NEW TESTAMENT: Hebrews 10: 5 - 10 (all)

Hebr 10:5 (NRSV) Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
"Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body you have prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
7 Then I said, 'See, God, I have come to do your will, O God'
(in the scroll of the book it is written of me)."
8 When he said above, "You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings" (these are offered according to the law),
9 then he added, "See, I have come to do your will." He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.
10 And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Notes h/t montreal anglican

the author has stated that the sacrifices offered annually in the Temple on the Day of Atonement (according to Jewish law) foreshadow (point forward to) “the good things [that are] to come” through Christ. He then argues: if the temple sacrifices were “good things”, i.e. cleansing of all inner guilt that sin causes, why did these sacrifices need to continue? (v. 2) These sacrifices, he says, did not wipe the slate clean

sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings”: These terms are probably meant to cover the four main types of sacrifice: respectively peace offerings, cereal offerings, holocausts, and sin offerings (including guilt offerings)

GOSPEL: Luke 1: 39 - 45 (46 - 55) (RCL, Can. BAS)
Luke 1: 39 - 55 (Can. BAS)
Luke 1: 39 - 45 (Roman Catholic)

Luke 1:39 (NRSV) In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,
40 where she entered the house of Zechari'ah and greeted Elizabeth.
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit
42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."
46 And Mary said,
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 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 powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."


universalize her experience, to reflect how God deals with all humanity. While the verbs are in the past tense in English, the Greek tense has the sense of:
• how God customarily acts – as he always has and will continue to do – and
• what he is starting to do in the conception of Jesus.
The “proud” (v. 51), the arrogant, are alienated from God by their very “thoughts”; he reverses fortunes, raising up those in need (“lowly”, v. 52, “hungry”, v. 53) and rejecting the rich, those who think they don’t need God. Vv. 54-55 sum up the Magnificat: in his compassion, God has fulfilled and continues to fulfill his promises to the patriarchs.


The verbs in the Greek are in the aorist (past) tense. Because the aorist can indicate various times of action, scholars differ as to the precise meaning because they do not see how God has accomplished (past tense) all this in the mere conception of Jesus. NJBC prefers the interpretation that these actions are what God characteristically does (gnomic aorist) and is beginning to do now in the conception of Jesus