Tag Archives: Luke 1

When the Spirit Hovers Again

March 12, 2026 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

https://open.spotify.com/episode/221UBgz4HNJ06Vzdkw6lPk?si=5HadTM96QC6kL9mbIi-bnw

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”
Luke 1:35 (NIV)

Yesterday we finished our trek through the story of Esther in which God providentially works through two unassuming individuals to save the Jewish people from genocide. Mordecai and his niece Esther were exiles and foreigners in Persia. Mordecai was a bureaucratic paper pusher. Esther was just a young girl.

God loves to work through unassuming people of faith.

As we begin our Lenten trek through Luke’s biography of Jesus, we see this same paradigm again.

An old priest and his wife who live in the back-country hills of Judah.
A young girl in the backwater town of Nazareth.

These are nobodies. Simple people living faithfully where life has planted them. But through them, God is going to begin a new creation.

When Mary asks the angel Gabriel how she could be pregnant, since she was a virgin, he said that God’s Spirit would “overshadow” her. That’s a fascinating word to use. The Greek word means “to overshadow,” the language used when God’s presence fills the tabernacle. It also echoes the opening chapter of the Great Story in which God’s Spirit “hovers” over the chaos and creation begins. Gabriel is announcing that through Mary a new creation is about to begin, and Mary will become like an Ark of the New Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant was the most sacred object in Israel.

Inside it were three things:

The stone tablets of the Law
A jar of manna
Aaron’s priestly staff

Above it rested what was known as the mercy seat, and God’s glory—the Shekinah—was said to dwell there. In other words, the Ark represented the place where God’s presence touched the earth. And when the Ark was placed in the tabernacle, Scripture says the cloud of God’s glory “overshadowed” it — and there’s that word again.

Now watch what Luke does.

Luke structures Mary’s visit to Elizabeth so that it mirrors an earlier story in Israel’s history.

The story appears in 2 Samuel, when King David brings the Ark to Jerusalem.

Let’s compare the passages.

Ark Story	Mary Story
David travels to the hill country of Judah	Mary travels to the hill country of Judah
David asks: “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”	Elizabeth asks: “Why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
The Ark stays in the house of Obed-Edom three months	Mary stays with Elizabeth about three months
David leaps/dances before the Ark	John leaps in Elizabeth’s womb

Now, let’s compare what was in the Ark of the Covenant and what is inside of Mary…

Ark Contents	Fulfillment in Mary
Stone tablets of the Law	Jesus — the living Word
Jar of manna	Jesus — the bread of life
Aaron’s priestly staff	Jesus — the ultimate High Priest

Luke begins his version of Jesus’ story by telling us that God’s glory no longer lives in a golden box inside a temple.

Instead, it lives:

in the womb of a teenage girl
in a stable outside Bethlehem
in the life of a wandering rabbi with the calloused hands of a carpenter

God has moved out of the temple and into the neighborhood.

And what neighborhood?

Not the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, nor in glorious Rome— but to a back water town in Galilee. A rural nowhere where you’ll find simple people of faith living quiet, every day lives.

The kind of unassuming people God loves to use.

The same Spirit who overshadowed:

the waters of creation
the tabernacle in the wilderness
Mary in Nazareth

now chooses to dwell in ordinary lives that say yes to Him.

In the quiet this morning, my heart is mulling over the reality that God tends to create the most world-changing things in hidden places. The very theme I saw all over the place in Esther’s story.

Before creation, there was dark water.
Before redemption, there was a quiet womb.

The Spirit doesn’t only move in thunder.

Sometimes He hovers.

Over a life.
Over a calling.
Over a slow, unseen work of grace.

And when He does, creation happens all over again.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Uncategorized

Community

November 30, 2023 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.”
Luke 1:65 (NIV)

The last few nights, Wendy and I have visited one of our local eating establishments. It’s always enjoyable to eat out, but living in a small town makes it a bit different experience. You tend to know people. You not only know people but you tend to know their stories. People stop and have conversation. It’s a communal experience.

I get that small town life isn’t for every one. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Community has become one of the things I have grown to value most on this earthly journey. People walking life’s journey together, sharing experiences and sharing tragedies. I have found there to be a psychological, social, and spiritual strength in being an active part of healthy community.

