Advent & Worship: Zechariah - Worship in Silence

Introduction & Definitions

This week we begin a new message series that looks at worship through the stories of four characters in the advent story.  The four characters we’ll be exploring are Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, Mary, the mother of Jesus, the shepherds and the wise men.  Today we’ll be looking at worship through the story of Zechariah.

Before we dive in to Zechariah’s story, I’d like to clarify some terms & set some ground rules for the message.  The first thing to clarify is what we mean by the word ‘worship’.  In our North American Christian subculture, the term ‘worship’ has come to pretty much exclusively apply to singing.  When we say we are going to enter into a time of worship, what we really mean is that we’re going to sing songs to God.  And while that’s an important aspect of worship, I’d like to suggest that it’s a limited definition of what the word really means and what the real intent of worship is.

Worship as defined in the dictionary is to bring adoring reverence or regard to someone or something sacred.  It means to come with an attitude of deep respect and awe.  It can come with the idea of paying homage to God. Paying homage is a declaration of your belonging to God and a promise of your loyalty and service to Him.  The word worship comes from the old English words of ‘worth – ship’, of declaring the worth of someone.  So really worship is this act of coming with reverence and awe, this sense of both being wowed and a little terrified, to declare your love, your adoration, your loyalty to, your devotion to God and to declare all of the reasons why God is worthy of devotion and praise and why He is valuable and important to you.  And while this most definitely can be expressed through our singing, and in reality three of the four advent stories we’ll look at involve songs, our worship is not limited to song.  True worship can range from the silent heart cries, a brief moment of thankfulness to God and a sense of wonder at the beauty of a sunset, the cool of ice cream on out tongue or the smile of a child, to any visible expression of love and adoration to God to acts of service, caring for the poor, giving of time and money, taking risks.  I hope as we look at worship in this advent season that we expand our definition of worship and recognize that worship is really part of our life blood.  So much of the everyday either is or can be this declaration of God’s worthiness, of His presence and value in our lives.

The second term I want to clarify is the word ‘advent’.  I didn’t grow up with a tradition of ‘advent’ and so I have to learn as an adult what that means.  Advent as a word means ‘a coming into place, view or being’.  Advent is about arrival.  In the Christian tradition, Advent is the start of the liturgical calendar. It’s a time set aside to enter into a season of reflection and waiting.  The goal of advent is to have us reflect on waiting for Christ in two different ways.  First of all, advent asks us to reflect on the ancient longing for Messiah.  We get to enter into the waiting for Jesus’ birth at the Nativity, at Christmas.  And secondly, we reflect on our current waiting for His second coming. 

So the point of advent is not to give us a countdown of crossing off the days before Christmas, but to help us reflect on a heart posture of waiting and longing.  As we reflect on the longing for Messiah, in the longing for Jesus’ first coming, we realize there was no end date where they knew the longing would end.  There was only the waiting, the struggle of the unknown.  There was the promise of this one who would be the fulfilment of prophesy, the fullness of hope, love, joy, and peace.  But there was no knowledge of when He would come.  As we really enter into the story of advent, as we bring not just our mental recognition of waiting, but really bring our hearts into the longing, we find that advent is a time to, yes, be excited and grateful for what we have, but more than that, it’s a time to acknowledge our aches.  It’s a time to give voice to the deepest longings of our heart.  Advent is a time to give voice to the twinges of sadness we maybe try to close off during the rest of the year.  It’s a time to recognize that no matter how good things are, there is something that we’re missing in life.  It’s a time of recognizing the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom.  There are unanswered prayers, questions without answers, itches that can’t be scratched, longings that find no fulfilment.  As we give voice to all of these, then it makes the arrival of Christ that much more meaningful as we find that all of our longings find their rest in Him.

And so as we go through this message series on worship in advent, we need you to be present.  We need you try to move past just enduring another Sunday morning talk (though I won’t blame you for having to endure my talk), to move past just listening to a lecture.  We ask that you’d bring your heart to these stories.  We’d ask that you let the characters in these stories speak to you of their journey of advent, to let the great cloud of witnesses speak to you of their longings and waiting.  And in really hearing their stories, we hope that you’ll find that their stories reflect a bit of your own story and that you’ll find your life story woven a bit more deeply into the greater Jesus story that is being told through all of history.

Zechariah’s story:  The First Half

And so with that, let’s dive into the story of Zechariah.  His story can be found in the first chapter of Luke.  His story is sort of at the beginning of the chapter and at the end of the chapter.  We’ll read the beginning of his story now and then look at the rest of his story later on.  Let’s start with Luke 1: 5-24:

^“In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in years.

 Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God in the appointed order of his division, according to the custom of the priestly office, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering. And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear ^[gripped him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Zacharias said to the angel, “How will I know this for certain? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.” The angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.”

The people were waiting for Zacharias, and were wondering at his delay in the temple. But when he came out, he was unable to speak to them; and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple; and he kept making signs to them, and remained mute. When the days of his priestly service were ended, he went back home.

After these days Elizabeth his wife became pregnant, and she kept herself in seclusion for five months, saying, “This is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days when He looked with favor upon me, to take away my disgrace among men.” ”

Personal Silence:  How long ago was his prayer?

In re-reading this story to prepare for this message, I was really struck with Gabriel’s announcement that “God has heard your prayers, Zechariah”.  In all of my past readings I assumed Zechariah was praying in that moment about wanting a child and God was ‘overhearing’ Zechariah’s immediate prayers.  This year, reading the story again while Darlene & I wrestle with infertility, I have to wonder when was the last time Zechariah prayed for a child?  As Darlene & I go through this journey with infertility, there are a seemingly endless list of choices and ‘plan b’s’ to consider.  We have our hopes that this round of IVF will work, but there’s this list of ‘what if’s and ‘what’s next’ that are in the back of our mind.  Almost subconsciously we try to manage our hopes versus disappointments in having other options to fall back on.  The ‘Plan Bs’ become a bit of a security blanket to guard against the fears of running out of options.  But even with this desperate clutching for a security blanket, we know deep down there’s a time clock on all of these other options.  We desperately ache for children, but how old do we have to get before we give up on that possibility?

