Occupy the Temple 3 - Prophecy and Fulfillment - Luke 21 - Jesus' Final Week part 3

Occupy the Temple part 3 - Occupy the Temple part 2 - Occupy the Temple part 1  
(Click here to read Luke 21)

Luke 21:1-4 (ESV)

Devon at Occupy Edmonton. Credit - AMVanimere

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, 2 and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. 3 And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. 4 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Jesus and his followers are Occupying the temple courtyard after a dramatic "housecleaning" when Jesus removed the corrupt bankers and businessmen who had previously used the space (click here to read more about this event from Luke 19).

The powers that be haven't appreciated the community building and teaching that have taken the place of the buying and selling. They've been challenging Jesus' authority to be in the space with the huddled crowds teaching what he does (click here to read more about these challenges and Jesus' response from Luke 20). They are afraid of the people, so for now their only tactic has been increased surveillance combined with these challenges, and hoping for an opportunity to have a legal reason to remove Jesus by force.

The first passage in Luke 21 shows that the new occupants of the temple are not hindering the coming and going of the worshipers and religious faithful who have come to visit.

Jesus' observation of the widow reminds us again of the message he's carried consistently since the beginning of his ministry. Jesus preaches the good news of the Kingdom of God, in which there will be a Great Reversal in the order of the entire world, as the Kingdom planted in the hearts of people by the Holy Spirit is demonstrated in their lives in radical love and justice. It also reminds us of the parable of the self-righteous Pharisee and the repentant tax collector in Luke 18:9-14 (see notes).

The new Kingdom is different. It is alive and growing. It is demonstrative and powerful. And it is coming.

Jesus warns his followers that the change will be hard. They are resisting authorities that will not give up their power easily. But the hope for the faithful is that the change will be fulfilled and completed one day at his return. On that day, the wicked who refused to lay down their crowns will be judged, and the good news for the poor, the blind, the oppressed, and the imprisoned will be completely realized.

The poor widow giving her last two pennies in her faith is juxtaposed by the fifteen story tall stone temple and surrounding buildings built by a puppet ruler to impress the people. The beauty and riches of the temple will be destroyed in an attempted revolution gone bad forty years in the future (vv5-7). When Jesus prophesies its destruction, the people ask when it will happen.

For the rest of the chapter, Jesus speaks of the consummation of the Kingdom of God that will occur at his return (vv8-9). Instead of giving times and dates, he describes the signs by which they will know it is coming. He also warns them to be patient. The Kingdom will come slowly.

Luke 21:8-9 (ESV)

8 And he said, “See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them. 9 And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.”

Jesus says the temple destruction is the beginning of the end. But the end will not come at once (v9). There will be bad times In the future. (cheer up, it'll get worse), but God will be faithful. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit will give them the word when brought before the authorities for their resistance (repeating Luke 12:11-12).

Luke 21:12-15 (ESV)

12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. 13  This will be your opportunity to bear witness. 14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.

Jesus demonstrates this kind of wisdom and faith in the way he answers his challengers in Luke 20 (see notes).
This is exactly what happens to Paul, and many of the other early Christians as well. The story of Acts is a progression of the gospel through persecution.

Jesus answers their question of "when will these things be?" in verses 20-24. The defensive reaction of the empire to the violent uprising of 70AD will be swift and terrible.

But this symbol of the end of the old order is not the final coming of the Kingdom of God (vv25-28). His followers will continue to resist the old world and live on the earth as ambassadors and symbols of the Kingdom Come. And he will come. We have a hope.

Keep on watch look for the signs, Jesus tells the people. Watch for coming persecutions and difficulties, including the fall of Jerusalem, which will happen in this generation (v32). The fulfillment of this prophecy would confirm the promise of Jesus' return. As bad as it may seem at any time, his followers have hope that there will be an end to the resistance. Jesus will not abandon us (v33). We should remain vigilant, and not lose hope or become apathetic in our resistance or our proclamation (vv34-36).

The Mount of Olives

The chapter ends by saying that Jesus spent his nights on the Mount of Olives. He needed alone time.

On the night of his betrayal and arrest, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives with his disciples to pray. I imagine this may have been the scene every night of this final week spent teaching at the temple, as he felt the wait of his coming execution increase with each passing day. He was filled every night by time spent with his Father, giving him the strength to minister all day under the watchful eye of the corrupt authorities.

