Preached on Sunday, December 22, 2024, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, at Trinity Cathedral, Little Rock.

Our Gospel passage for today, the so-called “Visitation” of Mary to her cousin, Elizabeth, is a preacher’s treasure trove: just about anything will preach. But for today, I invite us to consider just one verse, just one tiny verse: “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:41b). For you see, I think that the main point of this story is the Holy Spirit.

Now, that idea may seem strange to some of us. After all, this verse about the Holy Spirit seems so insignificant. It reads like a passing comment, just a throwaway line. But isn’t that how the Holy Spirit works? Subtly, just beneath the surface, always appearing to be a passing comment or a throwaway line but, in fact, always being the driving force, the big idea, the main point. The Holy Spirit, like His Source, is humble in this way: rarely drawing attention to Himself, and yet always remaining definitively active, making it all happen, giving life to us and everything around us. And so it is for Elizabeth, who was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:41b).

But the subtlety of the Holy Spirit makes us a bit nervous, and rightfully so. How do we recognize that the Holy Spirit is at work? How do we know that the Spirit is with us, that the Spirit is up to something? Elizabeth, a character in Luke’s Gospel account, did not have the benefit of a narrator informing her of the Spirit’s presence. How would she have known? How would any of us know?

If that question troubles you, you’re in good company. That’s one of those old questions that has kept the Church up at night for centuries. How can we recognize the Holy Spirit?

That question especially haunted our sixteenth century forbears, Roman Catholics and Protestant Reformers alike. Both sides of the divide knew that, to be right, they needed the Holy Spirit––the Spirit Who leads the Church into all truth––and, of course, both sides claimed to have the Spirit on their team. There was even division between Protestants, who claimed to know what the Holy Spirit was teaching them, yes, but also what the Holy Spirit was not teaching someone else. One of Martin Luther’s fellow reformers, Andreas Karlstadt, was appealing too much to direct communications from the Holy Spirit for Luther’s taste, and Luther famously said, well, Karlstadt “has swallowed the Holy Spirit feathers and all” [1].

Now, we could get behind Luther’s concern. We, too, are wary of those folks who are oh so very sure of the Spirit’s presence, who are oh so very sure that the Spirit has spoken something to them, who are oh so very sure that they are right. How can those other people, or any of us, recognize the Holy Spirit?

Reformers, like Luther, would remind us that Holy Scripture helps us to recognize the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is active in our lives, and Scripture gives us the means to see just how it is so. The Bible gives us patterns by which we can discern the Spirit’s activity. And as subtle as the Holy Spirit’s activity is in Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth, Scripture still gives us a pattern here, a pattern by which we can anticipate and recognize the Spirit in our own lives.

So, let’s look at the story. What happens after Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit?

“Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord’” (Luke 1:41b–45).

Notice here that at least two things happen:

First, Elizabeth is drawn close to God. Now, we tend to take this part for granted. Remember, Elizabeth knew nothing of what Gabriel told Mary. Without even knowing what took place between God and Mary some days before, Elizabeth exclaims to her, “Blessed are you, the mother of my Lord, and blessed is your child, my Lord Himself.” Elizabeth recognizes what God is doing in Mary. She is drawn close to Him. And it is by Elizabeth’s unlikely recognition of God’s activity that we can recognize the Holy Spirit: because of the Spirit, Elizabeth is drawn close to God. That’s the first thing.

And second, Elizabeth is drawn close to her cousin, Mary. We tend to take this moment for granted, too, assuming that these cousins have an easy affection for one another. Maybe, but remember, moments like this are altogether rare in Scripture: two women of the same family, both miraculously pregnant, one quite old and having desired a child for many years, and one quite young and asking for none of this. Rarely have such pairs had affection for one another in the Bible: think of Sarah and Hagar, or Leah and Rachel, or Peninnah and Hannah [2]. Elizabeth easily could have been resentful of Mary. We could expect that she would have been resentful of Mary. But here, the human tendency toward rivalry and alienation breaks down. Here, Elizabeth embraces her young cousin, and it is by this unlikely embrace that we can recognize the Holy Spirit: because of the Spirit, Elizabeth is drawn close to those around her.

This is the pattern given to us by Scripture. This is the pattern by which we can recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. This is how we know the Spirit is with us: against all odds, we are drawn close to God and we are drawn close to our neighbor. These are the fruits of the Spirit in Luke’s Gospel: love of God and love of neighbor. And what does any of this mean for us? It means that we have every reason to expect the Holy Spirit to act in our lives in the very same way. That’s what it means to believe that Scripture gives us patterns of God’s behavior. As it was for Elizabeth, so it is, we pray, for us.

Truly, our task in these final days of the Advent season is to pray for God’s Spirit and to remain open. That’s what we prayed together this morning:

“Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself…” (BCP, 212).

A pure conscience, a mansion prepared in us: an open posture to God’s activity in our lives by His Holy Spirit, an activity we can recognize in Scripture and, therefore, in ourselves. That’s our prayer as we inch ever closer towards Christmas. That’s our prayer as distractions would have our hearts be darkened and closed off. That’s our prayer today: that the very same Spirit Who filled Elizabeth might fill each of us, finding us prepared for Him, thereby drawing us closer to Himself and to those around us. And by God’s grace, may it be so. Amen.

[1] Martin Luther, “Against the Heavenly Prophets Concerning Images and the Sacrament,” in The Essential Luther, edited and translated by Tryntje Helfferich (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2018), 56.

[2] Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Luke (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 38.