this feast day only as the Day of Pentecost, a Greek word meaning “fifty.” Greek-speaking Jews would also have used this word, but the difference is that they knew it was a Jewish or biblical feast day. Most Gentile Christians know it only as the day that the Holy Spirit fell upon and empowered the believers, birthing the Kehilah.”
    “Can you unwrap that for me further? The Holy Spirit fell? What does that mean and why is this Jewish festival important to Christians?” I asked.
    “Ten days ago, forty days after His resurrection, Yeshua told His followers, about 120 of them, to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to empower them. He told them that once empowered, they would take this message, the message of forgiveness of sin and redemption through His sacrifice, not only to Jerusalem and Judea, but also to Samaria and even to the ends of the earth. Look.”
    The cloud returned and I read, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
    I reached out and waved my hand through the cloud. The letters scattered, but then returned to form sentences again.
Unreal,
I thought. Suddenly there was a loud sound. It seemed to come from the sky, like a windstorm, and could be heard from afar.
    “Look down David,” Ariel instructed.
    When I did, I could see a large group, I assumed the 120, gathered in an enclosure that was part of a colonnade. 1 I saw what looked like flames of fire resting over the heads of each of the believers there, who were now praising God loudly in different languages. They seemed intoxicated with joy. “There is Shimon Kefa,” I blurted out, as he made his way into the Temple courtyard, followed by the others.
    “Keep watching,” Ariel was smiling.
    The noise like a mighty wind, the flames of