Probably some of the crowd stayed at the temple, or Luke wouldn't have considered Jesus' leaving notable. At least enough to keep the occupation going must have remained, or else the powers would have been able to remove them.

(Luke 22:2 - they feared the people... There were enough of them to make them afraid. They were losing control of this situation.)

Verse 38 says that the people returned "early in the morning". This may have been like our experience with the Occupy Edmonton camp, and many others of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Very few people knew how many or how few were actually there at night. The powers are more constrained by schedules and timing. The poor and dispossessed have more free time to demonstrate.

But for Jesus, his time in the temple with the crowds is coming to an end. It is almost time for the Passover. Just as he takes his nights alone, he also must take his leave to spend this significant night with his closest disciples.

It will be his last meal with them before his betrayal and arrest.

Who said you could Occupy the Temple? - Luke 20 - Jesus' Final Week part 2

Occupy the Temple part 2 of 3
(Click to read Luke 20)
(Click to read part 1)

 
Luke 20:1-2 (ESV)
One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up 2 and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.”

Our chapter opens on a dramatic scene in Jerusalem city. In the courtyard of the new and impressive fifteen story high stone temple, once home to corrupt bankers, businessmen, and other assorted thieves, sits a critical mass of the poor common folk in their place. Booths and tables for selling overpriced religious goods to tourists were occupying this space only yesterday. But the sights and sounds of a marketplace on the property of this house of worship have been replaced by a small community of displaced and hungry persons, listening with joy and anticipation to the teachings of a rural, poor, working-class Galilean.

The authorities are unhappy. This is their space, their place of power. And they've determined it to be better used as it was, for taking advantage of the religious faithful, not a place for building community and listening to an un-credentialed commoner talk about God. But there isn't much they can do about it yet. They are afraid of the people (v19).

They challenge his authority, asking him who had given him permission to be there, or who had ordained him to preach from scripture.

Jesus had already answered this question. Before he began his ministry, he stood up in a synagogue, and read from Isaiah, saying the verse was about him, beginning on that day.


Luke 4:17-19 (ESV)

¹⁷ And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

¹⁸  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

¹⁹  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Such has been the nature of his ministry up until this point. He has preached and demonstrated freedom, justice, and love, even in resistance to the religious and political powers. Here in the temple courtyard, in the shadow of the buildings erected by a puppet government of Rome to gain the favour of the masses, he continues to announce the coming of the Kingdom of God.

But instead of answering directly, Jesus challenges them to tell him who had given John the Baptist his authority. He was also a popular teacher, and just as lacking in credentials as Jesus. 


Luke 20:3-4 (ESV)

3 He answered them, “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, 4 was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?”

They were stuck. They couldn't speak against John in the presence of the crowds. They couldn't speak for him, or they might legitimate Jesus' teaching. Afraid, they say they don't know. And if they don't know about John, how then can they have the authority to determine whether Jesus is able to preach? Jesus has disarmed them.
 

Luke 20:8 (ESV)

And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

For the rest of the chapter this back and forth continues. The authority of the age continues to try to undermine Jesus' authority. Jesus continues to teach about the Justice and Love of God's Kingdom, and the coming demise of the old ways of corrupt power, both religious and political.

It is in these two realms that the authorities focus their attacks. If they can catch Jesus saying something to contradict his faith or scripture, they can remove him as a heretic. If they can catch him saying something explicit against the empire, they can have him removed as an insurrectionist and a criminal.

They want their centre of control back.

Jesus and the crowds are under heavy surveillance.


The Political Challenge (vv19-26)

Jesus' teachings and his life had strong social and political consequences. His mother sang over him before his birth that his life would bring down kings, and put the humble in their place (Luke 1:52 and notes). Jesus proclaimed woes on the rich in his Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:24 and notes). His ministry was inaugurated by the reading of a prophecy about setting the oppressed free (Luke 4 notes). His entire message so far has been about the Good News of God's Kingdom, in which a Great Reversal will turn the order of everything toward justice and love (Luke 13 notes). 


Luke 20:20-26 (ESV)

20  So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. 21 So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God. 22 Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” 23 But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar's.” 25 He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” 26 And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but marvelling at his answer they became silent.

Jesus wasn't carrying any money on him.

