The Song of the Turned-Around World

Little Samuel stood beside old Eli the priest at Shiloh, his hand in the old man's hand, and his mother stood in the same doorway where she had once prayed without making a sound.

Eli remembered her, of course. (The last time he saw Hannah, he had thought she was drunk. She may have hoped that part had slipped his mind.)

Soon she would have to walk home without him.

Year after year Hannah had cried in this place, while her husband's other wife, Peninnah, showed off her children and teased her. Now Hannah sang.

"My heart jumps for joy in the LORD!
He has made me strong again.
I can laugh at my enemies,
because he has rescued me.
No one is holy like the LORD.
There is no Rock like our God."

In Hannah's hill country, a rock was the safest place to stand when a flood came roaring down the valley.

"So stop your proud talk!
No more bragging!
The bows of the strong soldiers snap,
and the ones who tripped get up strong.
The ones who were full must work for bread,
and the hungry are hungry no more.
The woman with no children has seven,
and the mother of many sits alone."

Hannah did not say anyone's name. She did not need to. (She had one child so far. God would later give her five more, and in the Bible seven means a family that is full.)

"The LORD sends death and gives life.
He brings down to the grave, and he raises up.
He makes some poor and some rich.
He brings people down, and he lifts them up.
He picks up the poor out of the dust.
He lifts the needy off the ash heap
and sits them down with princes
in a seat of honor.
He guards the steps of the ones who love him.
No one wins by being strong.
The LORD will thunder from heaven.
He will give strength to his king
and lift high his anointed one!"

Israel had no king when Hannah sang this. She sang about one anyway.

Then the family went home to Ramah, and Samuel stayed to serve the LORD with Eli.
The song came true in Hannah's own house, but the rest of the world stayed the wrong way up. In God's own house, Eli's sons were already cheating God out of his offerings. Kings came, Saul and David and more, and every one stumbled.

More than a thousand years went by. Then a young woman named Mary, carrying the baby God had promised her, hurried into the hill country to visit her relative Elizabeth, and there she sang Hannah's song all over again: "He has brought down rulers from their thrones and lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things."

Mary's son was the king at the end of Hannah's song. He went down into the dust of death, and on the third day God raised him to life. Then God lifted him up to the highest throne there is. Messiah and Christ both mean God's anointed king. That is why we call him Jesus Christ.