Prayers of Advent: Hannah

Midweek Advent Worship
December 5, 2012
1 Samuel 1:21 – 2:11

“Advent Prayers: Hannah’s Prayer”

We’re in that season of the year when lots of movies are scheduled for release – pretty exciting if you like going to the movies. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my family and I went to see a couple of movies; maybe you did the same. One of the movies we saw that I highly recommend to you is “Lincoln,” by Steven Spielberg – a very compelling film. In the throes of the Civil War with a divided nation on his hands, President Abraham Lincoln made the following statement: “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” Great need in our lives can do that – drive us to pray like we’ve never prayed before. In this Advent season for our midweek worship services, our theme is “Advent Prayers,” as we look at different persons in Scripture who prayed. Tonight we look at Hannah, mother of Samuel. May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

Hannah’s prayer in tonight’s Scripture reading is a prayer of thanksgiving and a song of praise to God. It is the model for Mary’s song of praise in the New Testament, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), that we will focus on in two weeks’ time. Hannah rejoices in God’s almighty power that “raises up the poor from the dust… [and] lifts the needy from the ash heap” (1 Samuel 2:8). Hannah’s prayer of thanksgiving comes from the blessing of God who granted her that longed-for son she so desperately desired and so fervently prayed for. You see, before there was a prayer of thanksgiving there was a prayer of deep distress and anguish. This is what precedes tonight’s Scripture reading (see1 Samuel 1:1-20). Hannah, wife of Elkanah, was childless. This was a source of great sorrow for Hannah, and for all women who like her so want to conceive and have a child but are not able to. Scripture records how Hannah was praying silently in her heart, only moving her lips as she prayed. Watching her in his post at the tabernacle, Eli the priest thought Hannah was drunk and confronted her. She then related to him that she had “been speaking out of [her] great anxiety and vexation” (1 Samuel 1:16). To which Eli then replies, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him” (1 Samuel 1:17). And so it comes to pass that “in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, ‘I have asked for him from the Lord’” (1 Samuel 1:20). True to her word and the vow she had made to the Lord, Hannah presented her son at the Lord’s tabernacle when he was still very young that he might serve the Lord all the days of his life, and so he did.

To be childless in Israelite society was seen as a disgrace; even a curse. The story of a barren woman who gives birth late in life as a special favor from God appears several times in the Bible. Besides Hannah, there is Sarah (Genesis 17:16-19), Rebekah (Genesis 25:21-26), Rachel (Genesis 29:31, 30:22-24), Samson’s mother (Judges 13:2-5), and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-17). It was Hannah’s great need that brought her in prayer to the Lord, and it was the Lord’s answer to her prayer that prompted her song of praise and thanksgiving to God.

Though separated by thousands of years and countless generations, Hannah’s prayer life and our own are remarkably similar. Like her, we also come to the Lord in “great anxiety and vexation” with all of the cares and concerns from our own life. So often, we try to bear these burdens on our own, thinking that our strength and resources will be sufficient. We quickly find out how puny and small our strength and resources truly are! Where do we turn? What do we do? Earlier in the service we sang these words from Psalm 141: “Let my prayer rise up like incense before you, the lifting up of my hands as an offering to you” In the midst of our great anxiety and vexation, we turn to the Lord our Maker and Redeemer. There is strength, peace, power, and blessing in prayer as we come before the Lord, turning our cares and burdens over to him, waiting upon him. His answer to our prayer may be in granting our petition, as He did with Hannah. In his wisdom, the Lord’s answer may be in not granting our petition. And if that is the case, then God has something even better in store for us than what we have asked. Hannah’s prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of a son will lead to Mary’s prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of a Son, the promised Messiah, our Savior and Lord.

This fall, a group of about a dozen members of our congregation came together for a Bible study on prayer. This helped all of us to grow deeper in our own prayer life, and the outgrowth from this is that this same group gathers weekly on Thursday evenings for prayer. We gather each week to pray about needs in our world, our community, and our congregation. We lift up the sick and suffering, and rejoice with those who rejoice. We pray for wisdom and guidance from God in our lives as Jesus’ disciples. We gather for about an hour, and if you would like to join us, you are welcome to do so. We gather tomorrow evening in the Library at 6:30 p.m. to do as Hannah did: to come before the Lord in prayer and seek his face. Amen.