1 There is a program on the radio where listeners can call in and request a song. The host of the program often asks the listener to tell the story behind the request so that the listeners will know why you want her to play this song. One of these callers phoned in to request a song for his wife. He said that when they were first married they tried to have children but could not. They went to doctors and specialists for a long time but no one could help them. The doctors told them that they would never have children. They felt rejected and hopeless. But that's not how the story ends - ten years after they were married, the Lord blessed them with a child. This caller said to the host, "I want you to tell your listeners that Man said no but God said Yes. And all that matters is what God says." He was overjoyed at what the Lord had done for him and for his wife and he had to tell people. Not only that, he wanted others to see what God was capable of so that others could benefit from the comfort and encouragement he received. His happiness overflows and he celebrates with a public confession and a song. That's the kind of response Hannah gives too when the LORD blesses her with a child - always a happy event, but this time all the more, because God came to her where she was in her anguish and lifter her up. Hannah can't help it - she proclaims to all God's people, "this is what our God can do, he will deliver you." When the LORD lifts up Hannah's horn, he prepares the way for his Anointed 1. The LORD lifts up the horn of Hannah 2. The LORD lifts up his saints 3. The LORD lifts up the horn of his Anointed 1. The LORD lifts up the horn of Hannah Hannah once lived a miserable life because she could not have children. She becomes even more miserable when Elkanah's other wife Penniah taunts her because of her infertility. 1 Samuel 1:6 says, "And because the LORD had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her." So Hannah would weep and refuse to eat. She prays to God through tears and bitter sobbing and she pleads with the LORD to
2 give her a child. She felt forgotten by God and despised by the people around her because she wanted so badly to have children, but the LORD did not give her any. What would Hannah do in her desperate situation? In her grief and anguish she calls upon the LORD to answer her. In her darkest hour she turns to the LORD because she knows that she can hope in him. When she turns to the LORD, she makes a vow - if the LORD remembers her and opens her womb, she will dedicate her son for work in the tabernacle under Eli the priest. Hannah turns to the LORD as her only hope and the LORD blesses her with a son. God has turned her life completely around. How does she respond? At the proper time, Hannah goes to tabernacle and she cheerfully fulfills her vows to God. And when she dedicates her son to the LORD's service in the tabernacle, she prays this joyful hymn of praise in thankfulness because the he answered her tearful prayer. She says, "My heart rejoices in the LORD; in the LORD my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies for I delight in your deliverance. When Hannah praises God for this great reversal of her anguish she says that God has lifted her horn. The image is that of a bull with huge long horns. The bull uses its horns in battle or as a warning to any that will try to attack. When trouble approaches, the bull lifts its head and shakes his horns wildly. Just try to approach! So the big horns of the bull symbolizes power and honour. When Hannah sings of her own horn being lifted she praises God for lifting her downcast head. Hannah is ridiculed by Peninnah and she is brought down in the dust by her infertility. But she humbles herself before the LORD and when she does, he lifts her horn. She had nothing to boast about and she had no honour. But now the LORD has lifted up her head and has given her honour and dignity. And like Hannah, you don't need to pretend like nothing is wrong in your own life or that you don't have reason to be upset. There is plenty of reason in this sinful world to be upset and even depressed. The question is, how do you respond to your anguish? Will you shake your fists at God? Or will you acknowledge the sovereign power and love of your God. You can be confident that God comes into our sad lives and he is with you.
3 Hannah's thankful praise is a powerful testimony to us all that we worship a God who is sovereign and powerful. God is your hope and he will lift up your head. When he does, praise him with your thankful song. 2. The LORD lifts up his saints. Why does Hannah sing this song of hope for all to hear? She wants all Israel to know that God can turn around the lives of all the saints. He can because he is the almighty God who holds the whole world in his hands. Hannah declares that even the power of the strong and mighty depends on God who can give and take as he pleases. The LORD can break the bow of the warrior and he can give strength to those who stumble; he can make the rich poor and the poor rich; he can even make the dead alive and the alive he can bring to death. Hannah sees that just as God has reversed her own situation, so God can also reverse any situation because he is God almighty. Hannah's song is also a message of hope for all the people of Israel. The nation was reduced by God to a humiliating low point in its history because of their sin and rebellion against God. They were surrounded by powerful enemies who constantly threatened Israel. During Hannah's life, the Philistines had occupied parts of Israel west of the Jordan River and the book of Judges in chapter 13:1 says that the Philistines oppressed Israel for forty years. Not only was Israel oppressed from the outside, their own leaders were corrupt and oppressed the people of Israel. Hophni and Phineas, priests in Israel, were stealing from the LORD. When the faithful came to offer sacrifices, these wicked priests kept for themselves what was meant for the LORD on the altar. So Samuel was born into these desperate times of foreign oppression and corrupt leadership in Israel. What could the faithful do? They were powerless and oppressed. But Hannah declares with triumphant confidence that the LORD will guard the feet of the saints. Who are the saints? When Hannah uses the word she means those who live in faithfulness to God. The saints are those in Israel who love the LORD their God with all their heart, soul, and mind and they show it in the way they treat their neighbour.
