Fourth Tuesday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
1 Samuel 1:19-28
Samuel’s Birth and Dedication19 The entire family got up early the next morning and went to worship the Lord once more. Then they returned home to Ramah. When Elkanah slept with Hannah, the Lord remembered her plea, 20 and in due time she gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, “I asked the Lord for him.” 21 The next year Elkanah and his family went on their annual trip to offer a sacrifice to the Lord and to keep his vow. 22 But Hannah did not go. She told her husband, “Wait until the boy is weaned. Then I will take him to the Tabernacle and leave him there with the Lord permanently.” 23 “Whatever you think is best,” Elkanah agreed. “Stay here for now, and may the Lord help you keep your promise.” So she stayed home and nursed the boy until he was weaned. 24 When the child was weaned, Hannah took him to the Tabernacle in Shiloh. They brought along a three-year-old bull for the sacrifice and a basket of flour and some wine. 25 After sacrificing the bull, they brought the boy to Eli. 26 “Sir, do you remember me?” Hannah asked. “I am the very woman who stood here several years ago praying to the Lord. 27 I asked the Lord to give me this boy, and he has granted my request. 28 Now I am giving him to the Lord, and he will belong to the Lord his whole life.” And they worshiped the Lord there.
Luke 1:46-55
The Magnificat: Mary’s Song of Praise46 Mary responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. 47 How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! 48 For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. 49 For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me. 50 He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. 51 His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. 52 He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. 54 He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. 55 For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.”
Hebrews 8
Christ Is Our High Priest8 Here is the main point: We have a High Priest who sat down in the place of honor beside the throne of the majestic God in heaven. 2 There he ministers in the heavenly Tabernacle, the true place of worship that was built by the Lord and not by human hands. 3 And since every high priest is required to offer gifts and sacrifices, our High Priest must make an offering, too. 4 If he were here on earth, he would not even be a priest, since there already are priests who offer the gifts required by the law. 5 They serve in a system of worship that is only a copy, a shadow of the real one in heaven. For when Moses was getting ready to build the Tabernacle, God gave him this warning: “Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I have shown you here on the mountain.” 6 But now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises. 7 If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. 8 But when God found fault with the people, he said: “The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 9 This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt. They did not remain faithful to my covenant, so I turned my back on them, says the Lord. 10 But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11 And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already. 12 And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” 13 When God speaks of a “new” covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear
NLT
Open to Light
Erin Wildsmith is a lover of Jesus, words and finding beauty in unexpected places. She is the Pastor of Highview Community Church, a nondenominational faith community in Kitchener Ontario, though currently on maternity leave. She and her husband Dave are the parents of three boys: Eli 7, Micah 4 and Kharis, born November 17, 2020. Erin blogs sporadically at https://trustthemystery.wordpress.com
Art piece by the author, Erin Wildsmith
Sometimes the most profound truths come to us from humble teachers. A few years ago, after a particularly difficult day at work, I bought myself a small potted plant as a pick-me-up (I know, I know - emotional spending, but never mind that now).
What made the day difficult was a conversation at the end of it with a person who seemed to have lost, not only hope but even the belief in or desire for hope. Of course I know that circumstances, hardship and mental illness all do this kind of thing to us. Many of us have had those moments the ancient teachers call “the dark night of the soul.” And as a pastor, I’ve certainly walked through these moments with people before. But this seemed different.
There was something about the flatness in this person’s voice or the deadness in their eyes that day that caught me off guard. Like when you walk by the home of a friend you haven’t seen in a long time, and find the windows boarded and the property overgrown. I found myself unprepared.
The conversation that day felt like death, and left me hungry for life: hence the houseplant.
Like most $6 grocery store plants, I expected the poor little thing to wilt after a week or two, but surprisingly, it didn’t. I kept watering it, and somehow it kept living. Sooner or later it felt like I should move it from our dark dining room to a window for a bit of natural light. That’s when I noticed.
Turns out my little impulse purchase had a surprising ability: it opened to light. The interesting triangular leaves and occasional delicate white flowers always, always, opened wide with the sunrise and closed tight at night. Every time. My oxalis plant (because of course I had to google it!) wasn’t picky about the kind of day it was outside the window where I placed it. Cold and grey or bright and sunny. Every day, without fail, my tiny little plant always stretched itself wide to receive all that was being offered. And there was something in this small, humble fact that moved me.
If I were to give this plant a name, I think it would have to be Hannah (I’ve been known to christen plants before). Hannah after the woman we meet in 1 Samuel 1. One of the wives of Elkanah and the one who would become the mother of the great prophet Samuel.
At the time in the text when we meet Hannah, though, she’s nobody’s mother. And to a woman in the Ancient Near East, finding oneself “nobody’s mother” was, if possible, even more gut-wrenchingly sad than it is for would-be parents facing infertility today. It was salt in a wound, unbearable shame mixed with intolerable heartache. And it was understood to be singularly the woman’s fault, every time.
To make matters worse, Hannah is not the only wife of her husband Elkanah. She and Penanniah share one husband, and the other woman has borne him many sons and daughters.
Hannah was thought to be “barren.” And “barren” must have been the word that echoed around her brain on many a sleepless night as Penanniah, provoked her mercilessly. Like a six-dollar grocery store plant, Hannah would have had every right to close herself up like a boarded up house. But surprisingly, she makes a different choice. Hannah choses to open to light.
Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”
Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s house. In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly.
1 Samuel 1:6-10
Make no mistake. When we find Hannah pouring out her soul in tears and wordless prayers to the Lord shortly before our Lectionary reading begins, that is exactly what she was doing. Like all of us facing a dark night of the soul, I’m sure Hannah was tempted to choose a flat, dead life, trampling the tender shoots of grief before they had a chance to grow up into hope, but she didn't do that.
The tears and grief Hannah poured out at the temple that day, rather than the dying breath of despair, were actually a defiant testimony to hope. For whenever we lament deeply and wholeheartedly as Hannah did, we declare that the life we are living is not life as it is meant to be. We express our faith that there is more, and our grief becomes the inarticulate longing for the more we believe in but cannot yet see or touch.. Indeed it is as 20th century theologian Jurgen Moltmann so succinctly puts it in Theology of Hope,
“If we had before our eyes only what we see, then we should cheerfully or reluctantly reconcile ourselves with things as they happen to be. That we do not reconcile ourselves, that there is no pleasant harmony between us and reality is due to our unquenchable hope.”
It is the unquenchable hope of Hannah, the stubborn almost defiant way my oxalis plant always opens to light that is at the heart of Advent. If Christmas is “comfort and joy,” then Advent is disruption, discomfort and longing, but not without purpose. Advent is our opportunity to weep bitterly like Hannah, boldly daring to proclaim all that is not right in our world and in so doing, stoking the fires “unquenchable hope” that there is something (Someone) better, something (Someone) more.
Thank you for reading the New Leaf Advent Reader, a collection of reflections from writers across Canada. If you are enjoying the reader, sign up to receive the readings in your inbox each day here: SIGN UP
And please share this reflection with your friends and family who might also enjoy it.
One of the ways we have been connecting online since the pandemic pushed us online is through our Learning Centre, a weekly interactive Zoom call on a topic with a Canadian voice of wisdom. For the season of Advent, we will be featuring a few of our writers and making space to reflect together on the Advent Reader articles. Join us for the interactive sessions on Thursdays at 1:30 pm (Eastern time) or sign up and view the recordings of the sessions afterwards. SIGN UP for the Learning Centre Advent sessions.