Jesus' answer is both political and spiritual. The image on the coin was, indeed, Caesar. The inscription was, "Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the Divine Augustus". (Caesar himself claimed to be the son of god and divine, a blasphemy punishable by death according to religious law. Ironically, the religious leaders are here ready to turn Jesus over to Caesar because they are threatened by people believing he is divine.) By distinguishing between Caesar and God, Jesus protests and denies the validity of the inscription he had just pointed out.

In the Jewish story of Creation, God makes human beings in his own image.

Genesis 1:27 (ESV)

So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
     male and female he created them.

If Jesus is saying that the image of Caesar on a coin implies his ownership and authority, upon what is the image of God stamped? To the crowds and the religious leaders that heard him, Jesus was undeniably claiming that God was the one with highest authority.

It may be that Caesar has authority to decide how and by whom his empire's money would be used. But the image of God is stamped on every poor person in that courtyard, upon the religious leaders who questioned Jesus, and even upon Caesar himself. God could use, spend, or call back to himself any one of these people into whom he had breathed life whenever he wished.

Jesus had taught these same crowds that they did not need to worry about their clothes or their food, because they had a Heavenly Father that fed them (Luke12:22-24 and notes). He taught them to pray every day for their provision (Luke 11:3), and to otherwise live with open hands of radical generosity and love (Luke 6:35-36). They were children of God, and free from the bondage of the world's system of capital.

So let Caesar have his money. We belong to our Creator, our King, our Father. Once we've given him everything that is his, our allegiance, our love, our possessions, our very lives, there won't be much left for Caesar.

If Caesar were to believe the same, he would have no issue with Jesus saying this. If Caesar were to believe himself sovereign, he would not understand Jesus' words, and would still have no issue with him.

The Religious Challenge (vv27-40)

The Sadducees were a powerful religious sect with some of the most stringent boundaries on their understandings of God and scripture. Many other Rabbis taught from interpretations and applications from the whole of Hebrew scripture, history, and tradition. The Pharisees were one group that taught this way, and Jesus practiced a form of this as well. But the Sadducees accepted only the first five books of Moses as authoritative. If something wasn't explicitly stated in these books, they questioned its validity. In practice, they were the most liberal in their dealings with politics and the Roman empire. They believed in holding office and compromising with Rome when mutually beneficial. In belief, this meant they were strict empiricists. They did not believe in spirits or the miraculous. Neither did they believe there would be a resurrection and judgment at the end of days. They were unique in rejecting these common beliefs, making their challenge all the more difficult to unravel.

The resurrection was an important part of Jesus' teaching on the Kingdom of God, so this is where the Saducees focus their criticism.

They present him with a carefully convoluted question about remarriage and death to try to trap him in an impossible rhetorical circumstance. The foundation of their question is scripture from the first five books. The premises included the question of who a legitimately remarried woman would be married to when she and all her husbands were resurrected in God's Kingdom.

Jesus begins his answer with an unsolicited correction to their question. Marriage is for now, not for eternity. Our lives in the eternity of God's Kingdom Fulfilled won't include such things. But he goes on to defend his belief in resurrection anyway, using the first five books of Moses to do so.

Luke 20:37-40 (ESV)

37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” 39 Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” 40 For they no longer dared to ask him any question.

Jesus Returns the Challenges

Each time Jesus is challenged, he wisely disarms his opponents and turns the challenge back onto them. But he does not play the victim. Jesus is just as willing to challenge these powers and the legitimacy of their authority as they are his.

First Challenge - Parable of the Tenants (vv9-18)

Jesus tells the people a parable of tenants given a landowner's authority over a vineyard in his absence. The landlord sends servants back to receive the fruit of the vineyard, but the tenants reject them all, arrogantly treating each one worse than the last.

Finally, the landlord sends his "beloved son", the same words used to describe Jesus at his transfiguration (Luke 9:35; Matthew 7:5). This son is killed. Jesus has three times predicted his own death in Luke. Here he reveals to the authorities publicly that he knows their plans.

The leaders know the story is about them (v19), so the conclusion is significant. Jesus says that the landlord will kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. This is a potent image considering the dramatic reversal already recently demonstrated when the bankers and businessmen in the temple courtyard were replaced by the crowds sitting before them.

Luke 20:17-18 (ESV)

17 But he looked directly at them and said, “What then is this that is written:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone’?
18  Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

Second Challenge - Who is David's Son?(vv41-44)

Both Jesus' challengers and the crowds before him are wondering at his identity. Days before, he had entered the city to the worship and adoration of crowds that called him a King who comes in God's name (Luke 19:38) or "Son of David" (Matthew 21:9), both titles for the promised Messiah who would came and set his people free from oppression. When asked to stop them, Jesus replied that if they did, the rocks themselves would cry out instead.

