On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me seven swans a swimming.

The seven swans a-swimming can represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

There are a few passages that tell us of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 both give us manifestations of the Spirit, while Isaiah 11:1-3 gives a specific list of how the Spirit will manifest in the Messiah: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.

“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD— and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.” Isaiah 11:1-3 NIV

I never understood where they got seven gifts from the Isaiah passage - as I count it, there are six. That’s where a little digging led me to realize that the seven gifts are found in the Latin Vulgate. Most English translations use the same words for piety and fear of the Lord, so those two get combined into “fear of the Lord.”

These seven gifts described who Jesus is. In him was the fullness of the seven gifts mentioned in Isaiah. Have you ever done a deep dive into the gift of the Spirit?