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Advent Devotional for Sunday, December 20
1 Samuel 1:1-8
They are a devout family; Elkanah, Hannah, the barren wife, and Peninnah plus her sons and daughters. “Year after year” they journey to Shiloh for the festival to worship and sacrifice. Hannah would be regarded a family failure and incomplete due to her childlessness. This annual going to church exacerbated her plight because the rival wife used this time “year after year to provoke her—to irritate her!” As the family savored the food, Hannah did not eat but wept as the taunts assaulted her. So it was year after year.
Could we not be mindful of those who dread the festivities of this season when their lives are anything but festive, and those for whom worship is not a time for refreshment but of remorse and guilt?
But this year Hannah does not finish the family meal. In response to Elkanah’s clumsy affirmation of affection in “bitterness of soul,” she goes to the Temple to pray and “weep in anguish.” Eli, the priest, observes her rocking back and forth, lips moving in prayer. Wrongly he accuses her of being drunk. But far from pouring herself too many drinks she testifies she has been “pouring out her soul to God” and declares boldly, “I am no daughter of worthlessness.” Satisfied with her explanation and her prayerful desire for a son, he tells her to “go in peace” and declares “May God grant what you have asked.”
Is her’s not the kind of truth telling called for in our own prayers: Truth about our lives, our brokenness, our unfulfilled dreams, a reminder that “a broken and contrite heart God will not despise”?
With Eli’s words “her face was no longer sorrowful.” His words created in her hope. I have seen people experience transformation brought by hope. In the days ahead may you experience that transformative power of hope which does not disappoint and surely is also the “evidence of things not seen.”
Mighty, Eternal God, “our hope is in no other save in Thee: Our faith is built upon Thy promise free” and in these days “make us calm and sure.” In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Louis Zbinden
Trustee Emeritus
For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.
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