Pentecost 20 - Oct 14

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Women are rarely given names in the Bible, but when they are we should perk up our ears and listen. Today’s story is the story of Hannah. What is so awesome about these stories of women in the Bible, at least to me, is that whenever something incredible happens to one of these women, the first thing they do is to pray about it.

Hannah is barren. She and her husband Elkanah cannot conceive a child. And so Hannah prays to God, promising God that if she given the gift of a child she will make him a servant of the Lord forever.

And so God blesses her with a child.  What Hannah does next is she sings this song of praise to God. It is a song of thanksgiving, but it is also a song about what God does, a song about the kind of God that we have.

She says, there is no one like God, there is no Rock like our God. He breaks the bows of the mighty; which means he takes away the power of those who think they are in power. And then he makes the weak, strong. God takes those who are fat and happy full and sends them away hungry. And God takes the hungry and makes them fat with spoil. The Lord raises up the poor and he humbles the rich.

We have the kind of God who flips the world on its head. Hannah’s God and our God is the kind of God who casts the mighty down from their thrones and uplifts the humble of heart. God is the kind of God that turns the world around. Just when we think that the world is getting out of control, God flips it and does something different with it.

We have the kind of God who sends makes the rich and makes the poor, and loves them both enough to know that what the need is not to be rich and not to be poor, but to be completely dependent upon God.

In one of my favorite verses of all of Scripture, Hannah says, “The Lord kills and the Lord brings to life.” The Lord doesn’t just kill everything. As Hannah sings: Lord kills everything that is contrary to the way the world is supposed to be. Sorrow, suffering, shame, fear, loneliness, doubt, hunger, thirst, and pain, each of these the Lord kills. And the Lord makes life where there was only death before. God flips that which leads to death into that which leads to life.

In what is the ultimate act of God, he sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross and be raised for you sake. God flipped the world on its head, sending is very own Son to die for our sake. God takes your fear, your doubt, your loneliness, your sorrow, your suffering, your shame, your hungry, your thirst, and your pain, and on the cross God put them all to rest. And he raised up his Son on third day for you sake, so that you could have life, and hope, and peace where there was only death before.

We have the kind of God who takes a cruel instrument of torture and pain and turns it into the power of our salvation. We have the kind of God who has flipped the world around, taken everything we know to lead to death and turned it all into our life. And we have no one to look at but Christ for this salvation.

And for Hannah, God took her barren womb and gave her the gift of a child. And so when Hannah sings of life in the empty places, she knows what she is talking about.

Giving life in the empty places is what God does. It is the kind of God we have. When God took my empty faith as a young teenager and called me to be a pastor, God was doing the same thing. When I continued to tell God that he didn’t exist, God continued to place people in my life that pointed me to him and called me into faith again.

This is one of the big threads throughout the fabric of Scripture. God begins in Genesis, calling forth something out of nothing. God continues in making the promise of a great nation to Sarah and Abraham. God goes further in turning the young boy Joseph into the hero of the day. God takes the Israelites and leads them out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land. God will go on to take a young shepherd boy David and make him a great king and an ancestor of Jesus the Messiah.

We have a God who makes something out of nothing. We have a God who creates life were there is only death and destruction. He brings hope to the hopeless, sight to the blind, release to the prisoners.

So put aside your fear, your loneliness, and your doubt; put aside your suffering, your sorrow, and your shame; put aside your hunger, your thirst, and your pain. God is turning the whole world upside down and is filling you with the power of his salvation. God is flipping this old, dying world around and bringing life were there was only death before.

With Hannah we give you our praise, O God.

In Jesus name. Amen.