Acts 2.1-21; Romans 8.22-27; John 15.26-27, 16.4b-15 

Have you ever had the experience of trying to make yourself understood by people who don’t speak the same language as you? In fact, being English-speakers, it’s probably not a massive problem – everyone around the world appears to speak our language.

And we can partially communicate in sign language when we don’t know the words – as a child I learned how to play a French board game that way, by a French with no English.

Translation can sometimes cause amusing mistakes. When the Pope visited a South American country, a company in the United States printed some t-shirts in Spanish with the wording “I saw the potato”.

And one of Pepsi Cola’s slogans translated into Chinese read “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.” Translation into Chinese seems to cause many problems – one version of Coca Cola was translated “bite the wax tadpole”; and Kentucky Fried chicken’s slogan “Finger-lickin’ good” became “Eat your fingers off.”

When we don’t fully understand one another’s language, our communication becomes more limited – and, of course, it’s not only language we need to understand but also culture and tradition – for instance, what in one country is a polite gesture may well be the height of rudeness in another.

On the day of Pentecost, none of these problems occurred, for with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit came an amazing unity, in which people of many different languages could understand each other. The Holy Spirit gave them power to communicate across boundaries.

And that’s a role the Holy Spirit still has today. Christians around the world can be united with one another through its power. On that first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit brought together peoples previously divided, and one key role of the Spirit is to bring about unity. Those who live by the Spirit will be united the world over.

It’s in stark contrast to the story at the beginning of our Bibles which is told to explain why there are many languages, but also to show what happens when people aim to be God for themselves. The Tower of Babel was a project honouring to people and not to God – and rather than uniting them, it caused division, as they sought to make it higher and stronger.

So the Spirit unites us and helps us to communicate with each other; it also helps us communicate with God. Paul’s letter to the Romans explains that when we don’t know what to say to God, the Spirit can intercede for us.

There are a number of images used for the Holy Spirit – I expect you are familiar with some of them – a dove, flames, fire, wind.

Let’s think for a minute about a dove – a gentle, soaring, beautiful bird, reaching the heights, landing softly without enormous bother.

Compare that to the gentleness of God as revealed through the Holy Spirit. The calm and peaceful God we meet in the silence, the God who never pushes us beyond where we can go. The white colour of the dove reminds us of God’s purity and goodness. The spirit can meet us gently, dwelling within us and giving us peace.

But the Spirit can also appear as a rushing, powerful wind – the word used in Acts is violent. This is the God of power we see in the Spirit, the God who created the world and who change lives dramatically – we only have to look at how the first apostles were transformed from timid men to powerful orators when the Spirit came.

Wind cannot be confined but blows where it wants to. John in his Gospel reminds us that God’s Spirit is like that – it goes as it wills. 

And sometimes the power of the wind takes other things with it – think about what a street or a garden looks like after a powerful wind storm – garden furniture upended and carried around the garden, litter flying around, notices pulled off notice boards, advertising boards blown over, and so on.

And God’s Spirit can do that to people – the Holy Spirit can blow into a person’s life with enormous power and shake them up and carry them with it. The Spirit’s power can knock a grown man down to the ground in a moment.

The Spirit rested on the first apostles like tongues of fire – flames on their heads. Think about a wonderful roaring fire, and what a great sight that is. Think about the uncontrollability of fire – forest fire sweep across vast tracts of land in very little time.

Think about the heat and light fire generates, the roaring, burning sensation. And the Holy Spirit sometimes dwells within people in that same way, giving them a desire to work for god and the power to keep going.

There’s a lovely prayer that we say at Morning Prayers each morning where we ask that the divine light will set our hearts on fire with love for God – that fire is the work of the Holy Spirit. It’s a burning life within us.

There’s a well-known hymn – Father, Lord of all creation – of which the final verse is this:

Holy Spirit, rushing, burning
wind and flame of Pentecost,
fire our hearts afresh with yearning
to regain what we have lost.
May your love unite our action,
nevermore to speak alone:
God, in us abolish faction,
God, through us your love make known.

It reminds us of the Spirit’s ability to bring unity, to set our hearts on fire for God, to work in us so that our lives may show God’s love.

Fire is powerful – and the power of fire can be used in another way too. Fire can cleanse and purify, and the Spirit of God can cleanse and purify us. On the surface, the lives of most of us here probably look pretty good:

• we keep within – mostly – except perhaps when it comes to speeding
• we are polite and respectful of others – mostly – except perhaps when they’ve annoyed us
• we don’t fiddle our expenses – mostly – except perhaps when we accidentally take a few pens or loo rolls from work because we’ve run out at home
• we are honest – mostly – except when we tell that little white because we don’t upset somebody.

In fact, if we analyse our lives, and look at how they measure against God’s standards, none of us will be blameless. Part of the work of the Holy Spirit, if we allow it to work within us, is to purify us, to make us more like Jesus in what we say and do, in how we live our lives, and in who we are.

Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth – how important that is. God desires utter truthfulness from us all – it is part of God’s nature. It is no coincidence that one of the Ten Commandments was not to bear false witness. When someone always speaks the truth, we know that they are trustworthy. God does not lie to us, and nor should we to others.

Honesty and integrity are casualties in many places in our society – I come across many, many people who see nothing wrong in not being truthful with others, for various reasons – sometimes fear of being found out, sometimes not wanting to hurt somebody else, sometimes because it will make their life easier.

It’s not difficult to see now why so many MPs were against their expenses claims being revealed and voted against the Freedom of Information Act applying to them in that area. We’ve done nothing wrong, my claim is within the rules – we’ve heard those phrases a lot recently, but they ignore the fact that the declaration they sign states: “I confirm that I incurred these costs wholly, exclusively and necessarily to enable me to stay overnight away from my only or main home for the purpose of performing my duties as a Member of Parliament”.

So the Holy Spirit brings unity, life, love, sets our hearts aflame for God, works powerfully or gently, purifies us, convicts us of untruth.

It sounds pretty good really, if we want what God offers. How do we get it? Well, we can’t just reach out and grab it as it goes by like something on a conveyor belt – but we can open our hearts to God in prayer, as we seek his will; we can desire to allow our lives to be God-centred not me-centred; we can allow the Spirit’s purifying to take place as we receive God’s forgiveness.

Sometimes the Spirit comes unexpectedly; more often than not it comes to people whose hearts are ready and open for its indwelling – come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire – that prayer, when said from the heart, will produce a response from God.