One of the reasons Wendy and I went out to eat last night is that every Wednesday night we allow our house to be used by four small groups of high schoolers and their youth program. Twenty or thirty kids and their adult leaders invade our home for two hours, while we have a date (see featured photo of our front door on Wednesday evenings). As Wendy and I drove home last night from our very sociable dinner and entered the house filled with a cacophony of teen voices, we were filled once again with gratitude for living in community.

As the holidays approach, I thought I’d go back to Luke’s version of Jesus’ story on our chapter-a-day journey. Luke was a doctor, and he was one of the many believers who became a follower of Jesus based on the witness and stories of those who’d been with Jesus and testified to Jesus’ message, miracles, death, and resurrection. Luke decided to thoroughly investigate all of these stories, interview those who were part of the story, and write them down for his friend Theophilus and other believers back in his own home community. Luke became a companion of Paul on his missionary journeys and documented those experiences, as well.

I love Luke’s version of the story because of the fullness he brings. In his opening chapter, it is Luke who fills in the stories of the miraculous birth of John the Baptist, Mary’s account of her angelic visitation and subsequent visit to John the Baptist’s mother, Elizabeth who was a relative. A woman who had been childless suddenly gets pregnant in her old age. Her husband, a respected priest in the community, is struck dumb yet claims an angel appeared to him in the Temple and told him this would happen. Mary arrives to add her own angelic experiences and miraculous conception to an already miraculous story.

I found it interesting when Luke the investigator adds, “All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.” That’s what happens in a small, close-knit community. Word travels. Stories get shared. People both know and care about other people in their community. Personal events are communally felt. As an investigator and chronicler of these events, Luke is saying that people in that small Judean hill country were still talking about it: Zac and Liz’s miracle boy who became the famous Baptizer. Local boy makes good, then tragically loses his head because of Herod.

Our small town here in Iowa has produced a well-known professional athlete and a rock-star. Everyone in our town knows it. We know their parents and their siblings. People feel a communal connection. They feel part of the story. It was no different for the community in the Judean hill country where Zechariah and Elizabeth lived.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on living in community. Yes, I’ve known and experienced some of the unhealthy and annoying things that living in a small community of other flawed human beings brings with it. I have, nevertheless, found the positives to far outweigh the negatives. In our post-covid world, I continue to read about the negative consequences created by forced isolation. The psychological affects were felt by everyone from children who couldn’t be with their classmates to elderly individuals who were virtually shut off from any physical contact with their loved ones. It takes a mental and spiritual toll.

I need community. Jesus modeled with his disciples and the entourage of men and women who accompanied Him on His ministry. Luke experienced it as the followers of Jesus in his day met regularly in people’s homes to share meals and share lives. I’m convinced I would find community no matter where I lived. I’d seek it out. I need it for my own mental and spiritual health. But I’m here in a small Iowa town where I’m blessed to have it in abundance.

Today, I’m going to bask in the sheer joy of it.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Grappling With “Never”

December 2, 2019 Tom Vander Well 3 Comments

“And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” Luke 1:20 (NIV)

“I don’t know what to with never,” Wendy confessed to me one afternoon.

There are some moments in this life journey that are etched indelibly in my brain’s memory bank, and this is one of them. When the two of us were married Wendy inherited two teenaged daughters. Still, we had always desired to have a child together. After multiple surgeries and what seemed like endless months of fruitless attempts to conceive, Wendy’s admission of fear as we stood silently in our despair on the back porch felt like a giant weight on our souls.

The story of John the Baptist’s parents in today’s chapter holds a special place in my heart. There is so much happening in the subtext of Zechariah’s conversation with the angel Gabriel that is completely lost on any reader who has not walked through the long, depressing, desolate path of infertility.

