January 3 / Luke 1:5-25

Luke 1:5-25

“Notice what you notice.” Today it was “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.” When I think of the Holy Spirit’s activity in this world I often have Pentecost in mind or a few phrases in the Gospels of Jesus’ being “filled with the Spirit”. For me, the Holy Spirit is the least understood of the three members of the Trinity (not that I claim such extensive knowledge of the Father or the Son!). No doubt He was present at creation and I presume He was at work in the Old Testament. And at one time I underlined every occurrence of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. But if you had asked me where we read of the Holy Spirit in the Gospels, I would probably not have thought of Luke chapter 1, except for verse 35 with Gabriel speaking to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.” Surprisingly though, we also see Elizabeth filled with the Holy Spirit in verse 41 and Zacharias in verse 61. I expect I’ll be watching for Holy Spirit activity as we continue to work our way through the Gospels.

One other bit of research that I followed up on – that Zacharias was of the “division of Abijah” (v. 5), that he was away from home doing his biannual service in the temple (v. 8, 23), and that he was chosen “by lot” (v. 9) to enter the temple and burn incense. Way back in King David’s time priests from the tribe of Aaron were divided into 24 divisions (see I Chronicles 24) and assigned a week’s service in the temple twice a year. Because they were chosen by lot within each division to burn the incense it is likely that some of these priests never served in some of those special duties. But Zacharias was chosen by lot this one time. It makes me pause, pondering how all these incidents/activities/happenings were working out together in God’s great plan of salvation for us… We’re blessed!