For Elizabeth and Zechariah, I think they’re way past the point of being able to hold out any hope of having children.   I don’t know how old they are, but from the way they’re speaking, this isn’t like some late pregnancy.  They’re not in their 40’s and hoping for a child to come later in life.  They’re well past that and into the point where having a child would be beyond a statistical anomaly, but would be a complete miracle.

So again, when was the last time Zechariah prayed for, hoped for a child?  Where was the point where he prayed that prayer for the last time?  When did he and his wife give up on hoping to hear the cries of a little one and cauterized the aching wound in their heart to try to silence those cries in an attempt to live in a ‘manageable level of despair’? When did Zechariah & Elizabeth give up on hope and tried to numb the ache of longing unfulfilled?  How did they deal with the silence of God to their lifetime of unanswered prayer?  How did this affect their worship, of how they viewed God?  How can you adore, praise and swear loyalty and service to a God that seems to have left you in the places where it matters, where it hurts, the most?

The Greater Silence

And so Gabriel’s words tear open the wound again.  If it wasn’t coming from an angel, it would seem like cruel mockery to re-open a promise of a child after having given up on a child many, many years earlier.  And to add to this, not only does Gabriel say that God is bringing Zechariah and Elizabeth a child, but he says this child will be the forerunner to Messiah.

And this maybe touches on the greater silence that we think about as part of Advent.  The book of Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, ends with these words, quoted in part by Gabriel: “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.  He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.””  These are the last official words that Israel heard from God through the voice of a prophet for four hundred years.  Can you imagine the weight of that silence?  For the nation of Israel, God’s voice was heard over and over again through the mouths of His priests, prophets and kings telling them that they were a chosen people, loved by God and part of His plan to show His light to the world.  They were a people blessed by His presence.  But in the four hundred years since these words were spoken Israel was ground under the heel of conqueror after conqueror.  Their nation was in bondage, their way of life systematically choked out as they are forced to adapt to the changing world around them.  There was no voice to tell them they were chosen, loved or part of any plan.  Occasionally in the 400 years, there would be evidence of God’s presence, small glimmers of deliverance or miracles, a small glimmer that they were not forgotten, but did that make things better or worse?  Would it be easier to believe that God had died, or never existed, or had just left them?  Would it not be harder to live with the evidence of God’s presence but the reality of His silence?  It’s like a divorce, like a walking death where the one you love, the one you’ve shared your most intimate moments with now refuses to speak to you. 

Zechariah’s Response:  Looking for Proof that it’s Worth Risking on Hope Again

I’m sure that Zechariah as a priest is keenly aware of the weight of this greater silence, as well as the silence of God to their prayers for a baby.  The role of a priest was to intercede, to go between God and the people, to bring the requests of the people to God and to bring God’s words back to the people.  But if God is silent, then what’s the point?  There are no answers to the cries of the people.  There are no words of comfort to speak.  How much of Zachariah’s life, of his worship, was just going through the motions.  Morning and night making sure the candlestick in the temple, meant to symbolize God’s eternal light and the light He shines in the lives of His people, didn’t go out.  Morning and night burning incense at the altar of incense, meant to symbolize the prayers of the saints, of God’s people, ascending to God night and day.  How much of his priestly duties just felt so hollow and empty in the overwhelming silence of God’s temple without any sense of God’s presence.

So when this silence is broken by the presence the angel Gabriel telling Zechariah that both the personal silence in his life and the national silence of God is about to come to an end, it’s no wonder that Zechariah asks, “How do I know for sure this is true?”  We are maybe quick to judge Zechariah’s lack of faith in this passage, but I want to challenge us to feel the place that Zechariah is coming from.  When we consider the heartache, the numbness, the long endured pain of silence, the well of tears that have run dry years ago, is it not a miracle that Zechariah is able to respond this way at all.  If it were you, would you lash out at Gabriel, letting years of anger and disappointment explode out?  For Zechariah to have a hope of believing these words requires a resurrection of hope in him and so it makes sense in some ways that he asks for proof.  To hope again, to feel again is a huge risk for this man.  His heart is numb from broken trust and so to hope again, to have faith again, his head wants assurances that this is not one more foolish hope that’s going to meet in more disappointment.

God’s Response to Zechariah’s Questions: Punishment or Revelation?

And so how does God respond to Zechariah’s request for proof?  Gabriel tells Zechariah that he will, “be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.”  The religious part of us can figure this is a justified punishment for Zechariah’s lack of faith.  The parts of us that understand honest doubt wonder why God would be so cruel to punish Zechariah for asking an honest question.  But in looking at this story again, I’d like to suggest another possibility that maybe this was less punishment and more a gift of understanding.  All through the Old Testament, God’s prophets are called to live out the message that God wants to deliver through them.  They become spectacles for the nation.  They act out some holy pantomime that gives an illustration of what God is trying to speak.  As you read these stories you find that the message of God is shaped by their stories.  Even the harshest of message from God becomes tempered by the prophets knowing the heartbreak of God trying to win back the heart of an unfaithful love.

And so I wonder if God leaving Zechariah unable to speak was something like that.  That instead of punishment, Zechariah was being shown God’s heart.  Have you ever experienced a kid at Christmas trying to keep a secret?  “Mommy, I’m not supposed to tell you what your Christmas present is because it’s a secret that we got you a new necklace.”   Kids are horrible at keeping secrets and at waiting on delivering good news.  There is something in our nature that doesn’t wait well when we have the perfect gift for someone.  We ache to join in others happiness. 

