I Matter...to the Only One Who Matters

Passage: 1 Samuel 2:1-11

The story of Samuel’s birth is one of the most poignant sections of the Old Testament.  Hannah, Samuel’s mother, is one of two women married to Elkanah.  Elkanah’s other wife has born several children.  Hannah is childless.  Although Elkanah clearly loves Hannah more than his other wife, she feels abandoned and insignificant.  In desperation she cries out to the God that has seemed silent and far away:

LORD Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life…(1 Samuel 1:11)

God answers Hannah’s prayer.  She gives birth, and spends a blissful year and a half raising her boy from infancy into toddlerhood.  But then it comes time to make good on her vow to God.  She brings tiny Samuel to the temple.  And leaves him.

And the heartache that must consume Hanna is in no way reflected in the song of praise that escapes her lips:

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.

What deliverance; what delight when the child that should have made Hannah’s life complete has been taken from her? 

The deliverance is this: prior to giving birth, Hannah was convinced that she didn’t matter to God.  Her baby is incontrovertible proof that her God is with her; her God hears her prayers; and her God cherishes her.  Nothing – not even her baby – can replace that deepest longing of her heart.  Of every human heart.  So Hannah can do what every parent must eventually do anyway: entrust her child to the care of the Lord. 

In the end, every gift of God that we covet and long for and live for is just a placeholder.  Just a symbol of the thing we need most: the attention, care, and love of God.  The fundamental need with which we were all created is this: to know and be known by God.  To matter to God.  Even when our earthly desires are unmet and our flesh’s appetites are unsatisfied, we can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we matter to God.  How?  Because God took on flesh and made his dwelling place among us.  He came to us in the person of Jesus – Yeshua, “the LORD saves”.  Jesus who is also called Christ – the Anointed One. 

Hannah concludes her song of praise with this:

The LORD will give strength to his king
    and exalt the horn of his anointed.

The irony is that in Hannah's lifetime Israel has no king.  1 Samuel follows on the heels of Judges and Ruth, whose steady refrain is, “At that time there was no king in Israel”.  So who is Hannah talking about?  The ultimate king, and deliverer of God’s people, Jesus Christ.  Because he has come, and delivered, we too can sing Hannah’s song of praise – no matter our circumstances.