“What Will Be”

November 15, 2009

Mark 13:1-8 Hebrews 10:11-14 1 Samuel 1:1-20

What will the future be? Human beings seem to have a natural attraction to anything that tells them
something about the future. Perhaps it’s because we so often experience pain or disappointment or
financial losses when we make wrong assumptions or guess incorrectly, but in any case, we are often
found trying to know the future. Some of our efforts are made for purely practical reasons, we are
having a picnic on Saturday and we wonder whether it will rain or be windy or cold. Sometimes our
efforts have to do with our financial situation, will this stock go up or down, is now a good time to sell
my house or will next year be better? Often, as is the case with the weather and, sometimes, the stock
market, we aren’t “predicting” the future so much as we are using known scientific or mathematical
principles to make a probable estimation of what is likely to happen. In other cases, we are grasping
beyond the reaches of the rational and trying to know the unknowable. When we begin reading the
predictions of Nostradamus or Jeane Dixon or even when we read the horoscopes in the newspaper, we
reach beyond what science and mathematics and human ability can reasonably estimate and we wander
into places that God has instructed his followers to avoid. Wanting to know what will happen is both
common and normal to the human condition but beyond weather prediction and mathematical models,
what can we know about the future?

Having finished with the story of Ruth, this morning we begin a new story, the story of Hannah and
Samuel. (1 Samuel 1:1-20)
1
There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name
was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. 2 He
had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah
had none.
3
Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the LORD Almighty at
Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the LORD. 4 Whenever the day
came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her
sons and daughters. 5 But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the LORD had
closed her womb. 6 And because the LORD had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order
to irritate her. 7 This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her
rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. 8 Elkanah her husband would say to her, "Hannah,
why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than
ten sons?"
9
Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was
sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the LORD's temple. 10 In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and
prayed to the LORD. 11 And she made a vow, saying, "O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon
your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give
him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head."

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As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying in her heart,
and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and said to her,
"How long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine."
15
"Not so, my lord," Hannah replied, "I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking
wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. 16 Do not take your servant for a wicked woman;
I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief."
17
Eli answered, "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him."
18
She said, "May your servant find favor in your eyes." Then she went her way and ate something, and
her face was no longer downcast.
19
Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the LORD and then went back to their home
at Ramah. Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. 20 So in the course of time
Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, "Because I asked the LORD
for him."

Hannah didn’t know the future, but she trusted God with her future. Hannah trusted God with her
heartbreak. Hannah trusted that God would hear her prayers. Hannah was in a different place than
Ruth. Hannah had a husband, and a home, and plenty of food to eat, and clothes to wear but she felt the
sting whenever Peninnah or her children were around. Not having children was regarded as being
cursed by God and although she was greatly loved by Elkanah, Hannah felt anguish at being childless.
She endured the stares she and heard the whispers of the other women in the marketplace but in her
anguish, Hannah knew that God would hear her cry. Hannah knew that God was able. Although
Hannah didn’t know the future, she knew that her prayers could change the future and beyond that,
Hannah trusted God

Hannah knew that what she could see wasn’t all that there was. Hannah knew that what was visible to
our reality, wasn’t the limit of what was really real. We hear this same type of thinking from the apostle
Paul in Hebrews 10:11-14.
1
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this
reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who
draw near to worship. 2If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would
have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3But those sacrifices
are an annual reminder of sins, 4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away
sins.
5
Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
"Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6
with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7
Then I said, 'Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, O God.' "8First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and
sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be
made). 9Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the
second. 10And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all.
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Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the
same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But when this priest had offered for all time one
sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13Since that time he waits for his enemies to be
made his footstool, 14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made
holy.

Paul says that the law, what we know as the first five books of the Old Testament, is not reality. Paul
says that the law is only a shadow of what is real. The endless repetition of animal sacrifice, the
endless requirement for animal sacrifice, was only a shadow of the real sacrifice that God required.
The priests in the temple were only a shadow of the real priest. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross ended the
requirement for sacrifice in the temple because we understand that his sacrifice was the real sacrifice, it
was the real deal, the one and only, the final sacrifice accepted by God. By his sacrifice, Paul says, “he
has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Any English teacher would have fits with
the grammar in this sentence but its deliberate and it’s important so let me read that again for you. “by
one sacrifice he has made perfect forever (past perfect tense) those who are being made holy (present
continuous tense).” Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, God sees each of us, each of us who have accepted
Jesus, God sees each of us as perfect. We are not yet holy, but we are becoming more holy each day as
we grow and become more like Christ. Each day we grow and one day we will all become like him.

Paul, like Hannah, tells us that the world that we see isn’t all that there is, and he also teaches us that the
world that we see isn’t all that there will be. Each day we move closer to reality, each day we move
closer to the truth, each day we move closer to what God intends for us and for the world. In Mark
13:1-8, hear Jesus explain the end result of this progression to his disciples.
1
As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones!
What magnificent buildings!"
2
"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another;
every one will be thrown down."
3
As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked
him privately, 4"Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about
to be fulfilled?"
5
Jesus said to them: "Watch out that no one deceives you. 6Many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am
he,' and will deceive many. 7When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things
must happen, but the end is still to come. 8Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth
pains.

What Jesus tells the disciples is that the world is moving toward a conclusion. The world isn’t just a
never-ending merry-go-round that will go on and on forever. The world that we see and the pain that we
feel is not all there is, but we are experiencing the birth pain of something new and incredible and real.
We are experiencing the beginning of the end of what we know and the beginning of what will be.

Scripture teaches us that we must not dabble in the occult by looking to fortunetellers and horoscopes to
know the future, but instead we must remember that what we see isn’t all there is, that God hears our
prayers, and that our prayers can change the future.

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We must remember that what we see, and feel and touch is not the limit of reality and in fact sometimes
our reality isn’t reality at all. Sometimes what we see is only a shadow of what will be.

We must remember that God has a plan and every minute of every day that plan is moving toward its
conclusion and the beginning of what will be, the beginning of what is really real.

In the meantime, our job here on earth is to do the best we can, to predict the things that we can
reasonably predict but to avoid the occult (palm readers, fortune tellers, horoscopes) and avoid any
unhealthy focus on knowing what will happen tomorrow but to trust that God has a plan for the future.

One way or another, we know that one day, we will arrive in God’s heaven and on that day we will be
perfect and holy like Jesus and we will see reality for the first time. In the meantime, we are to trust
God.; We must do the things that he has taught us to do, and we must strive to become more like Jesus
every single day.

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All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.