Good Christmas Eve Eve! I hope you are not too hurried and harried to enjoy the upcoming days. Yesterday, we looked at Simeon in the temple, and today we look at a woman in the Temple named Anna.
36 Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had been married only seven years. 37 Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. 38 She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.
There are women who are prophets mentioned in the scriptures several times. Anna is one of those women. For some reason, Luke gives more attention to women in his gospel than Matthew, Mark or John. And I’m glad he does, because he has shown us females what an integral part women can play in Christianity. Yay! From what we read it seems that Anna had become a widow only 7 years after her marriage. If you remember, from Jewish betrothal customs of the teenage girls, she would have only been in her early 20s when she became a widow. That means she had been staying at the temple for over 60 years! (I wonder if this is where Catholics get the idea of nuns. Bishop Stafford, if you are reading this, I’d love to hear about that.)
Anna’s father was Phanuel. Some sources say he was a high priest. If so, Anna would have grown up in the presence of a father who was a devout religious figure, devoted to God’s service. She would have known the meaning of every item of his priestly garments, his ephod, the stones on his breastplate, the colors of the robe and what they represented, the word of God rolled up into little pouches that he wore. I am sure he probably sat with her on more than one occasion and explained to his little girl all about what it meant to be a priest, a high priest. He would have been the only one allowed to go into the Holy of Holies. In modern day, she would have been a PK, a preacher’s kid. Now, I’m not a preacher’s kid, but I’m a preacher’s granddaughter, another preacher’s niece, and another preacher’s step-daughter, and life being raised around preachers is definitely different. Everything about your life is immersed in the church. Like I had told you in an earlier study, I spent my young days right by my granddaddy, going to the hospitals, visiting people at their home to witness to them, picking up carload after carload of kids for VBS, playing in the living room while my grandfather studied his Bible there for hours, went to more funerals as a little girl than most people go to in their lives, pretend teaching in a classroom while he was up at church doing stuff, standing by him after service while he shook each member’s hand as they left the church, (so they had to shake my hand too). Not the normal kid’s upbringing. But I loved it, and I still treasure it, and I’m sure Anna did too. It is a deep and dear part of anyone raised around it. So much so that after her husband died, as a young woman in her 20s, she devoted her life to being at the Temple, to prayer, and to fasting.
I’ve said if anything ever happened to Perry, I’d do like Anna and just devote myself to the church, go to Bible college, and do something in ministry. Guess I'd be a Baptist nun, haha. Now, believe me, I don’t want anything to happen to Perry because I love him dearly and he is one of the most wonderful blessings I have in my life. No one could ever replace him in my heart. But, I guess this may have been what Anna did. Alone, young, widowed and grieving, she returned as best she could, to what she had always known. After her husband died, she devoted her life to living at the Temple, to prayer, to fasting. She was called a prophetess. These are the trademarks that identified her to others when they heard the name “Anna”.
Also, as a woman, there were only certain areas she could have even entered around the temple, namely the outer courts. She could not go where the men went inside of the temple. But still, she devoted her life to God and stayed as "close" to him as her culture would physically allow her to. So as an old woman on this special day, she walked upon Simeon talking to Mary and Joseph about their son, Jesus. She heard the things he was telling them.
(33 Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them, and he said to Mary, the baby’s mother, “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, but he will be a joy to many others. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. 35 As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”)
As she heard his words, she began to praise God. She realized that the fulfillment of all her prayers was bundled up right in front of her. The hope of her heart was revealed to her that day. And as a result, what was her response? She told everybody. It says she talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem. What an amazing and exciting day that must have been for this old woman. She never held her own children in her arms, but she held the Messiah. She never could enter into the Holy Place or the Holy of Holies, but she held the Holy of Holies in her own arms and peered into his own face.
Anna’s father’s name, Phanuel, means “face of God”. Her father may have sought God through sacrifice and priestly duties, but his daughter, Anna, as devoted to God as himself and maybe even more so, would actually one day be the one to get to see the face of God in the human form of a 6-week-old tiny baby. Anna is a form of Hannah and means “grace”. God bestowed his grace on a woman that day when he allowed her to see what the priests never would, even though she would never be allowed to walk where the men walk. How's that for grace? Both her father's name and her own name were prophecies over her life.
I find it interesting that it says she talked to those who were “waiting and expecting God to rescue them”. She knew they would receive her report. Some people do not want to hear your report, and some will not receive it, but some are looking for something, and they are desperately praying and hoping and waiting for God to rescue them. When God reveals himself to you, it is not so you can keep it to yourself. It is a lifeline to throw out to others who are praying for rescue. To the one who is drowning and just about to go under. And like Simeon, she could not be silent about what she had been so graciously allowed to see. Both Simeon and Anna, in their old age, after years of seeking their Messiah, were both allowed to have him revealed to them, both allowed to actually hold him in their arms, both allowed to share with everyone they could what they had witnessed before their death. I can picture God's hand that day reaching out through the veil of the Holy of Holies, even before the veil ever ripped in half when Jesus was crucified. He reached outside the holiest place, out past the inner court, on to the outer court, where common people live. He reached out past the curtain that day.
I love a phrase in a song by Phillips, Craig, and Dean called "Mercy Came Running", where it says "I can almost see Mercy's face pressed against the veil".
Like Anna, like Simeon, like the "wise men" we will study tomorrow, everyone of us who seeks him WILL find him. It is a promise he has made to you. Jesus does not hide from us, nor does he play games with us. He wants to reveal himself to us. But he is a gentleman, and even though he knocks at your door and seeks you, he will wait for you to invite him inside. And when you finally do seek him with all your heart, he will faithfully make himself known to you. He wants to be known by us. He wants what we see to make a big enough impact that we are changed, and that we tell other people. Not because it is the “duty” of us as Christians, but because something alive and active is in us, and it flows out of us to others because it cannot be contained within human flesh or kept to oneself. Religion cannot do that for you – only relationship can do that, can make you want to share him with others, can allow you see others through God’s eyes of love, can cause you devote yourself wholly to him and him alone.
So today, and forever, seek him, diligently, earnestly, and you WILL find him.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. And we will see the final group that sought him in this story, the pagan astrologers who came hundreds of miles...
Click http://www.actionext.com/names_p/phillips_craig_and_dean_lyrics/mercy_came_running.html to hear this song.
Mercy Came Running - lyrics
Once there was a holy place
Evidence of God's embrace
And I can almost see Mercy's face
Pressed against the veil
Looking down with longing eyes
Mercy must have realized
That once His blood was sacrificed
Freedom would prevail
And as the sky grew dark
And the earth began to shake
With justice no longer in the way
Mercy came running
Like a prisoner set free
Past all my failures to the point of my need
When the sin that I carried
Was all I could see
And when I could not reach mercy
Mercy came running to me
Once there was a broken heart
Way too human from the start
And all the years left it torn apart
Hopeless and afraid
Walls I never meant to build
Left this prisoner unfulfilled
Freedom called but even still
It seemed so far away
I was bound by the chains
From the wages of my sin
Just when I felt like giving in
Mercy came running
Like a prisoner set free
Past all my failures to the point of my need
When the sin that I carried
Was all I could see
And when I could not reach mercy
Mercy came running to me
Sometimes I still feel so far
So far from where I really should be
He gently calls to my heart
Just to remind me .... MERCY CAME RUNNING
Happy Christmas Eve Eve! The gift of Mercy is born to YOU! Can you see his face pressed against the veil?
Teresa
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