St Giles sermon

At home on the shelves in our hallway,

there is a card I made when I was younger.

That may not seem out of the ordinary –

it's the kind of thing children tend to do after all.

But I remember that I got my mum to help me make the card –

again, this is a fairly standard procedure for children.

But the thing is, the card was for my mum.

She was giving her time to make a card which would be given back to her - without her knowledge of course!

In our Old Testament reading tonight we heard the story of the birth of Samuel and his dedication at the Temple.

This story reminds us of the dedication of Christ at the Temple,

which is celebrated tomorrow.

Both these stories may not seem out of the ordinary –

after all, a birth is not an uncommon occurrence

and first-born children were traditionally dedicated to the Lord.

However, both births were uncommon,

because both Hannah and Mary were unable to have children:

Hannah was barren;

Mary was a virgin.

But God enabled both to have sons -

in the words of our reading, “the Lord remembered Hannah”

and we know the words Gabriel said to Mary,

that the power of the Most High would overshadow her.

And then both women dedicated their sons to the Lord.

So God enabled both women to have sons

who were then given back to him!

So what can we learn about dedicating our lives to the Lord

from the actions of Hannah and Mary?

Well, Hannah knew she was giving up Samuel for life –

she had made this promise before he was even born

and this is a remarkable thing –

she was willing to give back to God the son for whom she had longed.

You wonder if she was ever tempted to keep him for a little longer

to dedicate him when he was a teenager perhaps

or when he turned twenty.

But she never turned from her promise.

She waited for the right time

but when the time came, she gave her son to God.

Has God asked us to dedicate something to him?

Have we promised some part of our life to God?

Are we waiting for the right time?

Or are we tempted to hold off a little longer?

A second part of Hannah's dedication

was that she did not know how Samuel's life would turn out.

She did not have the promises given to Mary,

that her son would reign on David's throne.

And yet she still gave him over to God

and Samuel became one of Israel's greatest prophets.

Are we waiting for God to tell us his purposes before we give things to him?

Will we be bold enough to act as Hannah did, before she knew what might happen?

The third example of dedication comes from the life of Mary.

Mary did not always seem to act in the obedient way we see in Luke chapter 1.

There are instances in the gospels where she, with Jesus' brothers and sisters,

ask Jesus to stop his works and go home with them.

Did she know what she had dedicated him to?

Did she know she was giving him up for life?

In the end, we see her at the cross, faithful

but this was not always the case.

Are we tempted to take back what we have dedicated to God?

Mary was.

But not forever.

So if these are some of the difficulties we face in dedicating our lives to God,

what can help us overcome them?

Firstly, we can remember that everything we have is a gift from God.

As Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians,

“and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?”

Matthew Henry says in his commentary on the passage from 1 Samuel: “Whatever we give to God,

it is what we have first asked and received from him.

All our gifts to him were first his gifts to us.”

Both Hannah and Mary knew their sons were gifts from God

and so they were able to give them back to Him.

All that we have is also a gift from God -

“freely ye have received, freely give.”

Secondly, we can remember that God is good

and that he does not take things from us out of spite.

Hannah gave Samuel away for life but,

if we read into chapter 2,

we see that God gave her three more sons and two daughters.

Mary lost a son when Jesus died on the cross, but,

when he rose again,

she gained a Saviour.

God does not ask things from us without promising to care for us.

We may not receive exactly the same thing back –

Samuel was dedicated to the Lord for life –

but God does not leave us bereft.

So as we look ahead to the feast of the Dedication of Christ at the Temple

let us each reflect on what God might be calling us to dedicate to him.

Let us reflect on the goodness of our heavenly Father,

who “gives good things to them that ask him”.

And let us remember Christ's dedication of his life to his Father

and his obedience to death,

even to death on a cross,

so that we might have a Saviour. Amen.