The second act of advent is activism in the kingdom work of God. We now look at what Mary thinks the kingdom will bring and so today I bolden the Magnificat’s appropriate portions that spell out what that kingdom means:<\/p>\n
\n46<\/a> <\/span>And Mary said:<\/p>\n
“My soul glorifies the Lord 47<\/a> <\/span>and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,<\/span>
48<\/a> <\/span>for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,<\/span>
49<\/a> <\/span>for the Mighty One has done great things for me-holy is his name.<\/span>
50<\/a> <\/span>His mercy extends to those who fear him,from generation to generation.<\/span>
51<\/a> <\/span>He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.<\/span>
52<\/a> <\/span>He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.<\/span>
53<\/a> <\/span>He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.<\/b><\/span>
54<\/a> <\/span>He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful <\/span>
55<\/a> <\/span>to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\nNotice how “justice-shaped” the kingdom vision of God is. When God’s Messiah is established — and we can all agree that Jesus ought to be on the throne at least in the church — on the throne then there will be justice in these senses:<\/p>\n
1. The proud will be shattered in their inmost heart and thoughts. (This anticipates self-denial.)
2. Unjust rulers will be brought down — so activism means working against unjust rule.
3. The oppressed humble will be lifted up — so activism means working for the humble.
4. Unjust well-fed will be drained of their excesses — so activism means working against those who unjustly have too much.
5. The hungry will be filled — so activism means working for the hungry.<\/p>\nGenuine kingdom activism, which works from under the rule of Christ and in the community Christ is establishing, works against injustice and works for justice — and creates a community where justice rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The second act of advent is activism in the kingdom work of God. We now look at what Mary thinks the kingdom will bring and so today I bolden the Magnificat’s appropriate portions that spell out what that kingdom means: 46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent"],"yoast_head":"\n
Acts of Advent 8 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/acts-of-advent-8.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Acts of Advent 8 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The second act of advent is activism in the kingdom work of God. We now look at what Mary thinks the kingdom will bring and so today I bolden the Magnificat’s appropriate portions that spell out what that kingdom means: 46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/acts-of-advent-8.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-10T00:10:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Acts of Advent 8 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/acts-of-advent-8.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Acts of Advent 8 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"The second act of advent is activism in the kingdom work of God. We now look at what Mary thinks the kingdom will bring and so today I bolden the Magnificat’s appropriate portions that spell out what that kingdom means: 46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/acts-of-advent-8.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2008-12-10T00:10:50+00:00","author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/acts-of-advent-8.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/acts-of-advent-8.html","name":"Acts of Advent 8 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-10T00:10:50+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-10T00:10:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/acts-of-advent-8.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/acts-of-advent-8.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/12\/acts-of-advent-8.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Acts of Advent 8"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}