Would you please turn in God's word with me this morning to Luke's gospel and the first chapter to read together, verses 39 to 45. Luke chapter one, verses 39 to 45. And note that this evening we return to Luke one Our Lord willing to pick up our reading with verse 46 and read to verse 56. In fact, both passages will have a common theme in two quite different forms. Luke's Gospel, the first chapter from verse 39 to verse 45, we hear now God's word. 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. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Amen. Let us pause in prayer. Gracious God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, how we long for your help, for your grace, for your gift among us this day. that blessing, which will ensure that your word read and proclaimed will prove wonderfully fruitful among those who hear and receive it. Not only for our sake, but for the glory of your great name, which glory and blessing we see in Jesus name. Amen. There's a rather remarkable feature that the story of Elizabeth's encounter with Mary, in the verses that we have read, and the story of Mary's famous magnifica, her song, in the next passage, a wonderful feature these two scenes have in common, which is that in both cases, we meet with women who are caught up, as it were, in the very center of the meaning of the cosmos and of all of human history and what is taking place in their respective wombs in this moment. But in both cases, we meet with individuals and with settings of an utterly, of a completely forgettable kind. a wholly nondescript, unspectacular context in which the very fulfillment of the hopes and dreams and longings of every generation and every age are being realized. And in the mundane, in the ordinary feel and shape and form of the dirtiness, the anonymity, the easily forgotten, even not named, undescribed hill country in a place in Judea in which these things are taking place, The faith, the faithfulness of the God who has promised blessing to his people is confirmed, is established, satisfies those long longings, and becomes the anchor of the soul, not only of Elizabeth or of Mary, One of their sons and daughters in the faith gathered here today. This common feature these stories have is a lot like something I can't help but notice upon every visit to London and the United Kingdom. In God's kind providence, I often have reason to be over in England and in London. That is until COVID hit. I look forward to being able to return. But over the course of my many visits and regular visits to London for teaching and for meetings, I have almost, if you will, a kind of special friendship with certain objects. that it seems to me I always need to go by and say hello once again when I'm in town. And they are found in the British Library and the British Museum, two of the most famous buildings in the world for the treasures that they hold within them. When I go to the British Library in London, I can't seem to be in London very long without making sure I go and have a look at the oldest known manuscripts of the New Testament on planet Earth, the codexes which are there for the public to see. And it's just, the first time I saw them was a special experience. I got to see with my own eyes these most remarkable, deeply important, influential texts of the New Testament and see them right there. So much so I try to see them every time I go back. And in the British Museum, from the first time I visited and every time since, I have found that what I always want to make sure to see happens to be what everyone else in the world is thinking they also need to see if they go to the British Museum. But you'd never know it if somebody simply described the thing. Walk through the Egyptian sculpture gallery. And you'll notice the crowds that are all making sure they see one or two of the mummies on display. But you'll see the largest crowd, no matter the time of day or night, no matter the time of year in the British Museum, the largest crowd around this rather dull object. Gray made of stone about the size of one of those large suitcases that you packed on your way to London in the first place. A piece of stone with rough edges that shows it was taken from a larger piece of stone at some time in the long, long past. It has fractures moving across what text you can see on the stone. And when you read the text, if you're able to, It's even duller than the appearance of the thing. How many of you are thrilled and excited to read bureaucratic jargon about tax concessions and negotiations and yet you read the text and are unmoved. You see the object for its physical features and you are unmoved. but appearances prove so deceptive. This dreary bit of broken granite has played the starring role in three fascinating and different stories in the history of human civilization. The story of Greek kings who ruled in Alexandria after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt. The story of French and British imperial competition across the Middle East after the Napoleonic Wars and Napoleon invaded Egypt. And then a most extraordinary yet strangely peaceful scholarly contest that led to the most famous decipherment in all of recorded history, which has in its own way shaped history ever since. the cracking of the code of the hieroglyphics, a great contest between English scholarship and French scholarship, which resulted in the first ever insight and access into the literature of one of the most important civilizations ever on planet Earth, the civilizations of Egypt. I'm referring, of course, to the great Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone, which when you go to the British Museum, you can see upon entry, is right there in the middle of the first major area of the museum on purpose, because it's what most people came to see in the first place. They've heard very little