Our pulpit guest on Sunday, May 13, was Dr. Dan Griffin, Pastor Emeritus of Cliff Temple Baptist Church.

Introduction

I toyed with the idea of calling this sermon, “For Hannah So Loved the World . . . .” but I decided that might be pushing it a little!

My text is about Samuel. But, we don’t preach in or from a vacuum. A sermon without a biblical text is not quite a sermon. We choose a passage from the Book in order to stay on God’s channel and not flip through channels of secular and psychological froth.

The context of I Samuel is the period of the Judges on one side and the period of the Kings on the other. Samuel was the bridge between the two.

The story starts with his mother, Hannah. (Since it is Mother’s Day, I thought I’d preach on the very text that over half of the preachers in America are using! No sense trying to be original or clever!)

Elkanah took his two wives and family to Shiloh every year. They sacrificed to and worshiped Yahweh. Eli was the aged, nearly blind priest at Shiloh , and his infamous sons, Hophni and Phineas, served along side him.

Hannah was the beloved but barren wife who chaffed under the constant ridicule of Peninnah, the always-pregnant other wife! Even though Elkanah gave Peninnah enough food for her and her brood, he lavished a double portion on Hannah. However, it did not make up for the stark reality of her infertility.

Her husband often asked her poignantly, “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” I guess he wasn’t, because, after the meal one year, she ran crying into the tent of meeting and poured out her distress of soul to God. She promised that if he gave her a son, she would return him to God’s service for his entire life.

Poor old dim-sighted Eli saw her there in the shadowy tent, her lips moving, eyes at flood tide, the agitated frustration making her shaking shoulders sway . . . and he thought she was drunk!

His reprimand elicited a quick denial and the testimony of a woman tormented by the curse of barrenness, one who wanted only to be a mother. He blessed her prayer, and she thanked him for the blessing. Her heart lightened.

During the next year, she gave birth to Samuel, whose name meant “name of God.” She intended to keep her vow and give him back to God.

I’ve always identified well with the Hannah story. I was born in Phoenix , Arizona . When I was six months old, my mother had to go back to the hospital for a partial hysterectomy. The doctor was inexact in his procedure, and she began to hemorrhage.

They told my daddy that, unless he could hire a full-time nurse, my mother probably wouldn’t make it. However, Mother’s brother was in California studying to be a doctor. He left his studies and family and drove to Phoenix . He literally tied his arm to my mother’s so that when she stirred in the night, he awoke and took care of her needs.

During those days of her delirium and semi-comatose state, hanging precariously between life and death, Mother said she had a recurring dream in which a ladder stretched high above her bed. She could hear heavenly music. She began to climb the ladder toward the music. As she neared the top, the music was louder and more beautiful.

Mother had a lovely soprano voice and loved to sing in church choir. She longed to get to the light and join in the music. Each time, as she struggled to climb to the top, she would lose her grip and slide all the way to the bottom again. She climbed and fell back several times in weary frustration.

Finally, she prayed, “Dear Lord, if I cannot live to raise my children, please take them and use them in your service. I give them to you right now.” In a few days, the bleeding stopped, and she recovered. Lucky me!

So, Mother was not surprised one Sunday night when, at age seventeen, I got home from church and told her that I had felt called and surrendered to preach during the invitation. She already knew!

Hannah was not an educated woman, but she knew the Lord! She was accustomed, obviously, to praying about her problems. She knew to whom she could turn. She also knew the Law of Moses that says the first born male that opens the womb is “holy to the Lord.” She was prepared to return to God the first born in the faith that He would give her other children..

A child brought up in church, who hears his mother pray, who sees her reading her Bible, who hears her quote it from memory---that child is a most fortunate child! I had that kind of Mother!

Hannah was also that kind of Mother. She gave the world her son, Samuel. He was the “bridge” between the period of the Judges and the period of the Kings in the history of Israel . In his time, he was prophet, priest, and king!

