1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The
message from God’s Word in our 3rd Advent Midweek Series, “Nothing
is Impossible with God,” is taken from 1 Samuel Chapters 1 & 2, and is
entitled, “Heard by God,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
And Hannah prayed and said, “My
heart exults in the Lord; my horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my
enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.
“There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besides you; there
is no rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come
from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are
weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength.
Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were
hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven,
but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings
to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes
rich; he brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he
lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a
seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has
set the world. “He will guard the feet
of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by
might shall a man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to
pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of
the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his
anointed.” (1 Sam 2:1–10)
3.
Christmas isn’t always a happy time.
For some, it’s a down time of year. Feelings of loss or discontentment or
inadequacy are magnified when it seems as if everyone else is more upbeat. All
the music and gifts and get-togethers leave many people feeling left out and
isolated or just plain tired.
4.
That may have been something like
how Hannah felt in today’s reading. Every year, Elkanah went up with his two
wives to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. But this annual
event only seemed to remind Hannah that she was childless, that the Lord had
closed her womb. Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, had several children. When
Elkanah made the sacrifice, he would give portions of the food to Peninnah and
her children. But because he loved Hannah, he would give her a double portion,
as if she also had a child to feed. But Hannah wept and wouldn’t eat. For it
was bad enough that she had no children—to her it felt like she was cursed and
not blessed by God. As the Israelites
waited for the coming of the Messiah from among their offspring, the fact that
she had no offspring made her feel as if she was outside of that divine promise.
But on top of all that, Peninnah would provoke her and make her life miserable
because of her barrenness.
5.
We can also be tempted to feel like
Hannah because of our earthly circumstances, to think sometimes that we’re
cursed and not blessed by God. We can fall into the trap of thinking that God’s
promises only apply to somebody else and not to ourselves. “Sure, I know
what the Bible says about God’s love, but I know myself too well; and look at
the things that are happening in my life. I don’t think God could possibly love
or forgive me.” The devil tries to provoke us to unbelief and despair.
6.
Elkanah tried to comfort Hannah by
saying, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1:8). The question also
rings in our ears, “Is not the love and the provision of your heavenly
Father sufficient?” But in the end, it’s only the birth of a son that truly
comforts Hannah, and it is only the birth of the Son of God that brings real
comfort to us.
7.
Even in the bitterness of her soul,
Hannah still looked to the Lord in faith and called upon his name. Hannah
prayed and made a vow to the Lord at the tabernacle, that if he would grant her
a son, she would dedicate that son to the Lord and give him over for the Lord’s
service all the days of his life. This wasn’t mere bargaining with God. Hannah
was entrusting the entirety of her situation into the Lord’s hands. By making
this vow, she was acknowledging that if she received a son it would be solely
by the grace and giving of the Lord. So also we come before the Lord in prayer,
not so that we might manipulate him by what we say, but so that we might commit
ourselves and our needs into his gracious hands, the hands of him who alone can
help and save us. Though our faith be weak, yet we still believe and confess, “Our
help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Ps 124:8).
8.
Hannah prays without making any
sound, only moving her lips. When the priest sees this, he thinks that she’s
drunk and scolds her. But Hannah explains that she’s simply pouring out her
soul to the Lord in grief. And then, from the servant of the Lord, Hannah
finally hears a blessing. “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your
petition that you have made to him” (1:17). And with that blessing from
God’s priest, she went in peace. She ate, and her face was no longer sad. In
the course of time, God remembered Hannah, and she conceived and bore a son by
Elkanah. She called him Samuel, which means literally “heard by God.”
For God had heard and answered her prayers for a son.
9.
Even as the birth of Samuel brought
peace and joy to Hannah, so the birth of Jesus brings peace and joy to us. For
in Jesus, God has answered your prayers in a most profound way. In Christ, all
of your needs are supplied; every petition finds its “yes” in him.
Christmas is living proof that you’re blessed and not cursed by God, that God
does love and forgive you. For the Son of God took on your very nature, your
flesh and blood, in order that he might go to the cross and redeem you from all
that brings you bitterness and sorrow and weariness in this life. He became
like you in order to rescue you from your isolation and bring you into his
everlasting fellowship.
10.
The birth of Christ is an
unmistakable sign that God is with you, that God is for you, that God is on
your side. And it is written in Rom 8:31, 34–35, 38–39, “If God is for us,
who can be against us? . . . Christ Jesus is the one who died—more
than that, who was raised to life—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed
is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger,
or sword?” And then St. Paul concludes, “I am sure that neither death
nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able
to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Having that
certainty of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus, his Son, having God’s blessing,
we are made to be like Hannah, with a face that is no longer sad, but now is
able to eat and drink in peace at his Table.
11.
Jesus is your Samuel, the sure
evidence that you have been “heard by God,” even before your prayers
were offered. As it is written in Isaiah, “Before they call I will answer;
while they are yet speaking I will hear” (Is 65:24). Just as Samuel entered
into the tabernacle to appear before the Lord and remain there all his days, so
also the Son of God entered into the tabernacle of our human body and soul to
remain there forever as both true God and true man and to intercede for us in
the heavenly tabernacle. So fully did Christ assume our humanity that he who
created the blessed Virgin Mary now was dependent upon her for nourishment, so
that we may learn to long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word and grow up
into our salvation. When Samuel was weaned, he ministered to the Lord before
Eli the priest in the place of sacrifice. In the same way, Jesus served his
Father by becoming both priest and sacrifice, offering up his own body to atone
for the sins of the world.
12.
Through the humility of the cross,
Jesus has brought low and defeated all the Peninnahs of this world—even the
devil himself. And through his resurrection, he has lifted up and exalted
all those who trust in him. This is what Hannah proclaims in her prayer after
Samuel’s birth, which is a precursor of Mary’s Magnificat. Notice how in
Hannah’s prayer the exalted are humbled and the humble are exalted. “The
bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength. Those who were
full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased
to hunger. The barren [woman] has borne seven [children], but she who has many
children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol
and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.
He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to
make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor” (2:4–8).
13.
This is the way of the Lord, to turn
the thinking of the world upside down, to take down the strong and
self-sufficient who trust in themselves, and to raise up the weak and the needy
who trust in him. Peninnah is put to shame in the end; Hannah rejoices. The
Lord opens her womb to have five more children after Samuel, even as he opens
the womb of the Church to bring new life to all who believe and are baptized
into Christ. God wins his victories through humility, the humility of the
manger and the cross, the humility of the font and the altar. And he gives his
victories to those who are themselves feeble, hungry, barren, poor, low. As he
did with Hannah, The Lord Listens to the Prayers of Those Bitter of Soul and
Exalts Them. As this Advent season
draws to its close, let us humble ourselves before the Lord in faithful trust,
that he may exalt us in due time. Amen. The
peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus until life everlasting.
Amen.
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