Week Two
December 10, 2022
A New Kind of Music
1 Samuel 2:1-8
He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. 1 Samuel 2:8a
Faithful Hannah sings thanksgiving and praise. With God’s help, she who was thought barren, has brought new life to the world! Her nation is in crisis. Her son, Samuel, will be Israel’s dynamic prophet-leader. Kings Saul and then David whom he anoints, will lead the Israelites to defeat the Philistine invaders. The nation will know peace.
But first, a grave internal threat must be resolved—the moral crisis of corrupt religious leaders. Hannah’s firstborn son will succeed them as Israel’s faithful religious leader.
In a time of crisis, God’s freely loving power to transform despair into hope can begin that holy work as quietly as the song of a new mother. As Hannah’s ode to joy continues, it overflows with hope that the gracious God will strengthen the feeble, fatten the hungry, raise up the poor, and lift up the needy.
Christians await Emmanuel while so many of our neighbors await the blessings of the transformations Hannah sings—God’s gracious reversals—want, poverty, hunger, and weakness swept away!
JRR Tolkien wrote that all creation was sung into existence. Illuvatar, the uncreated creator, introduced a melody and the angelic Ainur harmonized.
In a very real way, Christ’s followers harmonize with the Gospel’s melody. Realities of poverty—social, political, and spiritual—challenge believers to “sing” a new world into existence. Together we are called to weave our prayerful actions into The Melody to help create a new and liberated world blessed by the peace of God’s passionate possibilities for all trapped in a barren wilderness of want. Will we sing along with Hannah?
Rev. Charles Ragland
Alumni Board Member and Secretary (1982)
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