about it, but they've heard enough to know this is a most special piece of granite. with three bits of script all saying the same thing in three different languages. Access to one meaning we have a key to understand the meaning of the others. Bureaucratic jargon that would end up being the key to understanding the ancient world and to a great extent ourselves. A piece of stone cut out from something grander a piece of stone at the center of dramatic stories of politics and scholarship of hope and intrigue. A bit of stone, so nondescript, easily overlooked, and yet whose value and meaning is far beyond what appearances would suggest. In a similar way, Luke, our writer, addresses a largely unknown man of whom we in our day know precious little, Theophilus. And in the opening words of Luke's gospel, addresses this Gentile Christian of some status and position in the Roman Empire. who had already been catechized in the things of the Christian faith, who is facing challenges to that faith he learned and needs not to be assured for the first time, but to be reassured that the things he has been taught are true and will be true when he needs them to be true. And Luke will reassure Theophilus by telling the stories of God proving his faithfulness in the context of the mundane, of the ordinary, of the easily overlooked by the world, where the very stuff of all of cosmic and human history are in fact ironically wrapped up, especially in the names of two women, whose very names signal their ordinariness, Elizabeth and Mary, names as common as you'll find among the Jews, period. In a way, the Tom and the John and the Bill of our own world, whose names will tell you almost nothing about them, nothing about their background, nothing about their significance. And yet in Luke's telling of a story, this is in fact part of the point. That when we are tempted, in fact, to look for the spectacular and the dramatic and the momentous as ways God might prove to us, he will keep his word. That he is instead pleased to reassure us in contexts that are more mundane, more ordinary, more pedestrian, And when we confuse the pedestrian with the pedantic, when we confuse the ordinary with the unimportant, we have lost sight of the wisdom and glory of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is pleased to impress upon us the truth of his faithfulness. precisely in the kinds and forms of life we need that reassurance most. As we think of these things in reading our passage of Mary's encounter with Elizabeth, I suggest that we will completely miss the message Luke has for us unless we take a very big step back from our scene to an older one, and then reenter our scene with the benefit of that reminder. You see, there's a deep, deep backstory being rolling on as real as it were, while Luke is telling us about Elizabeth's encounter with Mary here. It's a backstory that reaches about as far back as you can go in Israel's story. All the way back to the very first time the Ark of the Covenant is mentioned in the Old Testament. You're thinking, what in the world would the Ark of the Covenant have to do with Luke chapter one and this remarkable scene of Mary and Elizabeth's reunion? Well, bear with me. In fact, bear with Luke for a moment. The first time the Ark of the Covenant is mentioned in Scripture is way, way back in the book of Exodus. the deepest of deep roots for Israel's identity and self-understanding. And it's mentioned for the first time in the midst of the story of Israel's long departure from Egypt. That 40-year journey right through the wilderness, the desert, where they are surrounded with the ordinary, surrounded with the unspectacular, surrounded, in fact, with images and reminders of their fragility of their vulnerability, of their utter dependence upon God. Right there in the midst of that kind of world, without pomp or circumstance, is the first mention of the Ark of the Covenant. After the people arrive at a mountain called Mount Sinai, or the mountains of Sinai, after they receive the Ten Commandments in Exodus 19 and 20, God does something really important. He gives the Israelites instructions for how to build a sanctuary for him to dwell in. It's gonna be a kind of portable tent, kind of movable sanctuary known as a tabernacle in Exodus 25. The very first piece of special sacred furniture to be put into this kind of movable sanctuary is an Ark of the Covenant, it's called. It's a very detailed thing and description, but it's worth noting some features about this description. We have it in Exodus 25. It's going to be a sanctuary where God will dwell in a special way. Yes, he fills the cosmos with his divinity. Yes, because he is God, he is everywhere. But there will be a special way in which he is there or here for his people. And it's going to be focused upon this sanctuary. Here he will dwell in the midst of his people in a special way. And in this sanctuary, there's going to be this ark, which is simply a way of saying a box, a box, an ark of acacia wood, acacia wood, where acacia for the ancient Jews, what was kind of a way of symbolizing eternity, non-perishability. It seemed to last forever, acacia wood did. In fact, when the Greek writers translated The Hebrew word for acacia they use words for eternity or enduring that kind of special wood It's going to be made with acacia wood and you will overlay it with pure gold And you're going to put into the ark the instructions say the testimony that is the ten commandments themselves And then make these two cherubim of gold over top it now way way back in the past long time ago when pastor hutchison was being installed as a pastor of this congregation, he asked me to preach the sermon for that occasion. And I chose as a text a passage in John's gospel describing the empty tomb of our Lord, where the two angels were seated on the extremities of an