Here, Jesus challenges their ideas about who this Messiah is. David prophesies of Messiah, calling him "Lord". Jesus asks how this Messiah could be David's son, yet also be called "Lord". Jesus' question implies its answer. If David, the most powerful and beloved king in Israel's history called Messiah "Lord", then Messiah will be even greater than David.

It's a powerful claim from someone who just had a crowd call him by that name, a crowd now surrounding his opponents.

Luke 20:42-44 (ESV)

42 For David himself says in the Book of Psalms,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
Sit at my right hand,
43     until I make your enemies your footstool.’
44 David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”

The Third Challenge - Warning Against the Religious Elite (vv45-47)

The chapter ends with Jesus at the top of every challenge. Standing before his opponents, the old guard protecting the old systems, he boldly warns the people not to follow them, and condemns them for their corruption.

Luke 20:45-47 (ESV)

45  And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples, 46 “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the market-places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at feasts, 47  who devour widows' houses and for a pretence make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

Jesus speaks Truth to power. The old world is crumbling. The new world is coming alive through the cracks. The mountains are being removed. The valleys are rising. Everything is different now.

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After Jesus drives the sellers out of the temple, the religious leaders try to find ways to trap him in a sin or crime and kill him, or have him killed.

It is appropriate that they would question his authority. Clearing out the temple questioned their authority.

Occupy the Temple – The Triumphal Entry – Luke 19 – Jesus' Last Week Part 1

(Click here to read Luke 19)

Luke 19:37-40 (ESV)

37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives— the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39  And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

All of Luke has led up to this point, the final week of Jesus' life. Since chapter 9, Jesus and his disciples have been making their way to Jerusalem from their hometown of Galilee. Along the way, they have been announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of the Great Reversal, where the humble are exalted and the exalted are humbled. Jesus teaches a change of the heart of persons, exchanging their greed and selfishness for generosity and radical love. He teaches a change of action, those same individuals exchanging their lives of striving for active participation in a new way of being, a way that lives for others, for the poor and marginalized, for justice in resistance to the patterns of the world. And he teaches and demonstrates a different order to the entire way the world operates, an exchange of power and privilege from the controlling elite to the poor and dispossessed.

Click the flag for more on Jesus and Resistance

Jesus has been identified by his disciples and the crowds as the Messiah, the promised one they have been expecting to come and set them free from their oppression. Three times Jesus has warned his disciples that his path will not be toward a violent overthrow of the occupying Roman empire, but that their road to Jerusalem is one that will lead to his death as an insurrectionist by the empire's hand. Many have shown their misunderstanding along the way, their desire for justice by the hand of this Saviour so acute that their hope for immediate change often clouds their ability to understand Jesus path of nonviolent resistance and change through love. Still, Jesus continues to patiently teach and demonstrate this third way, this other path, as he makes his way toward the religious and cultural centre of his people's world, and his own death.

Click Pic For More

It is through his followers active in the world, by the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives that the Great Reversal will be accomplished. This will be a change from within to without, from the bottom to the top, from the least to the greatest. It will begin from the grave and extend to the sky. Jesus gives his entire being to the world, and the seed broken and buried gives life to the garden of the new Kingdom.

The roots of the living Kingdom wedge wider the cracks of the concrete and barbed wire until the entire dead structure comes crumbling down, revealing a living, verdant garden of True Community in Holy Spirit Kingdom life. - from "Overgrow the Government"

As he approaches Jerusalem, he passes through the neighbouring Jericho, and is given one more opportunity to teach and demonstrate this new way. A tax collector, one of the most despised people of his day for their reputation for betraying family and friends to the empire, has been waiting to see him. This man would represent the opposite of everything Jesus teaches. He submits his life wholly to the powers of this world, oppressing the poor for the sake of personal wealth. But Jesus enters his home, and upon receiving the unconditional love of Jesus, the tax collector repents of his selfishness and treachery, promising to change everything about how he lives.

Luke 19:8-10 (ESV)

8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
 

This man could not have been more far gone. It is here, in the hearts of individual persons like Zaccheus, love by love, heart by heart, that the Kingdom will come.

