This series is the result of nearly a decade of prayer and study. It focuses on this person whose ministry does not fit the modern criteria we put on Vocations. It also examines what we understand to be ministry, and how Anna does not fit the modern model. This is good. We have learned much and have much at our disposal. However, we still have much to comprehend.
It started in 2018. While conducting a retreat, I found myself transported to sit beside Anna. Every aspect I had never considered was presented before me. I saw all the 84 years she stayed in the Temple, observing the changes that occurred in that time. Yet she was steadfast understanding something big was up ahead.
It did not matter the noise, nor that which changed about her. However, we must understand what brought her into the Temple, what called and in what circumstance.
She learned that personal loss was spiritual gain, even before Paul did write about in Philippians 2. Whilst what I write is part of the “subjective experience” of what I interacted in the text, identifying in Luke 2 a specific happening in her life, loss of her husband. They were only married 7 years. Such a loss in such a turbulent time in history, opened the door to an opportunity to present herself to God in the Temple.
What we do know is that she dedicated 84 years in the Temple after this loss, and we identify with this in certain points in our lives. There can be those who argue that we read too much in these short obscure references in Scripture, and read too much in it. I certainly identify with Anna in the respect of experiencing loss, in the last 35 years, 3 people in specific. In each experience in which I allowed God into my pain, I saw Him open a door. That is why I identify so much with this passage, from the point of Anna’s loss. She had not only lost the marital partner, but also his capacity to provide for her, and the expectation at some point she would enjoy motherhood.
How do we surmise this? We must go with the natural causes and traditions of the Jewish people of that period. Our study is not with just the subject in hand, i.e Anna, we must delve into the customs of the time to understand the implications of her loss. She was suddenly denied sustenance, and motherhood. The human response to loss is varied. Some become bitter through the experience. Others break through into a knowledge of purpose. We seem to think that Anna experienced something powerful drawing her into the Temple, to experience something beyond the natural course of life, rather devote herself to what was a spiritual vision of something to come.
She had heard through the Scriptures the history and people, great people who made Israel what it was. She knew from God an emptiness of purpose in the nation, upheavals, false messiahs and prophets, told a story of souls reaching out for some meaning into their existence. It was a powerful “substance” that she received at the beginning, something that shook her, impacted the very centre of her being. If it were not so, how come we have 84 years of intense prayer and fastings?
We must ask, how could someone engage God in this depth? It had to be loss. I believe her vocation, as with her contemporary Simeon, was a confrontation of her loss of purpose with God’s fullness of purpose. It had to be a thread of the future that would not only change her, but mankind itself. Hence we get the sensation of her intense commitment.
36 And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; 37 And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. 38 And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem
The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Lk 2:36–38.
“And she was a widow”; widow in the natural but married to God in a cause. Had her loss not been redeemed by her comprehension of God’s call, we would not have a window into a person who engaged in the preparation for the coming of the Messiah. The cause was greater than her loss, and deserved her wholehearted commitment.
Loss is a lesson from God to us. It helps us understand that we can be so self-preoccupied. This preoccupation can prevent us from seeking out higher issues and purposes.
The depth of loss is correlated to the depth of vocation received and exercised. Noone can measure the depth of pain Anna suffered. The love of her life had passed on. In that situation, it is certain she found energy in her calling to prayer. This devotion helped her embrace the cause.
We can suppose that when she saw Jesus, she would be in her 90’s or even over 100 years.
What of the life of prayer? We can only imagine. The depth of communion God must have opened to her. That pain was a seed for something deep and meaningful. What of her understanding of God’s ways? We can suppose she understood that God was changing massively something that was not expected. The established structures were being replaced, and the Messiah and the prophet, the forerunner would bring about this change,
In this series, we need to capture the factors that Anna prepared for in prayer, and what lessons we can take from it. Lessons that our superficiality can obscure us from, but to perceive them, we must be open that today, from where we are, God is going to change things, and what we depended on, what we knew, is about to change. We cannot depend on our understanding, especially when God is changing them radically. We must go into the type of communion Anna had with God, She had no pulpit, she was no minister in the eyes of the people, but the fact she embraced the dimension of spiritual change made her a powerful prophetess of her generation.
Maranatha!!!
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