“People to meet in heaven: Anna”
Luke 2:36-38
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
The world has known some amazing older women.
Take Dorothy Custer, for example. She’s the oldest living person in Twin Falls, Idaho, which also makes her the oldest person ever to jump off a bridge five hundred feet above the Snake River.
Suppose you were to celebrate your 102nd birthday. What would you do? Most of us would go to brunch. Dorothy jumped off a bridge. Not bad for someone who’s 102 years old!
She said: “I never thought of age. I just went on living and having a good time.”
Or think of Marta Eggerth. She’s appeared in more than forty films in five different languages. She’s also done countless opera recordings. Her career first took off in the 1920s in the “Silver age of operetta,” and she’s been singing ever since. She said, “People ask me, how is it to be 100? I say, I don’t know. I have no standard of comparison. You must ask me when I am 200 what it was like to be 100, and then I will be able to tell you.”
The Bible introduces us to some amazing older people. When God called Moses to let His people go, he was eighty and Aaron was eighty-three. Abraham was nearly a hundred when his wife, Sarah, gave birth to a son. Daniel was eighty-something when men threw him into the lions’ den. And Zechariah and Elizabeth were both “advanced in years” when they had a son named John.
As the psalmist wrote in Psalm 71: “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare Your power to the next generation, Your mighty acts to all who are to come.”
Now here, in the book of Luke, we meet one more, an old woman named Anna. Please turn with me in your Bible to page 1091. I’ll read the words of Luke 2, starting at verse 36: “And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Each year, as we set up our nativity scenes, we’re careful to place Mary and Joseph, little lambs and cows, angels, shepherds, and wise men around the infant Jesus. But you know, we could just as well add two more—an old man named Simeon and a woman named Anna.
You remember Simeon. He was the first to honor Jesus as Mary and Joseph brought Him to the temple. In verse 28 of chapter 2, the Bible says he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation that You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to Your people Israel.”
And he’s the one who said to Mary in verse 34: “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
Then in verse 36, Luke tells us what happened next: “And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.”
Let’s stop there, because there are a few things we don’t want to miss.
First of all, the Bible says she was a prophetess. What’s a prophetess?
We know prophets—men like Ezekiel and Daniel, Isaiah and Jeremiah. They faithfully and fearlessly preached the word of the Lord.
So what’s a prophetess?
The Bible tells us of only a few, so it’s a little hard to know for sure. Moses’ sister, Miriam, was a prophetess, and so was a woman named Huldah and a judge named Deborah. And the Bible says the prophet Isaiah’s wife was a prophetess too.
So what’s a prophetess? It’s not someone who predicts the future. Anna was no fortune teller. Instead, she taught. She spoke. In this incredible, once-in-a-lifetime, moment in time, she spoke the word of the Lord.
Next, the Bible says she was the daughter of Phanuel, and of the tribe of Asher.
Who’s Phanuel? We don’t know. This is the one and only time the Bible ever mentions him.
But one thing we do know, and that’s that the name Phanuel means, “Face to face with God.”
And the Bible says, she was “of the tribe of Asher.” Why did Luke bother to mention that?
I’m glad you asked, because it’s important.
You see when the twelve tribes of Israel all came to the Promised Land, each tribe was given a portion of land. Judah and Benjamin stayed to the south, (what would later become the southern kingdom). All the rest stayed north.
And over time, as God’s people in the north became more and more unfaithful to Him, some remained faithful. And because they loved the Lord, they moved south, to be near the temple and to worship.
And now, even though the people of her tribe had been carried off into captivity, never to be heard from again, Anna, seven hundred years later, still knew she was of the tribe of Asher.
Now look at the third line of verse 36: “She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.”
What does that mean? It means that if she married when she was fourteen, like many girls in that time and place did, her husband died when she was twenty-one. And now, if we’re reading the text correctly, she’s eighty-four. Which means she’s been a widow for the past sixty-three years.
And for those sixty-three years, what did she do? She could have become bitter. She could have cursed God for putting such a burden on her heart. And, she could have married again.
But instead, what did she do? Look at verse 37: “She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.”
She was always there, fasting, praying, worshiping. She never left!
And there’s a first lesson we can learn from this woman, this widow, this prophetess.
Can I give you the “Anna challenge”? It’s the challenge to be faithful and uncompromising in your worship and prayers, just like Anna, no matter what. It’s the challenge to find time for God every day. And it’s the challenge to put Him first before all else.
Prayer, it’s been said, is the lifeblood of the church. It’s what keeps a church strong and it’s ministries strong. It’s what keeps you in touch with God. It’s what holds back the spiritual forces of darkness. It’s what supports those who teach and lead.
Anna was a prayer warrior. We need you to be one too.
Let’s get back to the text one more time. Look at verse 38: “And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Can you picture how it all must have been? Just as soon as Simeon took the infant Jesus in his arms, and just as soon as he praised God and said, “Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word,” that he called out to Anna, (who was always there!), and said, “Anna, come here, quick, because you have got to see this! This is the Messiah, the living, breathing, fulfillment of all that God had said. It’s the One you’ve hoped for, prayed for, and fasted for. God has sent His Son to redeem His people. The Great Immanuel, ‘I am,’ has come!”
And just as soon as she heard the news, what did she do? First, the Bible says she gave thanks to God, and then she ran. She ran as fast as her eighty-four-year-old legs could carry her, to tell the good news of Jesus.
So what does all this mean for us? It’s all pretty amazing, if you think about it. When God first came to live among His people, He didn’t come to the rich, the intelligent, the popular or the noteworthy. He came to a poor, working class, couple named Mary and Joseph. And of all places, He was born in a stable and laid in a manger.
And the first ones to honor Him weren’t religious scholars or kings. Instead, it was the least of the least, the poorest of the poor—shepherds keeping watching over their flocks by night, and now, an old man named Simeon, and a widow named Anna, of the tribe of Asher, daughter of Phanuel.
And that means that if they were the very first to honor Christ, then there, beside the manger, by the grace of God, there’s a place for us as well.
In September of 1995, Caryl and Charlie Harvey answered an early morning knock on their front door. Two policemen stood there grimly, telling them the terrible news that their twenty-year-old son Chad had just been found dead. Their lives would never be the same.
As Christmas approached, Caryl became more and more disappointed and angry with God. He had failed her. Why didn’t He protect her son?
In desperation, she prayed, “God, if You care about me, I need a miracle.” More time passed, but finally her miracle came.
One night the doorbell rang. When her thirteen-year-old daughter answered it, she found a gift, but no giver. It was a tree branch with apples tied to it and a blue, plastic nightingale perched on top. Attached was a piece of paper that read: “On the first day of Christ my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree. We couldn’t find a partridge, and our pear tree died, so you have to settle for a bluebird in an apple tree.” And attached was a Bible verse telling of the birth of John the Baptist.
And as the days went on, there were more strange and unusual gifts, like five doughnuts in place of five golden rings and twelve drums made out of biscuits. And each day, there was a verse preparing them for the Christmas holiday.
And for the first since her son’s death, she began to look forward to the next day, wondering what might come next. She said: “When I couldn’t talk to God, when I didn’t even want to talk to Him, He sent a miracle through someone else. God used earthly hands to send it to me, but His fingerprints were all over it.”
Does God care? Does He care for the poor, the lonely, the widowed and the depressed? See the thrill and the wonder in Anna’s eyes, for Christ our Savior is born.
We thank You, dear Father, for this woman named Anna, of the tribe of Asher, daughter of Phanuel. Help even us to share the good news that Christ our Savior is born. We ask it in His name. Amen