empty table where our Lord, in fact, was no longer held. He had been raised from the dead. And you might remember way, way back then, because you remember all the sermons preached here, right? That back then it was a reminder of this old Ark of the Covenant with the angels on both sides and angels longing to look into these things, Peter says, right in the middle of the things of the risen Lord. Well, just a reminder of what I know you consult in your sermon notes. all the time. Well, here on this Ark of the Covenant, we have these two cherubim above what's called the mercy seat. Now, this again, remember, is a special place of God's dwelling on earth. The Ten Commandments will be inside of it. It'll be made of this kind of incorruptible wood, covered with gold, a symbol of the holiness of God. Now, what we also want to remember about the Ark of the Covenant is that this was also the specific place where the glory cloud will descend from heaven. That was the glory cloud, cloud of glory, which visibly communicated God was with His people. When it descended on the Ark of the Covenant, that was a reassurance for all of God's people that He really is with them, really is keeping His word, His special presence can be counted on. in Exodus chapter 40, when all of this work is done preparing the tabernacle and the ark, the box of the covenant as well, what do we read? Well, the cloud covers the Tent of Meeting and the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle and even Moses is not able to enter that Tent of Meeting because of that cloud that is above it, the glory filling the tabernacle. It's hard to exaggerate the importance for Israel of this descent of the cloud of God's glory on the tabernacle in connection with the Ark. Now, that said, we also know that the Ark of the Covenant and its story doesn't end in Exodus, does it? Once the Israelites arrive in their promised land of Canaan, after those 40 years of wandering, the Ark of the Covenant, you might remember, moves around quite a bit. During the time of Joshua and the Judges of Israel, the Ark is kept at various kind of local extension sites of the main sanctuary. Gilgal, Shiloh, Bethel, At one point, the Ark is actually captured by Philistines. Remember this story in 1 Samuel chapter 5. And then the Philistines are themselves struck by God with this plague of tumors. In fact, hemorrhoids is how we might render the Hebrew here. And they're suffering so terribly, they immediately try to return the Ark to the Israelites. We want no part of this. This is obviously a sacred object. Your God is with this piece. Well, sometime later, about 1000 BC, King David decides, you know, it's time for the Ark to have a place of its own. God's dwelling place deserves to have a fixed location among and in the midst of his people. So he wants to bring the Ark from Baal, Judah. to the city of Jerusalem and give it a permanent home in that most special of cities among God's covenant people, Jerusalem. So he gets up and he goes, arose and went, it says in 2 Samuel 6, with the people of Israel to bring up the Ark of God. Tragically, they don't put the Ark of the Covenant on the golden poles, like the instruction said to do. Instead, they put the Ark on a cart pulled by oxen. a plan which proves fatal for a certain Uzza who sees the ark wobbling, puts his hand out, and then is immediately executed for contact. with the sacred object that is not in keeping with God's law. David is now afraid of what the Ark does, almost treating it like a magical thing, forgetting the God who is actually personally at work in this. He says, how can the Ark really come to me? So he puts it instead over in the house of this man, we have to assume he didn't like him very much, Obed-Edom. You can keep the Ark. rather than us bringing it up to Jerusalem. But for the three months, remember that, that the Ark is in the house of Obed-Edom, everyone sees how his house is wonderfully, visibly, remarkably blessed. It's extraordinary how blessed his house is. Everyone knows it's because the Ark is there. Well, David sees this and thinks, well, maybe it's not so dangerous after all, and maybe we should all be blessed in this way. Maybe we're being encouraged to continue with our project of bringing the ark up to Jerusalem. So he and his family, Obed-Edom and his family, because they have been blessed the way they have been, they become the reason for trying again to bring the ark to Jerusalem. So in 2 Samuel, Chapter 6. Now they're going to do it the right way. They put the ark, carrying it by those golden poles, offering sacrifices of thanksgiving to God all the way, and the closer and closer they get to Jerusalem, the more obvious it becomes to them. This is going to work. This is going to work. God in his special presence is really going to have a fixed location. We and our generations of descendants after us are going to be able to count on coming here and encountering the Lord of our fathers. He is going to be in a fitting place in the very city of promise, the city of Jerusalem. David above all of them, leading the mass of people is most full of joy. And it's overcoming joy for him. He is starting, as it were, to realize the implications of this remarkable blessing and event. So in 2 Samuel 6, what do we read? David is going forth and bringing up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David. with rejoicing and he dances before the Lord with all his might on his way there and David and all the house of Israel bring up the house of the Lord with shouting with the sound of the horn. And it's a spectacle. So much so that his wife Michal or Michal can see her husband David making a fool of himself as he gets closer and closer to the city gates of Jerusalem. And she's there watching this display and completely misinterprets it. She thinks he is shaming himself as a king by