Not long after Hannah left Samuel with Eli to serve in the Tent of Meeting, God revealed himself to the little boy. It was a story every child lucky enough to be raised in church should know.

Samuel was sleeping near the Ark of the Covenant, the very spot identified most exclusively with God’s Presence. In the middle of the night, Samuel heard a voice calling his name: “Samuel!” He ran into the room where Eli was sleeping and said, “Here I am! What do you want?”

Eli said, “I didn’t call you, my son. Go back to sleep.”

This strange occurrence happened three times the same way until Eli got wise and realized what was going on. He said to Samuel: “God is calling you. The next time you hear that call, answer him. You must promise to tell me everything He tells you no matter what!”

It did happen again, and God told Samuel that Eli and his sons would be removed from spiritual leadership because of the gross misconduct of the boys. To his credit the aged priest acquiesced without a whine!

The Bible tells us that God revealed himself to Samuel in this unique way and was with Samuel the rest of life. In graphic words, the Bible says that God did not let any of Samuel’s words “fall to the ground.” God now had a faithful spiritual leader for his people whose voice would be perceived as the very voice of God!

Samuel faithfully carried out his duties to minister to the people, to be their Shepherd as well as their spiritual head and political leader. It was Samuel who heard their request for a king. He was angry about it and refused until God reminded him that it wasn’t Samuel the people were rejecting. It was God Himself!

God led Samuel to anoint Saul, son of Kish , as the first king of Israel ! Although Saul began well enough, it wasn’t too long until he began to usurp divine prerogatives and elicited God’s anger. God revealed to Samuel that Saul was to be replaced. God sent Samuel to see Jesse of Bethlehem.

After interviewing seven of Jesse’ sons, Samuel asked if there were any more. “Only the youngest one, who is tending the sheep,” Jesse said. “Send for him,” Samuel commanded. “We won’t say the blessing for the meal until he comes.” Samuel knew David was the one when he walked in.

Samuel’s prophecy about Saul came true when both Saul and Jonathan died on the same day in battle on Mt. Gilboa . Even so, it took several more years and political crises before David was acknowledged to be the new king.

When Samuel served as prophet, priest, and king, he was the last one to do so until Jesus came! Both Saul and David, who were kings, had on their staff the offices of priest and prophet. David came close to functioning as all three, but he had Nathan to serve as court prophet and Zadok to serve as priest./

George Buttrick says never preach from the Old Testament until you know where you are going to land in the New Testament! When Jesus came, he functioned first of all as prophet. He was the one who revealed God to the nation of Israel.

As priest, he mediates between God and man, as the book of Hebrews makes abundantly clear. Hebrews described Jesus as a priest after the order of Melchizedek, one who was without ancestry and had no discernible beginning or end.

Jesus’ priesthood is permanent. He is forever in the presence of God always interceding for humankind. He made one sacrifice of himself for all the world for all time!

And, he is the coming King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

One of our old hymns declares that Jesus is (as Samuel was before him) “prophet, priest, and king!”

Thank you, Hannah, for giving the world a Jesus-type figure almost twelve hundred years before Jesus came! She probably never knew what a truly wonderful Mother she was!

Jesus is the historical figure who came and revealed God, now intercedes before God and will one day be crowned King of Kings by God!/

How we relate to Jesus by faith determines where we will spend eternity. John 3.16 says “whosoever believes in him will not perish!”

“Every one who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” ( Rom. 10.13)

One cannot be neutral about Jesus! Acts 4.12: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

Jesus himself said, “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”

The procedure that legitimizes marriage is a wedding ceremony. Without that public acknowledgement, couples are just living together without the sanction of marriage.

If you admire Jesus, know about him, have read and studied his teachings, that’s well and good. But, what he demands is very much like a public wedding. We even do weddings pretty much where public decisions for Christ are also registered: at the front of the church, the altar!

Let this be your day! Receive Christ and make your Mother happy!