i am on the verge of sorrow

tell me, lord, which road to follow

A sermon on Hannah's ordeal & subsequent song:

Poor Hannah. She can’t have a child. So one day, she makes a vow… And, poof! Just like that, she conceives. To cap it off, she runs a victory lap with this little song of hers.

…When you read it like that, it all sound so simple. Doesn’t it? Like a math equation. A prayer plus a promise equals an answer.

Only it wasn’t as simple as all that. It never is. Faith is not a math equation.

Today’s scripture picks up in the middle of Hannah’s long unanswered question. Why she can’t have a child. She’s been barren for years! And if that weren’t enough, she has a frenemy who takes every chance she can to remind Hannah of her dashed hopes.

Hannah’s vow isn’t a bold pledge. It’s a plea made from the end of her rope. As we like to say, God’s office is at the end of your rope. God has no problem meeting you in the thick of yours.

Just check out the adjectives used to describe Hannah. “She was deeply distressed.” She “wept bitterly.” And those are the narrator’s words. But listen to Hannah’s own description of herself. “If only you will look on the misery of your servant,” Hannah prays.

Distress, bitterness, and misery—this is not just the story of childlessness. This is the story of helplessness and powerlessness. 

Which actually makes this the perfect story for the Gospel! The Gospel—the story of God’s power that perfected in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). In our powerlessness. 

What’s genuinely bold about Hannah’s prayer is how honest it is. She’s not trying to tidy up her life. Instead, she’s just bringing it before the Lord in prayer. Rough edges and all. 

Hannah gives us a glimpse or true prayer. Prayer isn’t an attempt to try and cover up our messes. It’s bringing them before the Lord.

Prayer, like God, is for real people. Real people living real lives; messes and all. God can do so much more with our messes than all our lies about them.

Ultimately, that’s what Hannah’s song is all about! Go back and read it closely. It isn’t about a child. It’s about God! God, who isn’t too high and mighty to meet us where we’re weakest and lowest!

God’s grace truly is sufficient! Even in those places where all our efforts come up insufficient every time. 

…You may have children. Your children may be fully grown. Or you may not be bothered in the least about being childless because that just means you don’t have to figure out online classes. But either way, you have plenty in common with Hannah. We all do.

We all have places in our life that are barren. Spots where our desires have gone unmet. Sites where nothing anyone does makes it any better. In other words, we all have places in our lives that are perfect for prayer! 

Those places of misery, distress, and bitterness in your life are perfect for prayer because those are the places where God is strongest!

Barren soil is fertile for God’s best work! As we like to say, God does God’s best work in cemeteries! 

That stony ground of your spoiled hopes is the stead Jesus plants his flag of the cross. You’ve stood on holy ground! The rocky soil of Golgotha. The acreage Jesus plowed into the green pastures of his paradise!

You have everything God needs to get to work! You don’t need to tidy up your life before God will get involved. You don’t need to plaster on a smile before God will take notice of you. Instead, all you need is everything that’s got you down and your hands folded in prayer. That’s more than enough for God to upend it all!

In the end, it’s not the rough edges of life that trouble us. It’s the questions they pose. That maybe they’re too much for God. That perhaps they’re the evidence God has forgotten about us. But in the upside-down kingdom of God, they’re actually the opposite! The places God sees us best! The farmsteads God can’t stay away from!

You’ve been marked with the sign of God’s abiding presence, the sign of the  cross! And now all those cross-shaped places in your life are actually the ones where God is drawing closest to you, and working most powerfully for you! Giving you, not what you think you want, but what you really need; God.

So take a page out of Hannah’s hymnbook. Quit trying to hide those less than perfect places in your life. It’s not working anyway. Instead, bring them all to God. God will do the rest! God will do what God has promised to all along, hear you. Take notice of you.

God hasn’t forgotten about you. God can’t. As Isaiah foretold, on the cross, Jesus marked your name on the palm of his hand (Is. 49:16). 

By the you-shape mark on Jesus, your death and life—in that order—has been lifted up and carried to God in prayer by Jesus himself. Your great high priest (Heb. 4:14)!