†HEAR THE HOLY GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO SAINT JOHN
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
Jesus said to his disciples, "When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
"I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But, now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?' But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.
"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be always pleasing in your sight o LORD our strength and our redeemer.
Unusually for this year Pentecost rather than falling on the first two Sundays in June has much to my confusion fallen in May.  The readings and the message thankfully cannot change.

We all know or should know the story taught in Sunday school and at many a school assembly of after Jesus had gone back into heaven the disciples met in a house and while they were praying flames appearing on their head and they started to speak in different languages. Much to the CONFUSION of the people and ‘holy’ people of the day. Many of them thinking they were drunk.
What I’d like to do is take the account from Acts and dissect it as it were and see what the scriptures tell us but more importantly what God tells us you may read the verses in bold and take totally different view this sermonette may turn to dust compared to what you think, just remember to let God speak to you. That’s why whenever I read the scriptures I spend a few brief moments praying that God would open them to me and a message will shine through.

The first small paragraph sums up the story very clearly it’s found in Acts 2: 1-4 the New International Version’s translation of the Bible says:
1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
This is not a new reading or a different take on a traditional sermon it is simply my humble view of the day’s events.
I don’t know if you remember the wild storm in 2005 all I can remember is taking two steps forward and being blown four or five steps back then seeing an old lady going literally flying down the road.
The rain was lashing down at very nearly 90° our house had no television for three days! But if you can imagine the winds down the Links in Tain where many of the great oaks were blown down. If you were to go down today you’d see the stumps of many of them. But of a more common scale if you’ve ever walked along the beach on what on the High Street seemed like a nice day (I’m not singling Tain out although Tain and Dornoch are brilliant examples) and when you got to the beach turned to be very blustery, you know the kind of wind you need to fly a kite. That sort of wind came rushing into a house probably about the size of a small bungalow but without the windows and then what appeared to be tongues of fire appeared upon their heads  and all of a sudden God gave them another language. I know many people who speak fluent Gealic (Gaidhlig) who do not come from the Islands on the other hand I have a few friends one a Church of Scotland minister who are from the islands who given a phrase in English can instantly translate it into Gealic. Well this was a bit like the disciples who almost immediately started preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ fluently in other languages, some  from nowhere near where they were from, one of my friend was born and raised in Tain and speaks very fluent Gealic she has never been to Stornaway or Barra. This is a bit like the situation 1978 years ago in Jerusalem. Although this was more like a Floridian speaking fluent Zudu (an African language) when he’s never been to the deep heart of South Africa, or had any connection with Southern Africa and the Zudii people.
Well as you can Imagine everyone round about was amazed, and some who were probably just going about their daily business  and stumbled upon this gathering and thought, “they’ve had a bit too much wine”
While others were amazed and blessed that the Gospel of Christ was being preached in their own language.
I was at the service of dedication of Bishops house and St Duthac’s Centre/Oratory in Arpafeelie a few years ago and when we had sung the final hymn Fr Mel Langille said in Gaidhlig “Imichibh ann an sìth, gu gràdh is seirbhis a thoirt don Thighearna.” Which translated means “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,  none assembled knew what he said, so replied Amen but if he has said that in say Barra everyone would probably reply: “Ann an ainm Chrìosda. Amen” or In the name of Christ Amen, this shows how language changes in the same country,  the disciples would not have had this problem it was like second nature, they probably thought they were speaking Aramaic, but what came out was Samarian, Macedonian, Greek and any language that was walking by. Fr Mel has the advantage of being able to go and be a priest anywhere in Scotland in the same way the disciples could go and some did go anywhere in the world and preach in the vernacular tongue of the area like in Edinburgh the vernacular tongue is English and on many of the Western Isles it’s Gaidhlig so when the disciples went to different countries like Turkey, Greece or Italy they could naturally speak the vernacular tongue.
This set me thinking on how as people in today’s society we can spread the Gospel of Christ it then struck me; speak in a language they will understand.  There is no point in reading King James translation to 7 year olds or 14 year olds they will not (unless brought up with it) understand. So if you use take for example the Beatitudes nobody would understand you if you said “blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” because it makes no sense to the modern teenager (I should know, I am one!) but if you said blessed are people who feel that they do not love God as well as other people but feel they are trying to do it as best they can. So to round off I would like to say if you can speak to just one person about Jesus and get them to think about Christ DO IT!!