So imagine Zechariah’s silence.  Previously the wrestle has been not hearing God’s voice.  Now he’s heard God’s voice, but can’t speak.  Imagine Zechariah’s coming home to Elizabeth and wanting to share what’s happened but being unable to speak.  Sure he can write stuff down, but it’s not the same.  Notes and messages written to your love are nice, but they are normally the exception rather than the rule.  There is a gift in marriage of talking with your best friend and sharing everything from the humdrum of your day to the excitement of your biggest joys.  Imagine the new pain of Zechariah not being able to tell Elizabeth every little thing of his encounter with Gabriel, to express that there is new possibility in the routine of love making.  Imagine the new pain of not being able to speak when Elizabeth tells him that they’re pregnant and to be able to tell her how much he loves her and how excited he is to see the silence broken and God’s words becoming reality.

Imagine for Zechariah the shift of perspective as the reality of Elizabeth’s pregnancy sinks in.  If God is breaking the silence of childlessness, if He is fulfilling His promise of a child for Zechariah and Elizabeth, then is He not also fulfilling the promise of this child being the forerunner to the Messiah.  Suddenly the 400 years of silence starts to drop away as Zechariah starts to see everything in the scriptures in new life and light.  These are not dusty old words, empty promises with no meaning.  It’s all coming true, the long wait, the long silence is almost over and Zechariah can’t tell anyone.  It’s like knowing the punchline to the biggest joke.  It’s like that kid trying to hold in a secret at Christmas.  Imagine Zechariah hearing the cries of the people complaining of their subjugation to Rome and complaining that God has left them and his desire to tell them that, no, they’re wrong, God hasn’t left them. God hasn’t forgotten.  That in less than 9 months the forerunner is here and after that can the Messiah not be far behind?

Fulfillment in the Proper Time

Looking at Zechariah’s story, I think it gives me new perspective of God’s silence.  The angel says that God’s words are fulfilled in their proper time.  We who are bound in time, who live for only the smallest fraction of eternity, for us time is the relentless taskmaster of our days.  We feel the sand slipping through the hourglass, we feel the sting of the curse as our bodies decay and aches and pains start to become harder to shake, where we notice grey hairs and wonder if this is all there is.  Time is sometimes our enemy.  We are not good at waiting.  Waiting means losing so much of what little time we have left.  For us, soon is measured in seconds, maybe minutes at the most.  But God is not like this. He lives outside of time and is the one who starts and stops the clock at the moments of His choosing.  He knows that growth, that change, take time.  Plants require seasons to grow.  It takes nine months to grow a baby.  We spend a third of our life in sleep.  Time does not scare Him.  He will never run out of time.  All things are done in order and with purpose and will fit within His great plans. His words are fulfilled in their proper time.  As an example, five years ago, I stood up here sharing a poem at advent about the ache of 37 years of singleness and it was on that day that my wife, Darlene, was also here and her heart was hooked and we started the journey that brought us together.  Maybe meeting earlier in life would have been nice, but I know in my heart of hearts how thankful I am for His perfect timing in bringing us together at just the right time.

And so I wonder if it wasn’t this kind of revelation that Zechariah received in his time of being unable to speak. Maybe he realized that it is not that God does not want to speak or that He does not want to declare His love and remind them of His plans.  It was that He, in His wisdom knew that maybe the words wouldn’t mean so much until people could see the promises fulfilled.  In the middle of the ache, words are not enough.  We retort with our “how will I know this for certain”.  “I’ve heard these promises before, now I need you to prove it.”  God knows our hearts and as much as it breaks His heart to keep silence, He knows that sometimes silent presence is the best, most loving support that can be given.  Many times, the most intimate expressions of love are found in the silence of shared presence.

Zechariah’s Story: The Rest of the Story

Now let’s look at the rest of Zechariah’s story (Luke 1: 57-80) :

^“Now the time had come for Elizabeth to give birth, and she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had displayed His great mercy toward her; and they were rejoicing with her.

And it happened that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to call him Zacharias, after his father. But his mother answered and said, “No indeed; but he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by that name.” And they made signs to his father, as to what he wanted him called. And he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, “His name is John.” And they were all astonished. And at once his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he began to speak in praise of God. Fear came on all those living around them; and all these matters were being talked about in all the hill country of Judea. All who heard them kept them in mind, saying, “What then will this child turn out to be?” For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him.

And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:  “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant—  As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old— Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us; To show mercy toward our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.  And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways; To give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.”

Lessons in Worship:  Worship in Silence

So reflecting on Zechariah’s story, what does this speak to us about worship?

First of all, I’d like to suggest that there is a place for worship in silence.  I think there is a place where sometimes worship is a going through the motions, of doing things not because of how it feels or because we are encountering God.  Some parts of our life we live in the ‘not yet’.  We live in this season of waiting for advent, of waiting for Christ’s coming both in terms of longing for his second coming and also in longing for Him to break silences in our lives.  Each time we take communion, it may not be an amazing expression of deep heartfelt worship of longing for His coming, but it is a regular repetition of that declaration of longing. We do this ‘until He comes’ over & over again.  There are regular expressions of love that we need to give; frequent “I love you’s”, a peck on the cheek before leaving for work or school, bringing coffee to a friend.  These are the signs of adoration that sometimes can be so powerfully dripping with meaning and in other moments can become the ho hum of everyday repetition.  With our worship of God, we almost need these regular expressions built into our lives; taking communion, getting up on a Sunday to go to church, saying grace before a meal.  These are the regular expressions we use to build in us a ‘muscle memory’ of worship, these little acts of worship that we do without thinking.  Sometimes in the silence of God, we need these to anchor us, to keep us in the place of waiting and longing.  They keep us in the dialogue of silence.  Even in our pain and anger in response to God’s silence, there is something beautiful in the places where we keep yelling at Him.  Even this is an act of worship.  If He wasn’t worthy of our heartbreak we’d just move on and find somewhere else to go.  Even our ache finds its home in Him. There is great power in the humble worship of faithfulness, of stubbornly showing up with God even when it feels like He’s stopped talking to you long ago.

Lessons in Worship:  Worship in the Light of New Birth

The second lesson in worship that I see from Zechariah’s story is the great shift in worship and faith that can comes out of enduring the silence and waiting.  Zechariah’s prophetic song of worship to God after the birth of his son quotes out of Psalms 18.  Zechariah speaks of God raising up a horn of salvation and bringing salvation from their enemies.  These are portions of Psalms 18, a Psalm that David sang when he was delivered out of the hands of all his enemies.  When I look at this, I think, what has changed in Zechariah’s life?  Israel is still under occupation by the Romans.  The Jewish nation is still a downtrodden people.  There is still injustice and suffering everywhere and yet Zechariah is singing of God’s promises fulfilled, of justice come of all things made right.  In reality, Zechariah is living in the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom, but singing like all he can see is the ‘now’ of the kingdom.

So what’s changed for Zechariah?  It is the birth of a child.  And not just any child but it’s his child.  With the fulfilment of one of God’s promises to Zechariah, his worship is transformed and he now sings songs as if all of God’s promises are already fulfilled.   There is something so powerful in our worship where even the smallest of births in our life which come after the long waiting to end our drought of silence that transforms us.  I love being in this place during worship and seeing the kids, as noisy and annoying as they may sometimes be. It’s so beautiful to see them here, some of which were maybe at risk of not being here.  Going through infertility and seeing all the statistics and how many things there are to prevent you from having a child, let alone a healthy child, it makes you realize that every child, every birth is such a gift.  It breathes new life into the words of Psalms 8, “From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength because of Your adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease.” We are always one generation away from extinction, from the end of the church, or from the end of hope.  Because of this, every birth is a messenger, an angel, of resurrection.  Messengers that the promises of God will continue past the small moments of our days as God’s great plan relentlessly marches towards eternity.  Zechariah sings of Jesus as the Sunrise, as the Dayspring.  In metaphor, each new sunrise is a resurrection of sorts and Jesus, the Messiah, is the resurrection and the life.  His dawning, His birth, changes everything and ensures that life and hope will always win.

Lessons in Worship:  Worship from Knowing God’s Heart

Thirdly, as I look at the story of Zechariah I see that worship is impacted by our understanding of God’s character, of knowing who He is.  When it comes time to name the baby, their friends tell Elizabeth and Zechariah to name the child after their father.  They say, name him, “Remembered of Jehovah”, which is what Zechariah means.  Continue the lessons of the past.  Cling to the reality that God has not forgotten you, but He remembers you.  Zechariah, as inspired be the words of the angel replies with, “No, his name is John.”  The name John means ‘Jehovah is gracious’ or ‘Jehovah is a gracious giver’.  

In metaphor, this speaks so much to me of a shift in understanding that Zechariah gained and one that I’ve wrestled with to understand.  In the silence, the main question to be answered is, ‘Does God even remember me?’ and it’s important to go through the motions and maintain our worship of a God that doesn’t forget us.  But worship flows so much more freely when we understand that our worship is given to a gracious God, to a God who is a giver of good gifts.  He is a God that lavishes His favour on us.  He is a God of extravagance and moves mountains to show His love.  In the silence, the voice of the accuser comes to tell us all of how God is not worthy of love and trust, of faith and devotion.  We are reminded constantly of the pain of waiting, of the heart break of longing.  “If God was truly a loving God, would He let you suffer so?”  The revelation of God’s gracious heart dispels these lies.  When we know God as the gracious one, our hearts spill over in thankfulness and gratitude for who He is and all He’s done.

Lessons in Worship:  Worship in The End of Silence

Finally, a fourth lesson that comes out of Zechariah’s story for me is a reminder that the silence has been forever ended.  Yes, there are still places of silence in our journey of faith.  Yes, God still speaks his poetry with an economy of words.  Yes, we still wait for His second coming.  Yes, we live in the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom.  But with the first advent, with Christ’s coming to earth, the silence has been, in reality, forever broken.  Those who have given their ‘yes’ to Jesus are now indwelt by the risen Christ.  We are the mystery of the ages, Christ in us, the hope of glory.  We are part of the incarnation, the word made flesh.  We are the burning bushes that blaze with fire but are not consumed.  We have His word written on hearts of flesh.  We are His messengers and at any moment God may use us to speak to another through word or deed to bring His message of hope and light to them.  Part of our worship is to live in breaking of the silence; to go to those who live in darkness and to bring His light of love to them.  It’s part of our job to declare the ‘now’ of the kingdom.  To declare that the years of silence are broken, that God can be trusted, that He is worthy of risking your life on, that He is a gracious giver, that God hears our prayers.  Sometimes one of the ways to ‘hear from God’ in your own silence is to bring comfort to another in their silence. It’s maddening, but you’ll suddenly hear your voice speaking the words you wish you’d hear from God,  though if you paid close attention, you’d realize that was God speaking to you, too. 

Our worship is not hidden in church on a Sunday or even hidden in the secret places of our heart.  Our worship comes in declaration of who God is to those around us.  We are His messengers;  His love letter is written on our hearts for all to see.

Conclusions
 
So to close, as we enter this season of advent, take time to sit with the waiting and longing.  Make friends with the silence.  Hold those you love close and don’t say a word.  Enjoy the gifts of love that can’t be spoken; the signs of love that are more than words can say.  Reflect on the heart of God who waits for you in your silence, who hears your prayers and the heart cries you can’t even give voice to.  Know that He is a gracious giver.  That He has woven and grafted you into His story and that He longs to bring resurrection and love into your life.  Let the reality of who He is sink in and fuel a heart of humble adoration for Him. 

What to Expect When You’re NOT Expecting: Wrestles in Faith & Infertility

The Importance of Story:
Imagine if you will indulge me for a minute, a time long past, a time before smart phones and the internet, a time before electricity and printing presses. Imagine a time where the night was dark save for the stars above and the crackling campfire. Imagine the old and young of the tribe gathering around the firelight. Women quietly converse and gossip as mothers try to still their babies cries. The men laugh and tease each other over who is the best or strongest. The children, laughing and giggling, fidget and jostle in their seats waiting for it all to begin. Imagine finally as an old man or an old woman begins to speak and the noises of the tribe stills to hear the voice of the story teller …
.
In ancient times, the story was a central part of the life of the tribe. These stories were the collection of the legends and history of the tribe. These stories gave a sense of belonging, showing the place of the tribe in relation to the Creator and to the world around them. The stories told the tribe who they were, where they had come from, what their forefathers and mothers were like, how they braved adversity, made mistakes, overcame fear, deal with loss, all to lead the tribe to this present place and time. The stories of the tribe captured the heart and culture of the people. The stories told the best and the worst of the people. They told the mistakes and tragedy of selfishness and pride and gave inspiration to call the tribe to bravery, love and sacrifice.

We, in the tribe of Christians, are no different. We have our stories, too. These are the stories that shape us and tell us who we are, and whose we are. These are the stories that tell us how we belong, where we fit in the grand story and call us from darkness to light. Our stories, we believe, are breathed by God (1 Tim 3:16) on the hearts of men & women like crystals of frost forming on chilled glass. His breath brings life and words spill in the blood & ink on hearts and lives and pages as stories are lived, told, written down and faithfully copied and retold by generation after generation after generation.

We in the tribe of Christians have the gift of a written tradition, a history on paper for all to read, but we should not forget the power and the essential place of the oral tradition, the telling of our tribe’s stories to each other. Without this, it is too easy to forget who we are and to forget that we are part of something much more than just us. The people of Israel are instructed to speak always of the stories of their people to their children (Deut. 6:5-9) and maybe part of this is to help them, and to help us to remember that these are not just history to memorize, theology to scrutinize, rules to moralize or knowledge to gather to make us feel smug and safe. These are stories of real people that lived and hoped, dreamed and loved, felt joy and sorrow, just as we do. These are stories to be shared, to be entered into. These are stories that shape us and show us how that we are not alone, but are surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1) of those who have gone before that continue to intercede for us and whose voices continue to speak to us pointing us to the Creator’s love.

Stories of Infertility:
It is with this in mind that I want to share three stories with you today, one of which is the story that Darlene and I find ourselves in. The common thread of these three stories is infertility; the inability to produce a child.

My wife, Darlene & I both hoped to marry and start a family in our twenties. But life had other plans and we didn’t meet until later in life and even then it took a while for us (mostly me) to get our love story sorted out. We have been married for a year and three quarters and so our infertility story is a short one compared to many but there is the ticking clock of age persisting an urgency of gloom that our chances of having a child are not so good. A little over a year into our marriage, we were able to get into the fertility clinic and have been undergoing a barrage of tests and retests to figure out what’s standing in the way of us being able to have children. In the early parts of the journey, Darlene was convinced that it was an issue with her body. But over time, the doctors have shown that I am the current primary barrier to children. I have no seed to sow. Either my body does not produce seed or there is a blockage that prevents seed from escaping. The doctors have not been able to tell. All the evidence though points to me being the problem.

Now before you tune out, as not all of you are struggling with infertility and may wonder how any of this applies to you, and where you find yourself, in this story, let me share a second story. This one comes from within our community. A good number of years back, we met on a Sunday like this one and the service ended with a time of ministry where people with a need for prayer were encouraged to come to the front and the rest of us were encouraged to come around those we felt led to pray for. I had no particular leading that day and so hesitated until most people were surrounded by others except for one couple. I went and joined them, and Paulina joined them as well. The couple explained that they were struggling with infertility and had been for quite some time and they wanted prayer for that. Paulina was excited by this as God often had called her to pray for couples facing infertility and many that she’d prayed for had given birth. While she prayed, I thought about how I should form my prayer & what I should say. In the thinking, my brain connected the dots of them being worship leaders and their life goal being that of producing praise to God. This connected me to the name ‘Judah’, which in Hebrew means ‘praise’. And so, when Paulina’s prayer finished, I began to pray with these words, “God, give them their Judah.”

Instantly the couple burst into tears. I was taken aback by this, but kept fumbling through the rest of the prayer. I have no idea what I said. Part of my brain was distracted trying to figure out what I’d said wrong that made them cry and wondering whether the tears were a good thing or not. When I finally stopped my feeble attempts at prayer, the couple paused and explained that whenever they as a couple talked of having a kid, they both really wanted a little boy, and the name they ached to give him was ‘Judah’.

So here they are, wrestling with the deepest ache of their heart & God gives a veritable stranger the words that they share in secret. Is this not a confirmation that God has heard the cry of their hearts and will send His answer? Is this not evidence that God is listening to them and will give them the desires of their heart? Well, yes, but the maddening part is that I think, though I’ve not kept in touch with this couple, is that they remain without a child to this day.

Jubilee:
God has given us a name, too. Long before meeting me, Darlene heard God, in his still, small voice tell her, “You can name her Jubilee”. As we were getting closer to being engaged, Darlene related this story to me. She felt this was God’s promise of a daughter. All of this sounded great to me as I’ve always wanted to have a little girl and the name Jubilee has both great Biblical significance for me and is the name of a favorite superheroine (who is also Chinese). So how cool is that that God would have things planned so well as to put Darlene & I together and give her a name for our daughter that appeals to my geek side, too.

You would think faith becomes easier with hearing God’s promises spoken to you. I’m not sure that it does. Both Darlene and I are haunted by phantom images of Jubilee; a million little hopes and dreams of what she’ll be like, who she’ll grow to be, the life we’ll share with her. We have fake ‘memories’ of future tea parties with her, walks in the park, teaching her, helping her grow. We are sort of creepy around every half-Asian/half-Caucasian person that we meet, old or young, as we stare at them and wonder if that’s what Jubilee will look like. Darlene has drawers full of clothes for Jubilee in ‘Jubilee’s room’ that should nearly cover her wardrobe until she’s ten. And with Darlene’s good tastes, she’ll be a very stylish little girl for all of those years and beyond. I’ve been thinking about what I’ll say to Jubilee on the big moments of her life; when she turns 13, on her graduation day, or, if I live that long, when I give her away in marriage.

A person’s mind plays tricks on them with God’s promises. We start writing stories of what we think it’s all going to look like and then live in this disappointment and ache as time slips by and the stories become further & further out of reach. Infertility makes you feel so powerless. There are options; In-vitro fertilization, adoption, sperm donors. All of these are miracles in their own right, but is choosing one of these the right choice or the wrong choice? Does picking one of these bring us closer to Jubilee or are we making Ishmaels instead of Isaacs? If we just wait will God bring her miraculously, or is the waiting killing our chances of holding her in our arms? In the end, whatever we throw our energy, hopes and money into, God is the author of life and in the end, no child will come to us unless He wills it. And yet with His promises, we think that it is His will. But if it is His will to bring Jubilee, then why isn’t she here?

Connecting our Stories:
This is the wrestle of infertility, of waiting for God’s promises to be born in us, that I wonder if, metaphorically at least, extends to more of us than just those of us hoping for a child. Madeline L’Engle describes art as a kind of immaculate conception; a place where God comes to us with His word and asks us to help give it flesh. In some ways then is not every place where God comes to us with His word spoken or promise given a place of waiting for His word, His promises, to be born in us? To be made manifest in our lives? And is not then, every place where we wrestle with NOT seeing His word fulfilled, His promises manifest, a place of this wrestle with infertility?

As you come here today, what is it that you ache for? What is it that God has spoken to you about? What is it that God has promised you in the secret places of your soul? Perhaps it is not the ache for a child that you wrestle with. Maybe it’s a step before that and you live in the ache of singleness where you feel like God wants you to find that special someone, but the days and years slip slowly by in solitary. Maybe you feel there is a promise of healing in your life and yet you wrestle with illness day in and day out. Maybe there is some hope, some dream, some word that God has spoken to you that remains unfulfilled. What is it that God wants to birth in you? What are the unfulfilled aches for this community? What is it that God wants to birth in us as a church community, a small part of the greater tribe, that remains only a distant promise? What longing for fruit of creativity, love, hope, forgiveness, new life, dreams haunts your every step and leaves your soul and body aching like a barren womb waiting that spark of life?

The Wrestle of Infertility:
A large struggle of faith is living with unknowns. I’ve heard it said that the opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty. If you have what you hope for, things like hope and faith are irrelevant because you have the certainty of it sitting right there before you. Faith must live with some degree of uncertainty for it to be faith. This is where the wrestle comes in and where it all makes no sense. God promises Abraham a son and then makes him wait until he’s 100 to give that son. There are countless examples in the stories of our tribe where God makes a promise and then life seems to go the opposite way and this wrestle of faith and ache goes on. This is the conflict in the story that drives the story forward. What’s at stake? Our hearts and minds, our lives, our very souls. This is the battleground where the great war of the ages is played out as we wrestle with the questions of who is God, who are we, can He really be trusted with our lives?

This wrestle of faith comes strongest in the places closest to our hearts. It is way easier to trust with the things we don’t really care about. It is excruciating to live through the ache of seeing the one thing we long for be so far away. The questions and doubts come of whether you’ve heard God at all or if you’re just making it up. Does God care? Is He listening? Is this a good thing to long for? Is this just selfishness or foolishness? Is this just a test? Is it all a cruel joke? Some days you feel like it would be better to just let go of all hope of what God’s promised. It’s then that the promise becomes more ball and chain than anchor point as you can’t abandon your ache to, if you can’t have you want, at least be less miserable. God has a way of keeping us stuck in our place of aching, our place of waiting for Him.

We try to keep our wrestles of faith private often, though it all has a way of coming out. The wrestle of infertility can be a very hidden journey where people aren’t aware of the pain you’re feeling. People can assume you’re happily being a Dual Income No Kids couple while really you’re dying inside. On the flip side, with all the testing, infertility becomes a very public journey as you’re poked, prodded and probed in all the private areas of your life. In the end, it’s the sorrow of the struggle that is tough to hide. You can only paint the clown smile happy mask on for so long before the cracks start to show through.

A Third Story: Hannah
And so into my wrestle with infertility, a third story, one from our greater tribe, has been working its way into my thoughts. This is the story of Hannah, from 1 Samuel 1:.

“Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim, of the mountains of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. And he had two wives: the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. This man went up from his city yearly to worship and sacrifice to the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. Also the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the LORD, were there. And whenever the time came for Elkanah to make an offering, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, although the LORD had closed her womb. And her rival also provoked her severely, to make her miserable, because the LORD had closed her womb. So it was, year by year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, that she provoked her; therefore she wept and did not eat. Then Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”

So Hannah arose after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle] of the LORD. And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said, “O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.”

And it happened, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, “How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you!”

But Hannah answered and said, “No, my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD. “Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now.”

Then Eli answered and said, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition which you have asked of Him.”

And she said, “Let your maidservant find favor in your sight.” So the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

Then they rose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD, and returned and came to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. So it came to pass in the process of time that Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked for him from the LORD.”

Now the man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer to the LORD the yearly sacrifice and his vow. But Hannah did not go up, for she said to her husband, “Not until the child is weaned; then I will take him, that he may appear before the LORD and remain there forever.” So Elkanah her husband said to her, “Do what seems best to you; wait until you have weaned him. Only let the LORD establish His] word.” Then the woman stayed and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

Now when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bulls, one ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the LORD in Shiloh. And the child was young. Then they slaughtered a bull, and brought the child to Eli. And she said, “O my lord! As your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood by you here, praying to the LORD. For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition which I asked of Him. Therefore I also have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives he shall be lent to the LORD.” So they worshiped the LORD there.”

Now there’s likely a lot to bring out of this story, but I wanted to focus on two main things that have been speaking to me from Hannah’s story.