4 And though we can find in the Bible some very bleak pictures of wicked people in Israel who do not live in faithfulness to God, the Bible also shows us some of God's faithful people. We read about two of these faithful people in 1 Samuel 1 when we meet Elakanah and Hannah. 1 Samuel 1 tells us that Elkanah offers sacrifices every year at Shiloh, according to the law of God. And his faithfulness to God was expressed also in the way he treats his wife Hannah - he loves her and he cares for her, comforting her when she is sad. Hannah's action also show that she is a faithful child of God. When she is downcast and earnestly wants to have a baby, she turns to God and not foreign God's of fertility, as others in Israel did when they worshiped Baal. The faithful in Israel are suffering because of the sinfulness found in Israel and they are being oppressed by those who refuse to live in faithfulness to God. They are in a hopeless situation if they have to overcome the wicked in their own strength. But Hannah assures them that though it may seem like God has forgotten you, he is really with you. Just as God came to me to turn my life around so he can also come to all of you who hope in the LORD. This message about the power of God is a message of hope for God's people because now they know that their deliverance will not come from their own strength or effort. They will not have to guard their own feet because God will guard the feet of the saints and God will lift them up. The faithful take courage from these words. They take comfort in knowing that though there is suffering in the world and in their own lives too, God is in control and is not bound by those who oppose him and oppress his people. Neither is he bound by power of sin behind these oppressors or the power of sin in your own life. Neither is he bound by people who wrongly accuse you, oppress you, or take advantage of you. God can turn your sorrow into joy. 3.The LORD lifts up the horn of his anointed The son that is born to Hannah is Samuel the prophet who will go, according to the command of God, to anoint the king that Hannah sees at the end of her song. Samuel will go to find David and anoint him king over Israel. So when Hannah sees her own horn lifted high, she looks forward with confidence to a better day when the LORD will lift also the horn of his
5 anointed. The king is called God's anointed because God has given him strength for a specific task. So Hannah hopes in God's anointed because she knows that she can be confident in the strength God gives. God does raise such a king in Israel when he gives strength to David. There was nothing to David personally that qualified him for the task. He was the youngest son of Jesse who tended his father's flocks. When Samuel came to Jesse, no one, not even Samuel the prophet expected that this young boy would become king in Israel. But then, not long after David's anointing, the LORD shows Israel exercise his power through David. This young, weak, defenseless shepherd boy starts early when he faces the giant Goliath and defeats him by power of God's Spirit in him. King David continues to drive out the Philistines and other oppressors out of Israel. He gets rid of the corrupt leadership and he begins to reign according to God's justice. When God lifts the horn of David, he turns Israel back to God so that they begin to worship God and become faithful to him again. This is the deliverance that the faithful in Israel were waiting for again in the days that Jesus was born. Luke shows us how people were living in darkness and were waiting for God to come and bring them peace. They were waiting for God to send another from the house of David to rescue them from their oppressors and from the misery of sin in the world and in their lives. That's when Mary sings her song as an answer to Hannah's song. In Luke 1, when Mary is pregnant, she sings of another great deliverance. In Luke 1:52 she sings, "He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble." The son born to her was sent by God almighty to scatter the proud and to come to give mercy to God's people. He is the strength of God to undo the sin and misery in this world and to turn our sorrow into joy. Then Zechariah's song echoes back again, "[God] has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David." The final deliverance has come where God turns our misery around. Mary and Zechariah sing after Hannah about this great reversal. God gives peace where there is war; forgiveness where there is sin; light where there is darkness; and life where there is death.
6 This is the consolation that comes to us in our own hopeless world where sin seems to dominate and where we see the powerful effects of sin in the world and in our own lives today. We live in a world that is torn by war and terror. There are many oppressors in the world and also in our personal lives. So what is our consolation? Hannah's song reveals the source of our consolation. It is what gives us hope when all seems lost in darkness and sin. Her song sings of the power of God at work in this world. God sees us and he knows about our suffering. He is sovereign - he holds all the leaders of the nations in his hand and he can turn the tide of history at any time. He also holds those who abuse you in his hand and even Satan himself must bow before the power of God. No one has total control over your life even when it may seem that they do have so much power over you. God is in control and he can turn any situation around - he can bring down the most powerful and lift up those who are the weakest. So, yes, Man may say "no", but when God says, "yes" who will stop him? Hannah felt that in a very personal way when God rescued her from her infertility. And Israel felt it when God sent that shepherd boy David to rescue them from their enemies. Now we can sing about it too because we sing about the day that God came into this world to overcome the power of sin. Jesus Christ has come in the power of God. He is here to lift up our heads and to give us a great and wondrous hope. Amen.