Proper preparation for the incarnation does not
include counting down the remaining shopping
days 'til Christmas. The commercialized
materialism that has come to mark the secular
celebration of Advent is in many ways the
direct opposite of the spirit called for as we
seek to make ready for God's insertion into
human history.
While Advent is the season of anticipation, it is
also one of the times in the church year most
focused on the here and now. Advent calls us
as the people of God not only to reflect on the
Lord's coming as a babe in a manger and his promised return at the end
of time, but more important to open our hearts and our lives to be
changed by the Incarnate Word. The one who is to come is close at
hand. Be ready.
November 16
Hannah's Song
1 Samuel 2:1-10; 1 Samuel 1:4-20; Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark
13:1-8
At the end of the Judges period, Israel was in disarray.
Threatened by the Philistines from without and decay and
corruption from within, the nation was in dire need of
deliverance. The biblical authors saw moral and theological
roots to Israel's troubles, and God's intervention their only
hope for salvation.
Does God intervene through the rich and powerful, through
those that society honors as the best and the brightest? As
we've come to see in story after story, God works in
unexpected ways. Once again, God chooses to intervene in
history through a downcast, marginalized individual: In this
case, through the person of the anguished, childless Hannah.
In response to her prayer, her bargaining with God, she is
rewarded with fertility—not only the birth of Samuel,
but three sons and two daughters (2:21).
We should not ignore the fact that once again, as in the
preceding story of Ruth, God chooses a woman to be the hero
in this pivotal moment in salvation history. In the midst of
a patriarchal culture, at a time when women were treated as
the lowest of the low, it is doubly remarkable that scripture
focuses on a woman as the one who carries forth the unfolding
story of God's salvific action. It must be acknowledged that
Hannah's contribution is through childbearing, but the focus
of the story is on her perseverance and trust in God.
Hannah's redemption is a metaphor and a vehicle for
Israel's—and ours; through her faithfulness came Samuel,
David, and ultimately Jesus. Hannah's song of exultation,
praise, and thanksgiving celebrates much more than her
personal triumph. This hymn—the prototype of Mary's
Magnificat (Luke 1:46f)—praises God as the helper of the
weak and the poor, who casts down the mighty and raises up
the lowly. Her own world-turned-upside-down story helps us to
understand God's broader workings, if only we have the eyes
to see.
