An Expectant Gift Premature
Our anticipation of Christmas each year points more toward the expectant gift than the expected Messiah. The world rushes about all around us, no prophet has been heard from for centuries and evil prevails in the palaces of power.
We tell the child to play this game and ignore that evil. You deserve fantasies of falsehood and the best gifts of nature. I will get it now even months before your time, so that you may have the riches you deserve.
This time anticipating the holidays (of Christmas) even more than every day is a time of the expectant child hoping for the best diversions the life of busy parents can offer. Yet what of the expectant mother?
Pregnant with an Unexpected Child
When honor of men and respect of women mattered, when life itself and the vastness of the heavens and earth filled man’s heart with awe, and when a child was to be born to a daughter of dust — we awaited the time of her miracle, the birth of the unexpected child.
Though we did not know when, all certainly knew why and the inevitable outcome of one more created small being was never a choice. Praise God and honor the father, husband to this expectant mother. May the LORD grant this beloved expectant mother a quick and natural completion to this miracle of new life.
Unexpectant Pregnancies Forgotten
Birth is always a miracle. Yet what of the out-of-the-ordinary births of the sons of man to women of little importance? What of the children of these expectant mothers none thought of any significance?
Elizabeth
After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived and kept herself in seclusion for five months. She said, “The Lord has done this for me. He has looked with favor in these days to take away my disgrace among the people.”
The Gospel of Luke 1:24-25
39 In those days Mary set out and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah 40 where she entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped inside her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit…
57 Now the time had come for Elizabeth to give birth, and she had a son. 58 Then her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her his great mercy, and they rejoiced with her…
… “His name is John.” And they were all amazed.
Hannah
We do not hear much about Hannah preached, probably due to our sensitivity to the political and social correctness of this day. Hannah, however, was favored by the Lord and also her husband as we shall see.
1 Samuel 1:
[Elkanah] son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephraimite… had two wives, the first named Hannah and the second … had children, but Hannah was childless.
Like all genealogies, including that of Jesus, history emphasises the man. This history of Hannah (one of two wives) once again connects to the favor of a woman, a humble and loving woman like Mary mother of Jesus.
4 Whenever Elkanah offered a sacrifice [to the Lord of Hosts], he always gave portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to each of her sons and daughters. 5 But he gave a double portion to Hannah, for he loved her even though the Lord had kept her from conceiving.
The Expectant Father
Every man becomes an expectant father the moment he loves the woman of his desire, yet he hopes to have won her heart forever.
A child is the blessing of the mother, but the nobility of the father.
Roger Harned
8 “Hannah, why are you crying?” her husband Elkanah would ask. “Why won’t you eat? Why are you troubled? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”
10 Deeply hurt, Hannah prayed to the Lord and wept with many tears. 11 Making a vow, she pleaded, “Lord of Armies, if you will take notice of your servant’s affliction, remember and not forget me, and give your servant a son, I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life…
17 Eli [the High Priest and Judge of Israel, a descendant of Aaron whose name means “ascension” ] responded,
“Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request you’ve made of him.”
Then Elkanah was intimate with his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20 After some time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, because she said, “I requested him from the Lord.”
Hannah’s Prayer
Hannah prayed:
My heart rejoices in the Lord;
1 Samuel 2:1-2
my horn is lifted up by the Lord.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
because I rejoice in your salvation.
There is no one holy like the Lord.
There is no one besides you!
And there is no rock like our God.
3 The boy Samuel served the Lord in Eli’s presence. In those days the word of the Lord was rare and prophetic visions were not widespread.
Sampson’s story
Like Samuel the Priest who anointed Saul and David, we also know the hero of an earlier story and his genealogy. Again, a humble woman of the Lord waits for the Lord’s blessing.
This too is a story of patience for a couple possibly expectant of the Lord doing great things through their faith. And the name of Manoah’s humble and faithful wife is not even recorded here.
Judges 13:
The Israelites again did what was evil in the Lord’s sight…
2 There was a certain man from Zorah, from the family of Dan, whose name was Manoah; his wife was unable to conceive and had no children. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “It is true that you are unable to conceive and have no children, but you will conceive and give birth to a son…
6 Then the woman went and told her husband, “A man of God came to me. He looked like the awe-inspiring angel of God. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name. 7 He said to me, ‘You will conceive and give birth to a son…
Manoah Worships The Angel of the Lord
… and the angel of God came again… 10 The woman ran quickly to her husband and told him, “The man who came to me the other day has just come back!”
