Third Tuesday of Advent 2025: Gaudete

Luke 1:46b-55 

My spirit rejoices in God 

1:46b "My soul magnifies the Lord, 

1:47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 

1:48 for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed, 

1:49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name; 

1:50 indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 

1:51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 

1:52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; 

1:53 he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. 

1:54 He has come to the aid of his child Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 

1:55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."  

“Fuck this shit.” But with joy this time. With an explosion of happiness. In modern terms, Luke’s nativity narrative is a musical, and this is the first big number, the tent pole for the story, the show stopper at the very beginning. Mary explodes into song, telling us both who she is, and what this story is about. It’s about reversal, and revolution, and the eschaton and the apocalypse, and God’s justice. And it comes from the mouth of a young woman who should, in Luke’s day, in 1st century Judea, be even less than the ideal 19th century child: certainly not seen, and certainly not heard.

And Luke presents her center stage, with the spotlight on, and a clear message in her message: “Fuck this shit.” Luke makes you look, and makes you listen; because this is the story, right here.

Everything is turned over in this vision. It’s Isaiah’s vision of the straight highway through the wilderness rendered in human society. The powerful are brought down, the poor raised up; the hungry fed, the rich go away empty. Every musical has a song that presents the theme of the story. This is Luke’s entire gospel in one song. Just by centering his story on Mary long before introducing Jesus, Luke is upsetting the apple cart; down to this very day.

Fuck this shit.

God has “looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.” The first will be last, and the last first, her son will proclaim. In the basileia tou theou, the first of all will be last and servant of all. God has already “scattered the proud in the imagination if their hearts.” Think about that: “the imagination of their hearts.” Where do you go to escape that? What can you do, except like Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, rail against it, and blame it for all the trouble in your own soul? A soul that won’t allow you to be content in the world, a soul that brings you to conclude the problem is the world, because it can’t be you. In the imagination of your heart, how could you be wrong?

God has scattered the proud that they might learn.

God knocks the powerful off their thrones and balanced the scales with the lifting up of the lowly. The hungry eat, the rich can skip a few meals. And, as the prophets promised, God has reversed the Exile. Not through Cyrus and the return to Jerusalem, but through showing, again, mercy. And revolution; and the apocalypse.

We do these words damage if we forget Luke penned them decades after the Roman assault on Jerusalem. He writes during the start of the diaspora as the descendants of Abraham turn from temple/-based worship to the still-nascent synagogue. The reforms of the Pharisees become the foundations of Judaism. Luke writes in an interregnum, when change and even revolution (against old ways, if not governments) is in the air, among Pharisees (like Paul), and Christian communities (like Paul’s and those of John, the gospel writer; or James). The Christian scriptures have three Synoptics among four gospels; and the letters of Paul (and pseudo-Paul), as well as letters from other evangelists. It was a time when revolution, and revelation, were at hand.

Much like today? Or same as it ever was? Depends on what you think of it, doesn’t it?