God has so much abundantly more of the Holy Spirit for us to experience as His people than we realize and practice. In general Christians are more comfortable with the Father and Son than the more mysterious and unpredictable Spirit. Some Amazon book titles that betray a general ignorance and estrangement from the Holy Spirit include “Forgotten God,” “The Missing Link,” and “The God I Never Knew.” In some circles, the tongue in cheek “Father, Son and Holy Bible” is not too far off the mark in neglecting this third member of the Trinity. In Pentecostal circles, the Spirit gets much more billing, often pertaining to the baptism in the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. No doubt these are very important topics. Everybody of every denominational and non-denominational stripe seems to get that we’re to be filled with the Holy Spirit and there’s power associated with that. But so much more can be said about this shy, self-effacing member of the Godhead.
We’ll be investigating presentations of the Spirit given by the biblical authors, ones that have really impacted my walk with God. They invite us to live beyond this two-dimensional, black and white plane into a three-dimensional blaze of brilliant hues that the Spirit brings. So as we make our way through 1 Peter, we’ll be taking some interludes to focus on our rich inheritance of the Spirit. It is along some of these not so well-worn paths that I’ve discovered tremendous richness of relationship with God the Spirit I hope may create an appetite for this tremendous Gift readily available for us in Christ. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal 3:13-14).
Just in time for the Christmas season, I’d like to show you some super cool insights the Lord showed me about the iconic scene Mary had with the angel Gabriel and her subsequent encounter with Elizabeth, the soon to be mother of John the baptizer. The blaze of brilliant hues of the Spirit is breathtaking here! The beauty and excellency of the Spirit I’d not seen before in these familiar passages has so tremendously blessed my heart and enlarged my faith in Jesus!
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Luke 1:39-44 ESV
Although the narrative makes no explicit mention here of Mary being filled with the Spirit, the domino effects upon Elizabeth and baby John strongly infer that the Spirit who overshadowed her to usher in the Son of God in her is still manifesting His influence. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound,” the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb would later explain, “but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn 3:8). Autumn leaves rising and falling in their swirling dances prove an invisible wind animating them. Baby John leaping for joy in the womb and Elizabeth’s joy-filled response to Mary’s greeting likewise point to the unseen Spirit animating their rejoicing.
I love how Mary’s greeting was so supercharged with the anointing of the Spirit that the mere dropping of those words into Elizabeth’s ears filled her with the Spirit! Just the words of a customary greeting touched off a dynamic overflow of the Spirit: “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” Spontaneous fountains of deep joy in Elizabeth’s heart burst forth from her mouth! We’ll soon unpack how “she exclaimed with a loud cry” emphasizes enraptured jubilation.
Elizabeth’s “Blessed are you among women!” outburst was not rehearsed or premeditated on beforehand. It was a spontaneous response to Spirit’s presence and revelation. In Your presence is fullness of joy! Elizabeth’s joy framed here is the pinnacle of her joy in Luke’s whole account, exceeding even that of the birth of her longed for baby. Gabriel did, after all, say to her husband, “You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth” (Lk 1:14). As joyful as it was for Elizabeth to welcome a son, Luke’s wordsmithing of the joy encounter with Mary far surpasses that.
Elizabeth’s whole person, including her womb, was filled with the Spirit, for baby John leaped for joy. Gabriel’s words to Zechariah find at least partial fulfillment here: “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Lk 1:15). This joy at the beginning of John the baptizer’s life is characteristic to the end. As his ministry drew to a close, John addressed his disciples’ angst about Jesus drawing more attention from the crowds than they. “The friend of the bridegroom,” John says of himself, “who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.” (Jn 3:29-30).
What ignited this joyful eruption from Elizabeth? We’ve observed that the Spirit filled her, and in the Scriptures the Spirit is often associated with joy. What resulted from the Spirit’s infilling? She received supernatural insight, things she could have known only by God’s communication. Mary had only spoken an introductory greeting. There hadn’t been time to divulge the details surrounding her supernatural encounter with the angel. The Holy Spirit immediately revealed to Elizabeth that Mary was the mother of her “Lord.” Gabriel’s instruction about her son’s future ministry to go before the face of the Lord certainly prepared her to expect some woman in Judah to bear the long-expected Son of David. But who it was was a mystery. Until now. “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth expresses humble surprise to be invited into such a holy moment. If there’s any question who Elizabeth intends by “my Lord,” all doubt is removed by these concluding words from her lips:
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
Luke 1:45 ESV
Elizabeth’s alluding to “what was spoken to her from the Lord” clearly points back to Mary’s fresh encounter with Gabriel, the messenger sent from the Lord, the God of all the earth. So Elizabeth understands “Lord” to be Israel’s God. It’s wonderful that Elizabeth relates not only as “the” Lord but as “my” Lord. It’s personal. She has embraced Him as her God.
Elizabeth’s supernatural insight by the Spirit will repeat itself not too long afterwards with the aged and devout Simeon, of whom it was said, “the Holy Spirit was on him” (Lk 2:25). “Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God” (2:27-28). How could Simeon pick Jesus out amidst the throng of unknown faces in a bustling temple? The Spirit gave insight and understanding. That’s how Elizabeth understood that Mary was the mother of Immanuel, God With Us.
