That the disciples were left on the earth as Jesus returned to God is a reminder of the difference between creator and creature. In Jesus' so-called "High Priestly Prayer," he prays, "And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you." (John 17:11) Jesus did leave this world when he ascended, leaving the disciples standing on Olivet. The wind had a purpose - it caused a change to the thing it touched. Clotheslines were stretched between buildings, clean laundry was clipped on, and then it was the wind - even as a small breeze - that, along with the sun, helped dry the laundry by moving the fabric to aid in evaporation.
It was hard to find clean water for washing and almost impossible to find a breeze that would dry the clothes inside the people-packed buildings. There was a time when it was wind, in combination with the sun, that dried clothes hung on the line. What does wind do in our world? It turns turbines that create power. It demonstrated God's power by empowering believers to be witnesses. That blew them out of the house where they had been hiding and into the street where they told the story of Jesus Christ. It was a wind that did something - that blew the disciples' minds. Though it could have been, the wind of Pentecost was not the destructive whirling wind of a tornado or hurricane (we get those, too, where I live). Which might be closer to the disciples' response to Pentecost than we'd like to think.
We always get caught up with Pentecost's sound of wind and tongues of fire (Acts 2:1-4), but when we get that (through powerful tornadoes and downed, sparking power lines) it's more frightening than anything else.
No matter how close we are to Pentecost, no one was interested in having that wind blow through. There were more than a dozen throughout the state. Just last week several tornadoes went through the city where I live.
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