Read: Luke 1:26-56
The Holy Spirit has been called the “shy member of the trinity” because he focuses his attention not on himself but on Jesus, the Messiah. The Holy Spirit was the answer when Mary asked how she would conceive a baby without a man! God’s messenger told her God’s Spirit would act in her body to bring about Jesus’s conception without a man’s involvement.
But the Holy Spirit had already been active: Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, and her husband, Zechariah, were expecting a baby filled with the Spirit from the womb. And sure enough, when Mary visited Elizabeth, this baby filled with the Spirit gave the world’s first motion of praise for Jesus. When we stand in worship, raise our hands, or clap in honor of Jesus, we can remember that we are following the example of the unborn John the Baptist!
God’s Spirit empowered Elizabeth to speak God’s truth as well; he gave her clarity to know the situation. In this moment of prophetic knowledge, he allowed Elizabeth to praise Jesus and recognize that Mary’s baby would be Elizabeth’s sovereign. Again, the Holy Spirit focuses on Jesus by inspiring praise and recognition of Jesus’s greatness.
Fast forward 33 years to when Jesus’s followers had gathered for a springtime celebration of Shavuot, commemorating God’s giving of his first written words on stone to the people at Sinai. This day, which we now call Pentecost, coincides with the Jewish festival of Shavuot. It was the moment the Holy Spirit began writing God’s law in the believers’ hearts (Acts 2). Soon, people of every ethnicity — first Jewish people like Jesus and later others like me — were traveling the world with God’s indwelling powerful Spirit.
And just like our spiritual mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, his power pumps through our hearts to live for Jesus. As we keep in step with the Spirit, our lives will be marked by true love that seeks the absolute best for other people and by goodness and generosity even when we feel poor. We will also be enabled by peaceful confidence in Jesus’s own goodness.
The Holy Spirit guides and shapes our responses, dampening our abruptness to make us gentle like Jesus when we’d prefer to move fast.
The same Spirit who overshadowed Mary and inspired Elizabeth lives in us to make us kind like Jesus when we have a right to respond in anger.
And when our days feel strained, the budget is tight, the traffic is heavy, and time with family isn’t working out the way we hoped, Jesus’s Spirit shows us how He’s working and brings joyful reflections to our hearts (Galatians 5:16-26).
I need help like that. Maybe you do too. Thank God we’re not the ones who bring joy to the world! Today, go to him to ask for his help to keep in step with his Spirit that first brought this season of Advent to earth.
Holy Spirit, I am so glad that Jesus returned to the Father and sent You to be with me always. I believe you started that first Advent in Mary and Elizabeth, and you will work miraculously in me to help me follow in Jesus’s footsteps, too. Grow my love, joy, and generosity this season, and let me always point to Jesus just like you do! Amen.
