Advent: A Protest Song

Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Kate Bowler

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ve all seen the Christmas pageants where Mary is very sweet and demure and she is wearing a tablecloth pulled from the church dining hall. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how much impossible courage Mary had from the beginning. She finds out that she is pregnant in a completely scandalous way. But what does this divinely-prepared, teenage girl do when an angel crashes into her life with an announcement guaranteed to upend all her best plans? She sings. But not a sweet lullaby. Mary belts out a protest song: “He has brought down the mighty from their thronesand lifted up the humble.He has filled the hungry with good things,and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52–53). This is not the peace of spa music and chamomile tea. It’s the kind of peace that rearranges the furniture of the universe. That scatters the arrogant and topples the unjust. God’s peace doesn’t politely avoid conflict; it writes the soundtrack for a revolution. And somehow, Mary holds all of this—terror, disruption, and hope—in her own body. She sings peace into a world that did not ask for it, but desperately needs it. And here we are, centuries later, humming along too. Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful. Join us for Advent over there, too! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Lily Endowment. It's part of our series on Christian spirituality,
0:05.2	and it's a chance to take a minute to reflect on life and faith in the service of knowing and loving God.
0:17.2	Well, friends, here we are again. We are inching closer to Christmas. And if you're following along, which you are so welcome to do, you can get these daily advent reflections over on Substack. I'm at Katebowler.substack.com. And it's completely free. It's just our little way of pushing back the dark together. So did you know the advent has candles?
0:39.8	It's kind of nice, but it has like a candle for every week. And on the second week, which makes
0:44.2	me want to say second week of, second week of Christmas, my advent candle said to me,
0:49.1	candle of peace. That sounds nice, doesn't it? Peace, calm, quiet, serene. Not just hiding in the bathroom
0:59.0	when your extended family is over. But like, who do I know? Does anyone know anyone who feels
1:07.7	very peaceful right now? I certainly don't. I'm also just convinced that that's not
1:15.8	exactly the emotion that the Christmas story elicits either. Like we've all seen the Christmas
1:21.3	pageants. Mary, sweet, demure, wearing what is clearly a tablecloth from the church basement, stands beside
1:29.4	Joseph, who's just trying his best not to drop baby Jesus. It's all very sweet. You know,
1:36.0	it's tidy. But it's not how the story actually goes. Because the real Mary was a teenage girl from a nowhere town who
1:47.4	finds that she's pregnant in the most impossible, scandalous way imaginable. And what does she do
1:53.6	when an angel breaks into her life with terrifying news guaranteed to ruin her reputation and
2:00.0	upend all of her best made plans.
2:03.2	She sings.
2:05.4	Not a lullaby, not like a soft candlelit ballad.
2:08.9	She kind of, it sounds more like a protest.
2:13.5	She sings.
2:15.7	He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the humble.
2:21.4	He is filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.
2:28.6	Yeah, that sounds like it belongs on a lot of protest signs. It's not a feeling that conjures up like the piece of spa music or chem Mile T.
	...

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