Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Hannah prayed and said, “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory. “There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. ”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, October 18, 2020
by Dr. Kimberly Leetch, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: God’s promise of deliverance is still with us, offering hope to the hopeless.
Barren. Hannah was barren—it was a word no woman in her time ever wanted associated with her. It meant more than childless. It meant useless, worthless, unloved by God. To live without a child was hard. To live without love and worth was devastating.
Hannah’s prayer to God pleaded for a child. Interestingly, Hannah didn’t even intend to raise the child into adulthood. It’s a notion foreign to us in this culture, that we would desire to bear a child that we would not raise. But for Hannah, to bear a child as a gift from God that she could then return to God as a gift was a deep honor.
God heard her plea and gifted her a child. Hannah’s faith and her surprise at the complete turn of events (as well as status and worth within her culture) led her to proclaim a song as profound and faithful as the Magnificat—Mary’s song of joy at the news of her child.
Hannah’s (and Mary’s) song told the story of the upheaval of status quo that this child brought. No longer would she be the barren one. God had lifted her from barrenness and had given her a child worthy of God’s house. Her song goes on to proclaim that if God could bring a barren woman into such grace, then God surely would deliver all people from their lowly stations and bring low the ones at the top of the heap.
In this season leading up to Advent, we wait for the Christ child to bring the fulfillment of Hannah’s dream—an overturning of the hierarchical and power structure of the corrupt and deliverance of the oppressed. Hannah’s song of deliverance still holds the power of hope to those who are oppressed even today. God is still active and moving among victims, survivors, and exploited. God still stirs the hearts of those with money and power to use their position for good. We live in the “now and not yet”—the place in between the promise and the fulfillment of that promise. We know its fulfillment is coming. For now, we wait.
Waiting or watching, singing or staying silent, praying or screaming, you are there, God. Amen.
An
Exceptional
People
Blog Posts
SIGN UP NOW