A few of observations:

I find it ironic that Dr. Luke diagnoses Zech and Liz’s infertility as “Elizabeth was unable to conceive.” Perhaps there’s more to this story than is told. Nevertheless, having walked this journey I know that it’s also possible the low sperm count or poor motility were the culprits of their childlessness. Of course, this medical knowledge was not available in their day, but it makes me sad that Elizabeth got the blame.
I’ve been digging into the theme of exile on this chapter-a-day journey over the past months. The truth is that Elizabeth and her husband were in a personal exile of their own. When you are walking the path of infertility you realize that the vast majority of people don’t understand and it’s usually emotionally painful when they try. Furthermore, you’re not sure you want to talk to those who’ve been through it themselves. Those who walked the path and ultimately conceived are just a depressing reminder that it hasn’t worked for you. Those who never conceived are a reminder that “never” is a possibility which you don’t want to face and don’t know what to do with (a la Wendy’s confession). Infertility can be horrifically isolating for the couple going through it.
When the angel tells Zech “Your prayer has been answered.” My husband’s heart shoots back with a cynical “Which one?” If Zech’s heart was like mine, then there’s a section of it calloused over from month-after-month, year-after-year of fervent, unanswered prayers and wiping away his wife’s river of tears.
When Zech asks Gabriel “How can I be sure of this?” he is, once again, being defensive and protective of the hearts of both his wife and his own. Infertility is a vicious cycle of summoning faith, raising hopes, and having them dashed again and again and again and again. The last thing the elderly husband wants to do is put his wife through it one more time.

It’s easy for the casual reader to point the finger at Zech’s lack of faith. I’m sure many Jesus followers will hear messages this Advent season comparing Mary’s simple acceptance of Gabriel’s message to Zech’s rather obvious doubt. My heart goes out to the dude. He’s been made the Steve Bartman of the Christmas story for two thousand years, but I get where he’s coming from.

In the quiet this morning I find myself contemplating the long-term effects that disappointment and unanswered prayer can have on one’s spirit. As for what to do with “never,” Wendy and I worked through it together with God. We discovered, and continue to discover, deep lessons about joy, grief, faith, perseverance, character, maturity, and hope. At the same time, there is a lingering sadness that rears itself unexpectedly at odd times, which in turn pushes me back to the lessons already learned. I plumb their depths once more.

Still, if Gabriel showed up in my office this morning and told me Wendy was going to have a baby, I totally believe that the subtext of my reaction would land somewhere between sarcastic and cynical.

Zechariah would understand.

Chapter-a-Day

Good Doctor Luke

July 18, 2014 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Mattias Stom's depiction of Mark (distracted and looking at us - he probably already finished his 16 chapter cliff notes version on Jesus' life) and Luke (still hard at work with his research). — Mattihas Stom’s depiction of Mark (distracted and looking at us – he probably already finished his 16 chapter cliff notes version on Jesus’ life) and Luke (still hard at work with his research).

With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus….
Luke 1:3 (NIV)

This morning I was up early and spent some time hyperlinking all of the chapters of 1 Chronicles, which we just finished yesterday, into the Chapter-a-Day Index. As I was doing this mundane task I began to think about all of these posts I’ve written day-by-day for over eight years. My brain, still fogged by sleep, had a silly thought: “If I was running for President [talk about a nightmare for all of us], and both the press and public started pouring over my blog to find out more about me, what would they conclude about me based on what I’ve written?”

I then opened to the Luke’s biography of Jesus to start on this morning’s chapter and read Luke’s introduction to Theophilus, the person to whom Luke addressed his account of Jesus’ life. Having just been thinking about what your writing reveals about the person, I realized how much Dr. Luke [traditional holds that he was a physician] revealed about himself in his introduction.

He is methodical, making sure that his “orderly” account was properly introduced. There’s a formality to Luke’s style and structure.
He notes that his account is the result of “careful investigation,” and I could imagine the brain of a scientist at work.
He had researched everything “from the beginning.” The good doctor was thorough as well as methodical.

As I’ve poured over the “big four” biographies of Jesus countless times, I’ve come to appreciate particular things that are unique to each. The thing that I quickly observed in reading Dr. Luke’s investigative report, and which I have come to greatly appreciate over the years, is that it contains small details and entire episodes in the story of the life of Jesus that aren’t found in the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and John. A physician diagnosing the events he’d witnessed, you can feel Luke’s brain systematically questioning, researching, cataloging, and filing all of the facts so as to lay them out to Theophilus in the most clear and logical manner. These details and episodes provide incredible color and context to the story.

This morning, I am thankful for context and color. I’m thankful for diverse peoples and personalities whom God created to bring that color and context to both His-story and to each of our own stories. I’m thankful for Dr. Luke, whose physician’s brain does not work like mine (I think I’m more like John), and his meticulous investigation which I have enjoyed and from which I have greatly benefitted.