throwing caution to the wind, rejoicing as one overcome with joy, leaping and jumping all of his way to the city gates. And she chastises him for it. Is this really what you should be doing, David? Is this conduct becoming a king? When we read at the very end of chapter six in 2 Samuel, the very last words of the chapter is that she is now barren for the rest of her life, judged with barrenness. This event is memorialized. The arrival of the Ark of Jerusalem memorialized in so many of those, they're called Psalms of Ascent we have in our Psalms. Psalm 132 is an example. Rejoicing that the Lord has chosen Zion, this is my resting place forever, here I will dwell. What a cause for joy. Now that the Ark is where it belongs, God can dwell with his people again. But of course, we know the story doesn't end there, does it? After the death of Solomon, the whole thing falls apart. Not only did the kingdom of Israel eventually split into two, even the temple itself built in Jerusalem for this purpose. And the whole city of Jerusalem, they are destroyed. And according to the prophet Ezekiel, in Ezekiel chapter 10, before the temple itself is destroyed by the Babylonians, we read that that glory cloud, it departs. It departs from Jerusalem, it departs from the Ark of the Covenant, and then the city and the temple are destroyed with God having departed. From the days of the fall of the city of Jerusalem all the way until the days of Luke chapter one, the texts from this long period all make abundantly clear that among the chief things the Jews looked for and hoped for was the return of the ark, the return of God's glorious presence. The story of David bringing the ark to Jerusalem is seared in the cultural and covenantal memory of God's people. They want that joy again. In Luke chapter one, Luke continues to reassure Theophilus of God's trustworthiness by telling the story of Mary's encounter with Elizabeth as the story, get this, of the return of the Ark of the Covenant and the presence of God with his people again. How do we know that? Well, a little earlier, in fact, just a few verses earlier than where our reading began. In verse 35 of Luke 1, we discover what Gabriel the angel said to Mary about how it was she was going to bear the Messiah. Luke 1 35, the angel says to her, the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God. Now, it's easy to miss in that English what Luke is actually saying in this text. He is lifting exactly the language from Exodus 40, describing the cloud of the Lord's glory overshadowing the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant in particular. By saying that the Holy Spirit will overshadow the Virgin Mary, as the occasion of her bearing the Messiah. When Elizabeth visits with Mary, the allusions to the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant stories don't stop simply with what that angel Gabriel had said. Note particularly what we have in our passage in verse 41. When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. What is John the Baptist doing in the womb of Elizabeth upon encountering Mary and the child in her womb? We've always thought of this as kind of a funny comical moment in a really exciting scene where the focus is actually elsewhere. We're thinking, yeah, well, we know this is like the passage where they kind of connect their notes and realize they're They're both in special situations of unusual, exceptional blessing here. And of course, we know the special importance of the language of verse 42. Blessed are you, Mary, among women, blessed is the fruit of your womb. We think, well, I know Roman Catholics say that a lot, but we're being reminded here, this is something we should say as well, in the best and proper sense of those words. Mary is uniquely blessed among women. She's bearing the Son of God, the Messiah. Let's say so, let's recognize that's true. When in fact, The focal point of the passage is in the leap. Because the leaping for joy that is happening right there in verse 41 is nothing less than everything David's leaping anticipated. David was a kind of John the Baptist of old. He was not the promised king, but he was in a special way a forerunner of his greater son and Lord. And as he approaches Jerusalem, he is coming into range to encounter the special place of God's actual personal dwelling, and it causes him to rejoice. He leaps for joy. He is shamed by the world, including Michael, especially Michael, for doing so. But it's a mystery to the world why someone would rejoice in such a way. And this is what he does as he leaps for it. It's exactly the same vocabulary Luke uses to describe the womb leap of John the Baptist. He leaps for joy because in the womb of Mary, with the sound of Mary's voice, there is an encounter about to happen. We are drawing near. The time has come. We're almost at the gates. God's presence among his people is about to be realized now most fully. The ark is returning, as it were, in the womb of Mary, and I cannot help but leap for joy on the occasion of it. There are many other reasons to note the connections. Note our passage as a whole as it reaches all the way to verse 49 as well. Mary is going with haste into the hill country, the city of Judah. She exclaims what she does. Elizabeth does with a loud cry. Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? The baby in my womb leaped for joy. Later, he has helped his servant Israel, Mary will say, in remembrance of his mercy. At the very end of the passage, in verse 56, Mary remained with her about three months. and returned home. Now notice then these parallels. In Exodus 40, for the Ark of the Covenant, the glory of the Lord and the cloud cover the tabernacle containing the Ark and overshadow them. In Luke 1.35, the Holy Spirit comes on Mary, the power of the Most High overshadows her. Same exact word. In 2 Samuel 6, David arose and went to the hill country of Judah to bring up the Ark of God. In verse 39 of Luke 1, Mary arose and went into the hill country of Judah to visit Elizabeth. In 2 Samuel 6 verse 9, David admits his unworthiness. How can the ark of the Lord come to me? In Luke 1 43, Elizabeth admits her unworthiness to encounter Mary in such a state, to receive her saying, and why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 2 Samuel 6, David leaps before the ark as it is brought in with shouting. In Luke 1, 41 and 42, John leaps in Elizabeth's womb at the sound of Mary's voice, and Elizabeth cries with a loud shout, Luke tells us. In 2 Samuel 6, the ark remained in the hill country in the house of Obed-Eden for three months time before the big unveiling. In Luke 1, 56, Mary remains in the hill country in Elizabeth's house. for three months' time. This is far more, brethren, than an interesting typological argument about the relationship between the Ark of the Covenant and the tabernacle of God and what is happening in the scene of Elizabeth's encounter with Mary. This is the reality that explains the mysterious joy of the church. Because what would John make clear in the first chapter of his gospel? But that the longed for tabernacling of God among men has been realized in the incarnate one. But then he ascended into heaven. Where now is the presence of God among his people? Should we be like the Israelites of old who now, with the disappearance of the ark, are in a situation of hopeless waiting? No. Because Luke's second part of his story, we call the Book of Acts, is a book-length testimony to the truth that the Lord ascended but blessed with his spirit to form a body which would be itself his special dwelling place. The church. which the Apostle Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians is the very body and temple of the Lord and of his doing is his work. But it is therefore for these reasons, the environment within which the people among whom the mysterious joy of the Lord is found. Isn't it mysterious? Doesn't, Mick Howe's reactions seem a great deal more sensible. When looking at the church in a cultural moment of abject weakness and embarrassment, when looking at particular Christians and noticing the hardships they are called to endure, the suffering they are called to, The blood, the sweat, and tears involved in their dedication and devotion to humble gatherings week by week and day by day with other largely unspectacular brothers and sisters in Christ. Doesn't their extreme, it seems, kind of radical dedication to the assembly of the saints and the things of a Bible and a table of the Lord and giving and service and generosity and ensuring that the ministry of a church goes forward and bearing one another's burdens and fulfillment of the law of some first century strange character, Jesus of Nazareth, and loving Even your enemies isn't this this really strange curious thing we call the church an embarrassment. When the world in which we are called to faithfulness privileges. the strong, the mighty, the ambitious, the wealthy, and the powerful, those who are not only desiring the next step on the social and economic ladder, but are willing to do anything it takes to get there, who will at least in their hearts, if not with their lips, bow the knee to Caesar, and bow the knee to the devouring ambitions of the ungodly and the world around us, if it means being able to keep my house, if it means being able to keep my job and keep my bank account in check and my retirement in place. In a world where that makes sense, the church doesn't. The church doesn't. And the story here in Luke 1 is a preview of the final judgment as a result. Because what is it that encourages the church now, but the truth concerning her end? In 2 Samuel 6, the young woman becomes barren, fruitless, as a sign of judgment upon her rebellion, her refusal of the mysterious joy of God among his people. In Luke 1, the barren are mysteriously made fruitful. Those in the world would judge as empty and of no consequence. An old lady well past her childbearing years, Elizabeth, and a virgin who had never known a man, who would, in the context of her calling, subject herself voluntarily, even happily, to misunderstanding, maybe scorn and worse. would face the prospect of divorce, of losing her betrothed, because he might be like a Mikhal, a Michael who misunderstands what's really going on, who is willing to lose all things for the sake of the one to be born from her. These virgin-who-doesn't-know-a-man, old woman-past-her-childbearing years are made wonderfully fruitful as a opposite image of the one who was rendered barren. and judgment. Brethren, here in Luke 1, we have far more than a fascinating tale of Ark of the Covenant becoming a scene of encounter of two women. And we have more than a general testimony that God's word can be trusted. We have a particular image for it, that that which seems fruitless is, in fact, most fruitful. as the hand of the Lord is pleased to bless in the context of ordinary faithfulness, ordinary devotion, mundane confidence in Christ. And when that faith in Christ proves true, and when the Christ of our faith proves trustworthy, what does the church look like? but a people of leaping joy. And how could we not rejoice? For it's true not only that God will keep his promises to us, but that God will be glorified in doing so. And that is the Christian's greatest heart desire. And so when it is satisfied, It looks like that. And we gain a preview of what heaven will be like as a scene of unrestrained, deeply grounded, thoroughgoing joy in the God who keeps his word and dwells with his people. May the Lord so work among us that we begin even now to look and to sound like those who know that our holiest desires are being satisfied in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray.