We are given different images in the Bible to help us in terms of our understanding of and knowing the person of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit as fire.  Consuming.  Refining.  Unpredictable.  Wild.  The Holy Spirit as wind.  Again unpredictable.  Powerful.  The rush of a violent wind.  I’ve heard stories of people surviving tornadoes, and they describe the sound like a freight train or a jet engine.  Uncontrollable.  “The wind blows where it chooses,” as Jesus once told a Pharisee who visited him under cover of darkness.  The Holy Spirit as water, flowing like a river.  “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.  As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”  (John 7:37b-38).  Now he said this about the Spirit, John tells us.  The Holy Spirit flowing from our hearts like rivers of living water!

The Holy Spirit as a bird.  The Holy Spirit descending like a dove on Jesus at his baptism.  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus declared in his hometown synagogue.  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.  The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.  We talked about Paul’s phrase describing followers of Christ a couple of weeks ago - “In Christ”. To follow Jesus is to be “in Christ”.  The flip side of that phrase is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  Christ in me.  Christ in you.  The Holy Spirit of God in you.  The Holy Spirit of Christ in me.   Not because of any goodness or specialness of my own but because the Holy Spirit is the gift of God. 

Is it any wonder that we celebrate the day on which the Holy Spirit came in a whole new way on that long ago day of Pentecost?

There is another image which is extra-biblical, but I think is a good one, particularly for those of who live in Canada or wherever there may be wild geese about.  The Holy Spirit as a wild goose is an image that comes from ancient Celtic Christianity.  Wild geese are wild and unpredictable, what with their long necks and all.  I came across a new phrase for me recently while reading an article on Canadian slang.  People are apparently calling Canada Geese “cobra chickens,” and there are a lot of videos you can see online to explain why (they’re just guarding their territory).  I had my own encounter with a domestic goose which was scary and unpredictable enough for me.  When my family lived in Bruce County, my dad took up hobby farming.  Some years we would raise geese and one of my jobs was to herd them into the barn every evening.  One evening a gander who was at the end of the line turned toward me right before the barn door.  He spread his wings out and started advancing toward me, swaying his neck and hissing.  I turned around and took off.  Didn’t stop before I jumped to put a fence between us.  I turned around to see the gander toss a disdainful look over his shoulder as he calmly walked into the barn of his own accord. 

It's not always about noise and wildness and unpredictability, of course.  One of our treasured descriptions of the Holy Spirit is that still, small voice that speaks to us.  We remember God speaking to the prophet Elijah.  There was a great wind, but the Lord was not in the wind.  The earth quaked, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  There was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.  And after the fire, the sound of sheer silence.  “Then there came a voice to him…”  The Holy Spirit speaks to us in silence.  The Holy Spirit nudges us in stillness.  Let us share our stories about how we experience this.  The day I walked through the neighbourhood in prayer, I was coming along Broadway toward Yonge, where the street grades upward slightly.  There was a homeless man pushing a cart filled with a lot of things, and he was having a hard time with it.  I walked past him.  I heard a still, small voice saying, “You’re not just going to walk past him, are you?  Is that supposed to be the result of all this prayer?”  I stopped, and when he reached me, I said, “Would you like a hand pushing that cart up to Yonge?” 

The Holy Spirit brings about tangible practical results.  The Holy Spirit is not simply some ethereal mysterious force.

The Holy Spirit is the fulfillment of the promise of God.  A couple of weeks ago, we talked about living in the promises of God.  We said that to live in the promises of God is to know the goodness of God.

Promises of peace.  Promises of accompaniment.  Promises of transformed hearts.  Promises of empowerment for mission.  This morning in our text, we see the fulfillment of a promise.  “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49). “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (1:5)  “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (1:8)   This is the promise. Here comes the fulfilment.  “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” (2:1)  They were all together in one place.  In these days, when we have become unused to gathering together at particular times and at particular places, how important is it for us as followers of Christ to gather together in one place?  How important is it for us as followers of Christ to leave ourselves open to the power of God working in us and through us?  I’m not talking here about or trying to lay a guilt trip on those who are unable to gather due to physical limitations.  What is the importance of the call on our lives to be gathering together in one place, praying and praising and listening to God?

The day of Pentecost had come.  They are together in a particular place and at a particular time.  If we associate the word Pentecost with anything, it might be with the Protestant denomination, which so emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit and personal experience of the Holy Spirit (some of us have been formed and worshipped in that tradition).   Pentecost was a Jewish festival day that happened 50 days after Passover (the literal meaning of Pentecost is ‘fiftieth day”).  The festival commemorated God giving the law to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai after their deliverance from oppression in Egypt.  It was also a harvest festival that celebrated the first fruits of the autumn harvest.

Why is this significant to us?  When we listen for God speaking to us in God’s word, we consider the grand sweep of God’s story from creation to the renewal of all things.  When we consider the giving of the law to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai, we remember the mountain being wreathed in fire and swept by wind.  We remember the promise given through the prophet Jeremiah -  “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jer 31:33). The Holy Spirit as God’s refining fire within us.  The Holy Spirit as the enabler of the fruit of the Spirit in us – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. 

Speaking of fruit, when we consider the first fruits of the harvest, we are reminded of the Holy Spirit as the seal of God’s presence – the kind of down payment of God with us.  Paul described it like this to the Ephesians – ^“In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;  this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.” (Eph 1:13-14)   The Holy Spirit as the first instalment of life lived in communion with God – live lived at home with God – which we experience in part now and will experience fully one day.

A sound came like the rush of a violent wind.  At creation, a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  Again we consider this story in the grand sweep of God’s story.  Something new is being created here.  The new thing that is being created is the church.  This is a pivotal moment!  Divided tongues as of fire appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

I don’t believe that Luke is trying to tell us something about the mark of a Christian being the ability to speak in another language empowered by the Holy Spirit.  I also don’t believe that the Holy Spirit is incapable of giving a follower of Christ the ability to speak in a language that they do not know.  I wouldn’t tend to try to put any boundaries on the what the Holy Spirit might do.  Each one of them had an individual experience of the Holy Spirit, as a tongue rested on each of them.  There’s no description of what that was like for Peter or James or John or Mary, or any other of the 120 that were gathered.  The description we have is that all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.  This was a communal experience, and collectively, they all become instruments of the power of the Holy Spirit.  It was great to see Nicola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets accept the MVP of the Western Conference Final award this past week. “What does this mean to you?” the sideline reporter asked.  “Nothing,” replied Jokic.  It’s all about the team. In Luke’s recounting of this first Pentecost, it's all about all of us together being filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

In order for what?  In order that doors and walls may be dissolved (metaphorically, at least).  In order that the church might be empowered to go public with the message of the good news of Christ.  Look at what the crowd says about what they’re hearing these followers of Jesus say in their own languages – “… in our own languages, we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”  This is our part to play as the Holy Spirit gives us power.  There are things beyond our control, like how people will react.  Some will sneer, and that’s ok.  We might even do and say things that make people think we’re drunk, but come one; it’s only 9 am.  I wonder what those things might be.  What might that look like?

May it be our prayer that God would fill us with His Spirit.  Being baptized with the Spirit is generally how we think of receiving the Holy Spirit for the first time.  Being filled with the Spirit is something that happens to Christ’s followers again and again throughout Acts.  “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them” (4:8); “When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were filled with the Holy Spirit” (4:31); “But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him” (13:9)  May it happen again and again for us, we pray. 

English poet and lyricist wrote a sonnet called “Pentecost,” which I’m going to read as we close.  This is what he had to say about the elements of which we’ve been speaking – wind, fire, water – along with earth, which is where we come in:

“I was very struck by the way Scripture expresses the presence of the Holy Spirit through the three most dynamic of the four elements, the air, ( a mighty rushing wind, but also the breath of the spirit), water, (the waters of baptism, the river of life, the fountain springing up to eternal life promised by Jesus) and of course fire, the tongues of flame at Pentecost. Three out of four ain’t bad, but I was wondering, where is the fourth? Where is Earth? And then I realized that we ourselves are earth, the ‘Adam’ (from the Hebrew word for “earth” made of the red clay, and we become living beings, fully alive, when the Holy Spirit, clothed in the three other elements, comes upon us and becomes a part of who we are. “Pentecost”

Today we feel the wind beneath our wings. Today the hidden fountain flows and plays. Today, the church draws breath at last and sings As every flame becomes a Tongue of praise. This is the feast of fire, air, and water Poured out and breathed and kindled into earth. The earth herself awakens to her maker And is translated out of death to birth. The right words come today in their right order. And every word spells freedom and release. Today, the gospel crosses every border. All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace. Today, the lost are found in His translation. Whose mother tongue is Love, in every nation.

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen