Reading for the Day: Pregnant Women

You know that Christmas is fast approaching when the readings for the day are about pregnant women. I think it started last Sunday with the Annunciation. Then it was a whole series on Elizabeth. Today, it is about Hannah whose claim to fame may be that she was the mother of Samuel. (A couple of days ago it was about Samson's mom) 


The reading for the day is abbreviated so it may be helpful to go through the entire chapter. 


Hannah is an Old Testament figure, one of the two wives of Elkanah, the other one being Peninnah. Unlike Peninnah, Hannah was unfortunate in that "the Lord had closed her womb" and Peninnah "would torment her constantly. Year after year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, Peninnah would provoke her, and Hannah would weep and refuse to eat". 


After one such instance of bullying, Hannah runs to the temple and begs God for a child and promises that if she is granted a male child, she will offer him to God all the days of his life. The next day, "Elkanah had intercourse with his wife Hannah" and she conceived a child who would become a major prophet and anoint Saul and David as the first two kings of Israel. 


All this makes John the Baptist sound like Samuel. Barren women (Hannah and Elizabeth) who give birth to a prophet child (Samuel and John the Baptist) who eventually anoint a king (Saul and Jesus). 

I guess all this reflects an entire belief system about child-bearing. That it is the Lord who closed Hannah's womb. That Hannah begged for the gift of a child. That God remembered Hannah while she was having intercourse with her husband and gave her a child. The same belief system that makes Filipino women dance in Obando.

Maybe child-bearing might as well be a metaphor for all the barrenness in our lives. And yet again, the lesson might be that everything is grace.