Jesus goes on to teach and explain that the Kingdom will come in this way, in the lives and actions of his followers, by telling the story of a business owner giving his workers the job to steward his business while he is gone (vv11-27). Some translations have the business owner say “Occupy until I come”, bringing to mind a not-entirely-untrue image of active peaceful resisters seeking to create counter-cultural communities in resistance to the powers of this world. Jesus' parable describes the workers investing the gifts given them by their supervisor to good affect, getting more for their efforts in his absence, bearing fruit by their growth until he returns.

Luke 19:11 (ESV)

11 As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

Anticipation of his arrival has been building for his entire journey. His disciples talk on the road about which of them will be greatest in the new kingdom after the revolution that Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem is bound to initiate. The religious and political leaders increase their pressure and surveillance as he comes closer to their centre of power and influence. Even the puppet-king of the region, Herod, has been looking into this strange man's following and reputation, and hopes for an audience with him.

And the crowds around him have grown, creating a folk-hero of him. These are the crowds that welcome him as he enters the gates of Jerusalem. He rides a colt, a symbol of the house of David, and fulfilling the prophesy of the coming Messiah-King. The donkey is also a satire. This is a king that doesn't need a cavalcade or announcements by superior authorities. These crowds are his people. There is no authority higher than his. He needs no affirmation by the kings or the priests to truly be the king he is. His kingdom is a different one, and the donkey and the common folk are enough.

Jesus and his Followers 
Occupy the Temple

Luke 19:45-46 (ESV)

45  And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”

As he enters the city, he demonstrates a passion mixed with deep love, sorrow, and fury. He weeps for the city he loves as he prophesies its destruction, to be fulfilled within a generation when Jerusalem will be torn apart in 70AD, the result of a violent revolution contrary to the peaceful resistance that Jesus has been preaching. Jesus makes his first visit in Jerusalem to the temple, the very heart of the powers of the world that his kingdom will see reversed. In the courts are moneychangers, charging the people who journey to worship for an exchange of their Roman money for other denominations. Since the symbols of the empire were stamped with idols, these coins were not allowed in the temple. Pilgrims who had traveled with money to buy or give sacrifices in the temple would be forced to change their money, and these people took advantage of the religious faithful. 

Jesus is enraged. He forcefully drives the bankers and businessmen out of the place of worship.

And after cleaning house, the backwoods, rural, low-income Jesus and the undereducated and hungry crowds that follow him remain in the temple courts, taking the place of the corrupt bankers and businesses that had previously occupied the space. They remain there to hear Jesus teach and demonstrate the coming Kingdom.

They've set up camp in the centre of the scene of the corruption of the previous order. They've reclaimed the space for true worship and loving community.

Luke 19:47-48 (ESV)

47  And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, 48 but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.

The line has been drawn, and the powers that be are rattled. The critical mass of the poor and the oppressed around their Messiah interrupt the desires of the elite to remove him. For now.

Check back here tomorrow at 8am for more on the Temple Demonstration as it continues in Luke 20.

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v8 – A rich and corrupt tax collector becomes a Jesus follower. It appears as though he remains a tax collector, but an honest one. This is different than Matthew, who left his old life behind. Jesus honours both.

Another parable about business.

v22 – Judged by his own words, not necessarily as he would have acted otherwise.

v38 – (Triumphal entry on a borrowed colt) “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

This is a strange way for a king to make an entrance. Maybe today it would have been like a king arriving on public transit instead of a limo.

Luke 1 - The Magnificat and Occupy Edmonton

(Click here to read Luke 1)

(also see my last post for more on Luke 1)

The song of Mary in this chapter is called "The Magnificat".

Last December I stood in downtown Edmonton in a mixed crowd huddling from the wind as we read this passage out loud together. It was part of "Occupy Advent". We stood outside the fenced off and empty lot where Occupy Edmonton had lived and shared community for forty days before being forcibly evicted by the landowners and fenced off from use by anyone. The words of this song resonated strongly with us that night.

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The Magnificat

Luke 1:46-55 (ESV)

⁴⁶ And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
⁴⁷      and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
⁴⁸ for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
    For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
⁴⁹ for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name.
⁵⁰ And his mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.
⁵¹  He has shown strength with his arm;
     he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
⁵²  he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
     and exalted those of humble estate;
⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.
⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel,
     in remembrance of his mercy,
⁵⁵  as he spoke to our fathers,
     to Abraham and to his offspring for ever.”