Now I want to unpack for you some fantastic insights into Elizabeth’s over the top reaction. This is so cool! I have spent a lot of time trying to envision what this scene might have looked and sounded like. It’s very unusual. Now they’re in a house, not the typical place to get all loud and boisterous. I picture Mary standing face to face with Elizabeth inside the home, so there’s really no reason for Elizabeth to shout, yet shout she did. To give some sense of it, the two Greek words for “loud cry” appear in the Septuagint translation of Egypt’s response to the final plague, the death of the firstborn. “There shall be a great cry throughout the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again” (Ex 11:6). Now, granted, Egypt’s emotional state was 180 degrees different than Elizabeth’s, but this demonstrates that a loud cry is let loose from the intensity of extreme sorrow or extreme joy.
So Elizabeth’s loud cry wasn’t so that Mary, standing right in front of her, could hear her clearly. It was an eruption of spontaneous praise to God! Not only was it a loud cry, but Luke further amplifies the already boisterous joy by using a carefully selected word, anaphōneō (an-af-oh-neh’-oh). “She exclaimed [anaphōneō] with a loud cry.” Anaphōneō is found nowhere else in the New Testament, only here. It’s a rare specimen in the Old Testament as well, used only five times with a unique connection to two unforgettable days in Israel’s history. I learned in recent months from the Bible Project a literary technique that Luke leverages to enrich the meaning in the story he’s narrating. The technique is analogous to this. The gospel story is like the main stage upon which the actors and actresses command our attention with their lines and actions. Behind them is this movie theater sized screen that pops up sepia images that are choreographed to what’s happening on the main stage. These sepia images are flashbacks that synchronize something of the Old Testament story that’s being recapitulated into the new story being acted out on the main stage. In this way, Luke masterfully packs a lot into a little.
The sepia image in the background that Elizabeth’s anaphōneō conjures up is a flashback of the story of King David and the people bringing the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem with rejoicing. David’s first attempt to transport the ark into the city on an oxen pulled cart was an epic fail. Because the oxen stumbled, Uzzah laid hold of the ark and God killed him for his error. So the ark spent three months in the house of Obed Edom. David heard on the grapevine that Obed Edom’s household experienced God’s blessing by having the ark, which encouraged him to try again. This time he successfully brought the ark to the tent he’d prepared for it.
David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, as also were all the Levites who were carrying the ark, and the singers and Chenaniah the leader of the music of the singers. And David wore a linen ephod. So all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting, to the sound of the horn, trumpets, and cymbals, and made loud music [anaphōneō] on harps and lyres. (1 Chronicles 15:27-28 ESV)
The phrase “made loud music” is the single word anaphōneō. Luke is drawing upon this image out of the old story to choreograph something absolutely wondrous taking place in the new story being acted out by Elizabeth and Mary!
Then he appointed some of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the Lord, to invoke [anaphōneō], to thank, and to praise the Lord, the God of Israel. Asaph was the chief, and second to him were Zechariah, Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed-edom, and Jeiel, who were to play harps and lyres; Asaph was to sound [anaphōneō] the cymbals, and Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests were to blow trumpets regularly before the ark of the covenant of God. (1 Chronicles 16:4-6 ESV)
So on that same day they “brought in the ark of God and set it inside the tent that David had pitched for it” (16:1), David had organized the Levite singers to make loud praise to the Lord (verse 5) and sound the cymbals (verse 6). All this celebration is centered around the ark that started on this day, David institutionalized to continue on for those forty or so years that his tabernacle was open for worship.
The last time anaphōneō occurs is when David’s son Solomon inaugurated the temple, the permanent residence for the ark:
The trumpeters and singers joined together [anaphōneō] to praise and thank the Lord with one voice. They raised their voices, accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and musical instruments, in praise to the Lord: For he is good; his faithful love endures forever. The temple, the Lord’s temple, was filled with a cloud. And because of the cloud, the priests were not able to continue ministering, for the glory of the Lord filled God’s temple. (2 Chronicles 5:13-14 CSB)
The Septuagint translation departs a bit from the word for word translation from the Hebrew, so it doesn’t mean “joined together” but relates rather to how boisterous the praising and thanking the Lord with one voice was. So we see anaphōneō consistently associated with Levites’ worshipping before the ark with joyful song and music. So Luke, by hand-picking anaphōneō, has intertwined Elizabeth’s joy-filled loud cry with this jubilant singing and instrumental playing before the ark, the iconic symbol of the presence of the Lord. What does this all mean? The Ark has returned! That ark is Jesus! The golden ark with its cherubim on its lid had disappeared after the Babylonians ransacked and destroyed Solomon’s temple. Now the heavenly King who fulfilled the shadow of the earthly ark of the royal throne has returned!
