Advent Season · Third Sunday of Advent · Year A
Psalm 146:5-10 or Luke 1:46b-55
Psalm 146
December 14, 2025
Overview & Insights
“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.” (Luke 1:52)
In our first two sections of Luke’s text the angel Gabriel has announced two births to mothers who should not have been expecting a baby (one too old, the other not yet married). Before the births of John and Jesus are narrated, the two families are brought together, and we have in this domestic scene an opportunity to reflect on the significance of these two special people. The unborn John and his mother recognize the superior status of Mary’s son, and Mary speaks with delight and wonder of the incredible honor of being the mother of God’s Son. The paradoxical values expressed in Mary’s song prepare the reader for the repeated challenges to the status quo that will mark Jesus’s ministry as this Gospel will describe it.
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Commentary
Psalm 146:5-10 Commentary by Paul S. Berge workingpreacher.org
Notes the lectionary selection skips Psalm 146:1-4's opening praise, then unpacks verses 5-10 as trust in the God who executes justice, feeds the hungry, and reigns forever.
Psalm 146:5-10 Commentary cepreaching.org
Reads Psalm 146:5-10 as a confession of trust contrasted with the psalm's warning not to trust in princes, fitting Advent's call to hope in God's coming reign.
Psalm 146 Commentary: The God of Jacob is our Help enduringword.com
Verse-by-verse commentary on Psalm 146 highlighting the psalm's catalog of who God is for the oppressed, hungry, prisoners, blind, and stranger.
Background & Word Study
The Church Fathers
Psalm 146 Catena catenabible.com
Patristic catena on Psalm 146, gathering early church comment on trusting God's justice rather than human rulers.
Luke 1 Catena (for the Magnificat, Luke 1:46b-55) catenabible.com
For the alternate reading: patristic comment on Mary's Magnificat, a song of reversal that echoes Psalm 146's themes of justice for the lowly and hungry.
Questions preachers ask
Why may the Magnificat be sung in place of the psalm here?
Because Mary’s song is a psalm, and it makes the same claim as Psalm 146: the God who keeps faith forever is the one who feeds the hungry and lifts the bowed down. The lectionary offers the two as alternatives because they say one thing in two voices.
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