His Love Frees

Then Hannah prayed and said:

“My heart rejoices in the Lord;
    in the Lord my horn[ is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
    for I delight in your deliverance.

“There is no one holy like the Lord;
    there is no one besides you;
    there is no Rock like our God.

(1 Samuel 2:1-2)

Many years ago I worked as a full time volunteer for a church in a council estate known then for having the worst car crime rates in the UK. There were various evangelistic  activities but I remember a bus turning up one day with a visual presentation presented on board about Jesus for teenagers, using The Miracle Maker animated movie as a platform for talking about the gospel. There were two women in charge of the set-up and I knew from various conversations that they had experienced a difficult past, seemingly with involvement in prostitution and drugs. 

I can honestly say that the sense of holiness emanating from these two ladies was very, very deep. It was almost like an aroma of Jesus coming from them, a purity that reached others with kindness and compassion. Their past did not in any way, shape or form define them. They were so clearly saved, restored and renewed through the Holy Spirit. The sense of the Lord’s presence with these women was actually quite unnerving. That’s the power of the gospel! Lives transformed. 

We live in a world where cruelty can pervade and too often there is a sense of not giving dignity to others. We can belittle. We can dissuade people from their calling. We label others “Sinners” and bring them down, as the Pharisees once did; sneering in front of Jesus when he walked on the Earth and reached his hands out to the outcasts, the forgotten – the undignified. 

The Bible records again and again, the Lord coming alongside men, women and children deemed the lower caste by society and restoring dignity to them. And that’s not a dignity known by the world. For the Lord himself said that his kingdom is not of this world. Instead it is a dignity sweeping down from the very gates of heaven itself, making the undignified become royal members of the Holy One’s family. That is why the good news IS such good news for those robbed of respect. It restores outcasts and makes them dignified, commissioning them as sons and daughters of the King of kings. As Hannah sang after she became pregnant despite years of barrenness, the “horn” of the undignified is lifted up by the Lord himself! How wonderful. How marvellous!

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