Only now the Ark, instead of being carried upon the shoulders of Levites is now being carried inside the womb of Mary! Elizabeth, although a Levite after the flesh, is the new Levite, the new priest, who’s filled with the Spirit and responsively praises Jesus. Elizabeth, then, serves as a prototype for the new kind of worshipers we’re all to be. The apostle Peter says that you are “a royal priesthood..that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1Pe 2:9).
King David had learned from the tragic debacle of transporting the ark on a cart one vital lesson: only the priests could carry God’s presence (see King Jesus’ Royal Chariot on the Move Today for more details). The implications of this within Luke’s narrative are astounding. Mary, who is now transporting the true Ark, the actual presence of the Lord Jesus, is a priest! God is tearing down the temporary barriers and restrictions that the Old Testament had erected for women, for priests could only be men. Not only that, one had to be of the tribe of Levi to be a priest. Mary, as a descendant of King David, is from the tribe of Judah. The writer of Hebrews rationalizes the dissolution of the Levitical priesthood because of its many shortcomings, most significantly its powerlessness to bring about moral perfection (Heb 7:11). His point is that Jesus is the priest after a better order, that of Melchizedek. As the biblical story-line plays itself out, we’ll see this new priesthood expand from Jesus to all who are in Christ Jesus. “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (Rev 1:5-6).
Here, though, in the dawning of this revelation, we simply see Mary as a priest after this new order as a silent witness to the old fading away. The true priesthood operates after the Spirit and not after natural genealogies and prescribed liturgies. Of course, the Lord Jesus must yet accomplish His mission to the cross to inaugurate it, but we’re given a glimpse of the beautiful future that is coming. God is establishing the new order of priests that is always been on His heart, ones that are overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and bringing joy to those around them.
So Mary is the first new kind of priest and Elizabeth was the second! Elizabeth as a true priest lifted up her voice in joyous praise to the Lord. Elizabeth, in contrast with her husband, Zechariah, had full use of her tongue to sound forth joyful praise. Zechariah was part of that old priesthood fading away, his deafness and muteness embodying the weakness of that archaic system. This fits with one of Luke’s overarching themes of his gospel. The book begins with a priest, Zechariah, unable to bless the people, and ends with the high priest, Jesus, ascending into the heavenly sanctuary with hands outstretched in a posture of priestly blessing (Num 6), a one-time act signifying an everlasting attitude. Mary and Elizabeth here are our first hints that a new priestly order is coming, one in which there is neither male nor female in Christ. Mary and Elizabeth are our first examples of worshipers in Spirit and in truth!
So what does this all mean for you and me? There are probably more takeaways than this, but I see at least these four: from exclusive to inclusive; from predicable to spontaneous; from special space to everyday space; and from worship by routines to worship of Jesus by the Spirit’s revelation. First, God has broken down the temporary walls of division under the law of Moses. The priesthood would no longer be exclusively men from the tribe of Levi but expanded to include women and peoples of any ethnicity. Prior to the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai, God instructed Moses to inform all the people of Israel to know “you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex 19:6). In Jesus what could not be done under the Mosiac system is accomplished in Him! Peter affirms the fulfillment of God’s wish list, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1Pe 2:9). Mary and Elizabeth are our first peek of God’s desires coming to pass in His people, the church, extending to you and me.
This new priesthood is one of spontaneity. Elizabeth’s jubilant shout was unrehearsed, a responsiveness to the Spirit filling up her life. As we consider patterns and weekly or daily rhythms of worship, does my engagement with God through them produce this fruit of the Spirit called joy? If Elizabeth teaches us anything, it’s that true worship includes a spontaneity of life expressed as rejoicing. Not that pre-scripted or “liturgical” expressions of worship are out of place, but do I encounter God through them with rejoicing? This is a more excellent way God invites us to.
This fullness of the Spirit happening in a house rather than in the temple is another barrier coming down. God never desired His presence to be restricted to one place like the Jerusalem temple but ultimately in our everyday dwelling places. Jesus, in His discourse with the woman at the well in Samaria, summarizes this yearning succinctly: “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:21,23-24). Elizabeth’s anaphōneō, that finger-pointing back to the joyful worship of the Levites before the ark in a special place, is now in an everyday place, her own home. Luke continues this theme throughout His two books, keying on Jesus being at home in Bethany (usually at Mary and Martha’s). Most notably the outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place not in the temple but in the upper room of a normal everyday house. Can you experience the presence of the Lord as comfortably in your own home as in a church building? You should. Those are some of the cornucopia of benefits Jesus purchased for you and me at the cross. Mary and Elizabeth are awakening the dawn of this glorious new day of true worship in Spirit anywhere and everywhere.
What God presents in the beginning sets the stage for further development throughout the remainder of the New Testament. The origins of the new priesthood in our New Testament are revelation by the Spirit, worship of Jesus, and unbridled joy! This brings us full circle to 1 Peter (of course, it had to!) “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1Pe 1:8). Elizabeth’s being filled with the Spirit to see Jesus with the eyes of faith resulted in her rejoicing “with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.” Elizabeth is illustrative for you and me today what was normative Christianity in the churches in Peter’s day. We are living now in the age of grace where the more communion and experiencing the Spirit is simply ours for the asking. “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk 11:13)
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 