Voices in the Place of Wrestle:
The first thing that sticks out for me in Hannah’s story is the voices that come to her in the middle of her wrestle with infertility.

Peninnah’s is the first voice that speaks to Hannah in this story. Hers is the voice of the ‘rival’, the voice that makes you feel like it’s all a competition. This is the voice that reinforces your fears and tries to tell you all the reasons why you’ve fallen short or are not enough or are not worthy to receive what God’s promised you. Sometimes the voice of the rival comes from without, but more often than not, the voice of the rival is the one that comes from within. In the middle of wrestling with infertility, we’ve found how easy it is to hear this voice. Because of my lack of sperm, I’ve got a lot of the voices of not enough ringing in my ears. There’s a lot of struggles with feeling like less of a man because I’m not able to produce. In the middle of this, every news of a friend’s pregnancy has the double whammy of reminding us that others are getting pregnant while we can’t and then we feel guilty for throwing a damper on the happiness of others. This is similar to the emotions that you go through when you’re desperate for a healing, miracle or answer to prayer and you sit in church and listen to someone go on and on about how God’s provided for them, or healed them, or gave them their miracle. It’s supposed to comfort and encourage you, but it feels like a knife in your gut that God is hearing others, but ignoring you.

The second voice that speaks to Hannah in her wrestle with infertility is the voice of Elkanah, her husband. This is the ‘well-meaning voice’. This is one of those lines in the Bible that shows you how real the stories are as well as how much of a sense of humour God has. Elkanah loves Hannah. He means well & everything in the chapter shows that he genuinely cares about her and is trying hard to help her. But like lots of husbands trying to help their wives through emotional places, he makes a boneheaded statement. Elkanah’s “am I not better to you than ten sons” genuinely means well, but I can just imagine Hannah’s response to this and I’m sure it wasn’t favorable.

The well-meaning voices definitely show up in the middle of the wrestles of waiting on God’s promises. I don’t know what it is, but I think we all have this sort of need to try to give advice. On one hand it’s good. It’s a genuine heart wanting to help ease or take away someone’s pain, but it’s so easy for this to cause more pain than it solves. Darlene was recently ‘encouraged’ by a friend that they were worried they wouldn’t be able to have their fourth child, but it worked out OK for them. Oddly enough this wasn’t so comforting as we’d be happy to just have our one little one. We’d think having three children was more blessing that we could ever hope for. There are so many anecdotes that people have to share about someone they knew who was struggling with infertility and then this or that happened and it all worked out. Honestly sometimes those stories do give a glimmer of hope, but they all ring a bit hollow as our story doesn’t seem to fit the pattern of someone else’s story. In the end, the well-meaning voices are giving pocket change to the destitute. What they need is someone to come alongside their journey to walk with them. What we give is a band-aid to make us feel good because we don’t invest the time to really be a part of their struggle.

The third voice speaking to Hannah is the voice of Eli. This is the voice of the church or of organized religion. At first Eli confronts Hannah assuming that she’s drunk and is ready to kick her out of the tabernacle. Why is it that it seems that for those with the deepest struggles of faith, those who wrestle in bitterness of soul, that the church is not a place a sanctuary as it should be, but a place where people jump to conclusions and expel those looking for a voice of comfort. If someone doesn’t stand in worship or says something that has some measure of doubt in it, we as the church often jump on them & try to ‘force convert’ them into pretending to be happy or to fall in line with good theology. The church is not a friendly place to question God or to express doubt. I think we worry sometimes in the church that our faith can’t handle disappointment, or that God is somehow offended by anything but unwavering trust. The stories of faith in the Bible pretty much without exception are lived by real people who waver and doubt and wrestle and falter and make mistakes. God is not scared of our doubts and wrestles. It’s too bad that we in the church are not more open to being a safe place for wrestles to be worked out.

Eli eventually gets it though, thanks to Hannah standing up for herself, which is amazing. Often those in bitterness of soul will be more prone to just walk away from a church that doesn’t embrace them in their struggle than to stay and talk it out. In the end, Eli’s kindest words to Hannah are, ‘May God give you the desires of your heart.’ May God answer your prayers. In the middle of our struggles isn’t that what we’re all most wanting to hear? A voice that tells us our desires aren’t so crazy or out of line? A voice that joins us in our ache and gives an ‘amen’ to watching and waiting for God’s answer our prayers?

The sort of fourth voice in this story is the voice of God. You’ll notice that God doesn’t say anything directly in Hannah’s story. He’s pretty quiet. Maybe He speaks through some of the other characters a bit. Maybe through the circumstances. But overall He’s pretty quiet.

Lessons on Stories:
The second area that’s been speaking to me out of Hannah’s story, and the final thing I want to talk about today, is the lessons that seem to be filtering out of this story for me. These are not silver bullet answers. These are not magic answers that explain it all or make the pain go away. I’m not sure there are any of those kind of answers and people telling you that there are those kind of answers are well-meaning voices at best, or they’re trying to sell you something. These ‘lessons’ for lack of a better word are more hints of heart posture. These are things to think about in the wrestle that maybe point you, or at least me, out of just focusing on the struggle and maybe looking for beyond to something more.

The first lesson that has come out of this for me has been that it’s not our story. In thinking about the story of Hannah, and Darlene and my story and stories in general, I’ve been just reminded again and again that we are not the central characters or our story. We think we are, but we’re not. We think we’re the central characters because it’s our life and that’s all we’ve known and we assume our life is meant for some purpose and so we try to be the protagonist, we try to be the main character and make choices, but in reality, that’s all foolishness. It’s not our story. The real story that’s going on is God’s story. We’re a part of that story, but not the centre of it. Hence what happens in the great story is more about advancing His narrative than it is about advancing our own. Our lives, even if we live for a hundred years, is maybe a sentence or two in the great story. We’d be lucky if our lives amount to a paragraph in comparison to His story that stretches across eternity. Realizing this brings a humility to my life and kind of takes the edge off my bitterness a bit. Realizing it’s His story reminds me again that He’s the Author and that He’s written some pretty amazing stories over the centuries and still is today. Seeing God as the Author of all helps me to relinquish my pen. It’s a place of salvation in many ways where I give up my vain attempts to write a good story and instead put my trust in Him that He’s writing the best story for our lives. He’s written a way better story than I ever could have in bringing me and my wife together. So maybe I can trust Him with the better story He has for our children.

The second lesson comes out of this one and it’s the realization that while none of us are the protagonist, we still play a pretty important role. We’re the romantic interest in the story, we’re the people the protagonist loves and lays down His live to defend and save. There is a great story that God is trying to tell that we are very much a part of, but we maybe don’t see this when we’re busy trying to write our story. I’m not sure we know how to write really good stories. In Darlene’s grade 2 class, she tries to teach her kids how to write good stories. As an example, one of her students had this story: “There was once a pencil and he wanted a friend. He found a piece of paper and they became friends. The pencil was happy. The pencil and the paper played ball.” This story has a happy ending & it looks like everything works out for the pencil and paper, but it’s not a ‘good’ story. It’s not a story we’re going to want to read, or tell around a campfire. The story is boring. But in so many ways this is exactly the kind of story I would write with my life.

In Hannah’s story, I wonder what would have happened if Hannah hadn’t wrestled with infertility? Would her story have still been a ‘good’ story? Would her story have even made it into our collection of stories? Sure maybe as one of the ‘begats’ somewhere but very few people pay attention to the ‘begats’. The story that Hannah would’ve written for herself, the story that maybe I’d write for Darlene and I, is that we have children, live a happy life, grow old and die somewhere later in life. Again, this story still has a happy ending, but it’s a bad/boring story without the conflict to create and move plot forward.

When you look at the greater story, maybe God needed a Samuel. Sure maybe there was someone else that could’ve done Samuel’s job, but let’s suppose for an instance that God needed this particular child with this particular story around his birth. If there was no wrestle for Hannah, if there was no place of risk, would she have given Samuel to the service of the Lord in the temple? If there was no Samuel, would there be anyone to anoint David as shepherd King over Israel? If there was no David, would there be no line of David? Would there be no Joseph and Mary? Would there be no virgin birth and Emmanuel, God with us? When you look at 1 Samuel chapter 2, Hannah’s song of praise there has an uncanny resemblance to Mary’s song of praise in Luke chapter 1. The story of Hannah and the story of Jesus are very much linked together. Again, if Hannah had the story she wanted, maybe the greater story would have suffered or wouldn’t have happened. Hannah’s place of conflict and ache becomes in some ways an essential part of the greatest story ever told; the redemption of humanity by Jesus.

And this leads into the final sort of lesson/thought from Hannah’s story. It’s that the ache, the wrestle, the pain, it’s there for a reason. The ache is leading us somewhere. It is moving the plot forward and daring us to risk and to live in the better story. Seeing God’s silence in Hannah’s story reminds me that in the places of suffering, God doesn’t give answers, but instead joins us in the ache. He groans with us in the middle of our bitterness of soul with groanings that cannot be uttered. And in reality, our places of ache are really joining Him in His longings and aches. When I was single, I realized that my ache for a bride was this window into seeing the heart of Jesus and His incredibly deep longing for His bride. Wrestling with infertility now, I am beginning to see God’s ache for children. His longing for people to humble themselves and come as little children to accept Him as Father. His longing to birth out His plans, His kingdom, through us in this world.
We quote Psalms 37:4 a lot “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” We often interpret this as ‘Do some really churchy things for God and He will give you what you want.’, but I continue to grow to believe that this is maybe more that as we grow with God, He starts to give us desires, heart aches that look like the ache of His heart.

The things you ache for, the longings that you have, maybe they are not there because you dreamed them up. Often I think our deepest aches are there because we ache for the stuff of heaven. We ache for what God’s heart aches for and hence it’s worth hanging on through the bitterness and pain to continue to ache but to realize that our ache is a small fraction of God’s greater ache. God longs to bring a people of praise. God longs to bring Jubilee to this world. In Leviticus 25, the Jubilee was to be this little piece of heaven as a celebration of rest and restoration where the clock was reset, where everyone got to go home, where the slaves went free and lands were restored to their original owners. A time where your mistakes were forgiven and you got a chance to start over. It was this beautiful metaphor of God setting everything right, looking after His people and meeting all their needs. As far as I know, it was never celebrated and so God still waits and aches today for Jubilee. And now Darlene and I get to share this longing for Jubilee with Him as we try to figure out how our story & how her story fits into His greater story.

Conclusions:
So I’d like to leave you today with these thoughts and a few challenges/applications. First, listen to your ache. Don’t be afraid of what you ache for, but nurture it, pay attention, let it guide you and move your story forward. Second, be careful of the ‘voice’ you bring to the aches of others. Be a voice that joins their aching instead of making it worse. Finally, have courage to risk and to join God’s better story for your life and don’t be afraid to tell your story, especially the places of struggle. Others going through the same struggles as you need the comfort you have to bring as you show they are not alone in their ache.

To close, I’d like us to stand and read Hannah’s prayer together. It’s a song of putting things in their proper place; of righting wrongs, bringing justice. Most of all though, it’s a song of God’s sovereignty and that He has things under control.

“My heart rejoices in the LORD; my horn is exalted in the LORD. I smile at my enemies, because I rejoice in Your salvation. No one is holy like the LORD, for there is none besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly; Let no arrogance come from your mouth, for the LORD is the God of knowledge; and by Him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken, and those who stumbled are girded with strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, and the hungry have ceased to hunger. Even the barren has borne seven, and she who has many children has become feeble.

The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and He has set the world upon them. He will guard the feet of His saints, but the wicked shall be silent in darkness. For by strength no man shall prevail. The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken in pieces; from heaven He will thunder against them. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed.”