WEBVTT

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In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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Until a couple of weeks ago.

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My mother-in-law were a little plastic band like kind of like this,

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but hers was on her ankle.

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She had to wear it all the time.

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She was in a nursing home and all of the residents there had one of

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these.

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She hated it.

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She despised it.

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It made her feel like a prisoner.

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She even managed to cut it off one day

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and the staff kind of freaked out.

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They put another one on her right away and they took away her scissors

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and even her fingernail clippers.

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So that she would never escape the little plastic ankle band.

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She missed a lot of the things that she

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love to doing her whole life.

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She she missed gardening.

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She also wanted to be able to drive again.

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But I think in the end, her deep dissatisfaction focused mostly on the

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hated, ankle band.

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The last time I visited her, she complained about it in her gentle,

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but resolute way, she said,

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I'm not supposed to live this way.

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And now she doesn't live that way.

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No more, ankle band.

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She died in her sleep

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two weeks ago, Monday.

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And this past weekend, we committed her body to the ground at a little

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Cemetery in rural Nebraska in the sure and certain hope of the

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resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

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At the end of her life, she felt like a prisoner.

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Her life reduced restricted, not just by an ankle band, but by age by

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illness by weakness and, and even by the best, intentions of others

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who wanted to keep her safe.

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But the Lord sets the prisoners free.

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No more, ankle band.

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Today is designated for reasons

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I haven't bothered to investigate deeply as the Day of Commemoration

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of Hannah.

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The Old Testament Saint and faithful mother of the prophet Samuel.

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Now to be honest, I am generally not a fan of all the minor festivals

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sprinkled through the church year, and I nearly always ignore

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the feast days of Noah, that's November 29th,

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if you want to know. Or the Venerable Bead on May 25th, or the

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discovery of the true cross by Constantine's, mother Helena,

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September 14th, but I'll make an exception today and I'll remember

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Hannah.

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For the sake of my mother-in-law.

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Now, these two women, Hannah and my mother-in-law did not have much in

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common at first glance.

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They are separated, of course, by many centuries, and by a huge, chasm

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of cultural difference.

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Hannah was as you know

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childless for many years.

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My mother-in-law had nine children, 17, grandchildren, and nine

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great-grandchildren so far.

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But both of these women shared a common

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hope, both looked to the same God for relief and release and the Lord

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heard them.

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Answered them.

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Help them.

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Hannah prayed for a son

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and God gave her Samuel and then she gave the boy back to serve the Lord.

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With with this song of Praise.

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The Lord makes poor and makes rich, he brings low and he exalts, he

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raises the poor from the dust.

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He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with prince's in

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the seat of Honor.

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Or as today's Psalm says the Lord sets the prisoner free, the Lord

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opens the eyes of the blind.

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The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.

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The lord loves the righteous.

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The Lord watches over sojourners.

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He upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked, he

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brings to ruin.

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When our Lord Jesus began his public Ministry, he unrolled the scroll

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of Isaiah in the synagogue to read these specific words.

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The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to

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proclaim good news to the poor.

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He has sent me to Proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of

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sight to the blind to set at liberty those who

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are oppressed and he said today, this scripture is fulfilled in your

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hearing.

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You see that

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God who made the universe

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and rules over everything stands, squarely on the side of the weakest

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of the least.

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The helpless the dying and the desperate.

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This biblical truth is so plain that it ought to cure us once and for

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all of the delusion that the wealthy and the powerful are the folks,

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God's pays special attention to but but the false gospel of prosperity

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and success dies hard in our thick heads and hard hearts, and we need

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to kill it,

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again, and again.

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The people, nearest and dearest to God's compassionate, heart are not

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the movers and shakers.

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No, offense to those of you who are movers and shakers.

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But the folks who are weighed down.

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Who are crushed.

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Who are out of options.

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God knows what he's doing and he delights to help people who really

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can't fix themselves or solve their own problems.

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People like childless Hannah.

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People like my mother-in-law.

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Maybe even people like you.

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I have no idea to be honest

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what

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weighs down your heart today.

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It may not be obvious to anybody else.

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What shame, or sin or memory or misery has so tangled you up that you

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feel you can never get free of it.

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Who knows what invisible ankle bands

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you just can't cut off and throw away. Or what prayer, you whisper to

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God, when nobody else is listening, but I am here to tell you this.

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The Lord sets the prisoners free.

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He lifts up those who are bowed down.

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He lifts the needy from the ash heap and makes them sit with princes.

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The Lord Jesus Christ

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came, he lived and died and rose again to make that happen to lift you

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up and set you free.

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This is radical liberation.

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You were buried with Christ, in your baptism into death.

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So that you can walk out of here new and alive and free just as Christ

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has been raised from the dead.

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He accomplished that once and for all.

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So that you can bask in it.

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And soak in it and live it out day after day after day.

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He is more ready to hear than we are to ask and he often gives far

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more than we could imagine or think. My mother-in-law wanted to snip

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off her stupid plastic, ankle band and drive her self to Walmart and Long

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John Silver's.

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The Lord Jesus wanted to set her free from a broken world and a

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weakened body to live with him forever.

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Now, and forever.

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Here and wherever you go in the biggest ways and the smallest.

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The Lord sets the prisoners free.

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Amen. And now the peace of God

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which passes all understanding.

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Keep your hearts and minds in Christ

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Jesus. Amen.