11 So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he asked, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”
“I am,” he said…
13 The angel of the Lord answered Manoah, “Your wife needs to do everything I told her…
15 “Please stay here,” Manoah told him, “and we will prepare a young goat for you.”
… (Manoah did not know he was the angel of the Lord.)
The Angel of the Lord
פלאיה דַעַת מִמֶּנִּי נִשְׂגְּבָה לֹא־אוּכַֽל לָֽהּ׃
Tehillim (Psalms) 139:6 :: Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC)
17 Then Manoah said to him, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your words come true?”
“Why do you ask my name,” the angel of the Lord asked him, “since it is beyond understanding.”
Judges 13:18
19 Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord, who did something miraculous while Manoah and his wife were watching.
20 When the flame went up from the altar to the sky, the angel of the Lord went up in its flame.
When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell facedown on the ground. 21 The angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the angel of the Lord.
22 “We’re certainly going to die,” he said to his wife, “because we have seen God!”
23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had intended to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us, and he would not have shown us all these things or spoken to us like this.”
24 So the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 Then the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him…
The Wives of Abram
Here too is a controversial conversation concerning the Lord’s promise to a man with two wives. (Therefore, we seldom mention that part of Abraham’s story.) Though the expectant father Abraham received the promise of the Lord, he had to wait for its fulfillment.
Each segment of Abraham’s journey of faith becomes partial fulfillment of the the Lord’s promises fulfilled in Christ Jesus.
Genesis 15:
Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אַבְרָ֔ם הֵ֣ן לִ֔י לֹ֥א נָתַ֖תָּה זָ֑רַע וְהִנֵּ֥ה בֶן־בֵּיתִ֖י יֹורֵ֥שׁ אֹתִֽי׃
Genesis 15:3 Masoretic text
6 Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 16:
וְשָׂרַי֙ אֵ֣שֶׁת אַבְרָ֔ם לֹ֥א יָלְדָ֖ה לֹ֑ו וְלָ֛הּ שִׁפְחָ֥ה מִצְרִ֖ית וּשְׁמָ֥הּ הָגָֽר׃
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar.
3 After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife. 4 He went in to Hagar, and she conceived…
Hagar the maid of Sarai, also a wife to Abram, despises Sarai. Abram continues to allow his wife Sarai to rule over his other wife Hagar the Egyptian her maidservant. Hagar flees their household and provision.
Now the angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.
Genesis 16:7 NASB – with additional links to ‘mal’ak’ ‘Yĕhovah’
8 He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” …
9 Then the angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority… I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count… Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael…”
Hagar: expectant of a child troublesome to some even until this day.
Eve – Mother of Man
וְהָ֣אָדָ֔ם יָדַ֖ע אֶת־חַוָּ֣ה אִשְׁתֹּ֑ו וַתַּ֨הַר֙ וַתֵּ֣לֶד אֶת־קַ֔יִן וַתֹּ֕אמֶר קָנִ֥יתִי אִ֖ישׁ אֶת־יְהוָֽה׃
Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD.”
Genesis 4:1 WLC; NASB
One cannot fully approach the topic of birth and the expectant mother without some discussion of the first woman. Once again we cannot take time here to examine man and woman and child closely.
Nevertheless we should look at the Person of the Lord in Moses’ narrative of creation.
And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
Genesis 2:18 NKJV
Genesis 3:
Adam and Eve were not blind, for they saw the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Before that their relationship with the Lord was a personal one with a God who walked and talked with them.
Just one command, but like all mankind since they were enticed by the sin of disobedience to the Lord.
8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
“Where are you?”
“I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
“The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
“What is this you have done?”
Sin’s Imagination Beguiled Me
“The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Her husband also ate and blamed her, while Eve explains that the image of Satan (the serpent) beguiled (KJV) her.
Are you and I so different when we sin?
We know and will not dwell on the curses of sin.
21 Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.
Then the LORD God said,
“Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil.
Genesis 3:22a NKJV
And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—
23 therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
An Expectation of Blessing
Surely the Lord God will do good and has a plan. So should we not expect His mercy to right the wrongs of the past?
The Person of the Lord God touches lives of the faithful, expectant worshipers of God’s own promises. And we know that the Lord has been here – on earth, that is, in Person. Also note this from the Lord’s last conversation in Eden: “Behold, the man has become like one of Us.”
The Lord God, therefore, IS plural. The LORD IS ONE GOD, yet plural in Persons and His mysterious nature beyond our knowledge.
LOOK – behold – we have seen the Lord, for He has been here before. Surely the Lord will return as He said.
The continued story is that of Christmas the awaited birth of the Messiah Jesus.
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