You might think that a previously barren woman who was giving up her three-year-old son to the service of the Tabernacle, only to see him once a year from this time forward, would be mourning her loss and maybe even trying to renege on her vow. But that is not what we see with Hannah. Her heart, bursting with joy, sings a song that picks up melodies from the past and will echo one thousand years into the future as it is taken up by Mary, the mother of our Lord. Hannah is in the Spirit of Christmas a millennium before the birth of Christ Jesus.
Hannah’s exuberance is not grounded in what we find in many popular or even Christian Christmas songs. Her joy is not in the sentiment of memories of family, friends, and romantic interests of the past or present. She is not gushing over being with family at this special time of year. Indeed, she is leaving her son, the son that was the answer to her prayer, because this is her part in God’s grand mission. She is exulting in the true Spirit of Christmas: the fact that God is exalting his faithful people through the crushing of our enemies. The world is upside down because it is being ruled by the serpent and his seed is being set right through the fruit of the resurrected womb of a woman. There is no hint of calling a “Christmas truce” with God’s enemies. This is war, and the birth of this miracle child means that God is fully engaged. Hannah, for one, is quite excited about it. She’s all in with God’s mission for the world.
Hannah’s song begins and ends with an exaltation of “horns” (1Sm 2.1, 10), Hannah’s horn and the horn of Yahweh’s anointed (or Messiah or Christ). Horns are associated with animals and are instruments of power used to defeat their adversaries. This imagery is carried over into horns of oil being used to anoint kings (see 1Sm 16.1, 13). God’s anointed becomes Israel’s horn to defeat Israel’s enemies. Children are also associated with horns in Scripture (cf. 1Chr 25.5; Ps 132.17; Dt 33.16-17). They are the strength of faithful parents to fight the enemy. The altars in the Tabernacle where offerings and incense rise up in smoke before the Lord have four horns at their corners. All of these images coalesce in Hannah’s jubilate. Her child, Samuel, will overthrow the present priesthood, reestablishing “the altar.” He will then use his horn of oil to anoint the promised king, David, who will be Israel’s horn, throwing off the power of the Philistines.
As God raises up her horn, Hannah, along with all of God’s faithful enlarge their mouths over their enemies (1Sm 2.1), which could mean that she mocks them, devours them, or both. Those who arrogantly boast against God will find their actions weighed and, once judged, their weapons of war will be crushed, they will hire themselves out for a loaf of bread, their mothers will become childless, their riches will be taken away, and they will be debased.
All that belonged to the arrogant will be the possession of the faithful. Those who are hungry will become fat, the barren women will bear seven (the foundation of a new creation), the dead will come back to life, the poor will be made rich, and those debased will inherit the throne of glory that God promised. God will shatter our adversaries and give us the world.
None of this should be overly “spiritualized;” that is, we shouldn’t think of the blessings of Hannah’s song as being relegated to the unseen aspects of our existence or our lives in heaven one day. The structures of the world and the men who occupy them—the pillars of the world (1Sm 2.8)—belong to God’s faithful children. The arrogant disobedient ones are the interlopers, the squatters who seek to seize our inheritance. The world and all that is in it belongs to our God, and because it belongs to him, it belongs to us, his children. Hannah understands this and is happy that God is bringing about this salvation (1Sm 2.1).
The aim of Christmas is peace on earth. The way to peace is the way of war.
