1 Samuel 2:18-20,26
Luke 2:41-52
Pastor Tom Johnson, December 26, 2021
A few years ago, our Wednesday noon Bible study went through the whole book 1 Samuel. We were able to read through the whole story of the Prophet Samuel. Our Sunday morning lectionary has a very small portion of that story this morning. As we continue through the Gospel of Luke this year, it would be helpful to remember the resurrected Jesus in the last chapter of Luke who joins two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus. Jesus begins with Moses and all the prophets (which no doubt includes Samuel) and interprets to them all the things about himself.
Samuel’s story begins before he is born with his mother Hannah. Hannah is unable to conceive a child. Hannah and her husband travel to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. Hannah makes a vow to the Lord: if God grants her a son, she will dedicate him to the priesthood all the days of his life. As she prays in the Temple, she moves her lips silently. A priest named Eli sees her and accuses her of being drunk. Hannah tells him her story and that she is under great stress and anxiety. Eli dismisses her with a blessing that God would grant her prayer request. Soon Hannah is pregnant and she names him Samuel which means “the Lord listens.”
As soon as Samuel begins to eat solid food for himself—probably three or four years old, Hannah brings Samuel to the Temple to grow up as a priest there under the care of Eli and the other priests. Hannah sings a song. Her song is similar to the Song of Moses and Miriam in Exodus chapter 15. The song of Hannah is even more similar to the Song of Mary in Luke chapter one what we often refer to as the Magnificat. Clearly Hannah expands on the song celebrating the Exodus and Mary expands on the song celebrating the birth of Samuel. What this does is draw a line of continuity throughout the whole Bible: God has a plan for these women and little children. He will use them to bring life and salvation to the whole world. In our text today, we see Hannah making a special robe for Samuel every year. My imagination has me thinking it was quite adorable sight to behold—a four year-old in a little robe that matched the adult priests towering over him. Each year that Samuel grew, so did his robe size. So it was a joy for Hannah the seamstress and prophet’s mother to sew him an upgraded, tailor-made robe. It was a further joy for her to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and hand-deliver her gift. Like Mary the Mother of Jesus, Hannah treasured in her heart God’s call upon her child. She certainly pondered in her heart what the Lord would do in and through Samuel as he grew into the person God called him to be just as Mary did with her Christ Child.
You could call the story thus far Samuel’s external call to ministry. Hannah and Eli work together to consecrate him for the Lord’s service. But soon that will change. The Lord himself will call Samuel both externally and internally. God’s still, small voice visits the child Samuel in the night. Rabbinical scholars believe he is 12 years-old. God not only calls him as a priest but now as a prophet. He is priest and prophet. And one day he will anoint David son of Jesse as king. And it will be from that line that Messiah will be born. So Luke takes us through the story of the conception, birth, and adolescence of John the Baptist and Jesus. We see through the Christmas story that God has great plans for the unborn, newborns, and especially God’s eternal Son who is conceived by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary.
Mary and Joseph take the twelve year-old boy Jesus to the Temple. Like Hannah’s yearly pilgrimage to visit her son at the Temple, Jesus and his family travel yearly from Nazareth to Jerusalem. Like Samuel before him, Jesus has a clear external call to be Prophet and Priest. But he also has an external call to be King. The angel Gabriel spoke to Mary in a vision. An angel spoke to Joseph his stepfather. Angels sing to the shepherds. And the wise men from the East worship him as Prophet, Priest, and King. Like twelve year-old Samuel, twelve year-old Jesus amazes his parents and the priests. Jesus calls the Temple his home just as Samuel considered it his childhood home. Jesus speaks about his own call for the first time. His true home is with God the Father. We see what the Psalmist says in Psalm 8: “Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.” And we see what the prophet Isaiah foretold: “a little child shall lead them” (11:6).
The Christmas story reminds us of what Jesus tells us many times: unless we embrace our identity as children of God, we will not understand our place in the Kingdom of God. God does mighty things through babies and young children. We look back to celebrate our own childhoods and see God’s hand at work long before we knew what he was up to and what he has in store for us. We live in community with the unborn, the newborn, and the little ones around us. They have no less potential in the Kingdom than those we consider adults. The children around us will not only hold the future, God has a hold on them. He has had a hold on all of us since before the foundation of the world. He has fully known us and loved us since before he knit us together in our mother’s womb. We have the joy of watching each other and ourselves grow in stature both before God and one another.
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