Psyching myself up to say as few words in public I recall John of Gaunt in Richard II 

Methinks  am a prophet new inspired, old John of Gaunt says in Shakespeare's Richard II. 
The account in our reading from Acts this morning is startling inspiring stuff  -  
Pentecost was a Jewish feat celebrating as I understand it the giving of the law on  Mount Sinai.  It also fell according to the account in Acts, conveniently 50 days after the resurrection.  
Promise of the Messiah had been around for hundreds of years via Old Testament prophets, but the Holy Ghost arrived very soon after Jesus commanded his disciples to preach his Gospel of repentance and salvation and ascended into Heaven.  
Actually they seemed to have been lying low and then  -  bang  -  tongues of fire arrive and with it the inspiration that eventually carried Christianity around the world.
As someone who has wrestled long and hard with two foreign languages, it's quite difficult to understand how the Apostles managed at a stroke, to avoid all those irregular verbs and vocabulary tests.  Yet they seem to have spoken in at least a dozen different languages
Nor do I understand why bystanders thought they were drunk. People from parts of Egypt, Libya, Jews, Cretans etc etc seem to have understood them.   
Is this speaking in foreign  tongues a symbolic way of foretelling that the Gospel of Christ would be a Gospel for the whole world.  
What is incontrovertible that the 11 were inspired.  They, as it were, came out  -  and Peter preached, or so it seems, his first sermon with great flair and fluency.    No speech writer, no text that we know of  -  just words from the heart.  [ Churchill and Roosevelt]   
He spoke of Jesus of Nazareth, " delivered according to a definite plan and the foreknowledge of God " , the crucifixion and resurrection.  And the result, though not in our reading today, was pretty electrifying  -  3000 plus baptisms on the spot.  
Inspiration that has carried  the message of Christianity along through the generations.   Literature, art, music embodying the response of the human spirit
Christina Noble.
Message of Pentecost story:  get out and lead a Christian life.   Find a bit of inspiration.  
