Anna (Luke 2:36-38) | 12/19/2021
Luke 2:36-38 | 12/19/21 | Will DuVal
This morning is our final installment in our 4-part Advent sermon series - “Unheralded Heralds”. We’ve been considering together the examples of 4 of the most overlooked characters in the Nativity story, and specifically, what they have to teach us about HERALDING the good news; being a messenger of the gospel:
*Zechariah taught us that first and most importantly, we’ve got to BELIEVE! Before you can testify to others, you’ve got to TRUST in the Lord for yourself.
*Elizabeth demonstrated the importance of righteousness, humility, worship, obedience, and Spirit-filled blessing, for those who would herald God’s word.
*And last week, Simeon showed us that a herald must LOOK for the Lord, LIVE BY the Spirit, LEAD with boldness, LISTEN to God’s word, and then LET others have it - share the truth of the gospel, with those around us.
And that brings us to our final unheralded herald this morning, the prophetess ANNA. She is by far the most unheralded of these 4 heralds; Luke devoted 35 verses to Zechariah’s part in the story, 25 verses to Elizabeth’s role, 14 verses to Simeon, and just THREE verses to Anna. And she’s not mentioned anywhere else in the NT either; just these 3 little verses.
Now I know what you’re thinking: are you really gonna spend an entire 40-minute sermon unpacking just 3 verses? Clearly you don’t know me very well… you haven’t been at West Hills very long. If Martin Lloyd-Jones could spend 5 entire sermons, over 4 hours, preaching on just ONE verse from Romans, I think Anna deserves her 40 minutes of fame this morning.
But I’ll just remind you again, before we dive in: we don’t study God’s word for mere mental stimulation; we study it for heart TRANSFORMATION. The aim of our study today is not simply more information about some obscure biblical character from 2 millennia ago; our goal ought to be to read OURSELVES into her story, into her example. Jesus has left us - His Church, His messengers - here on earth to spread the good news of His salvation from sin to every corner of the earth. So there’s a reason that God wrote this old, peculiar, otherwise unknown woman from history into the GREATEST story of all time - because she has much to teach us about faithful heralding, even in just 3 verses. So we come to God’s word expecting Him to speak to us again this morning, to move IN us - just as God’s Spirit moved in Anna to make her a witness to Jesus’ Lordship, and moved in Luke to compel him to record Anna’s story for us in His Gospel - so too we ask God to move again this morning in our OWN hearts, to help us understand His word, internalize His word (take it to heart), and then APPLY His word (to live it out, in our lives this week).
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So would you stand with me… SCRIPTURE: Luke 2:36-38
“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, 37 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. 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.”
This is the word of the Lord… Let’s pray...
I have FOUR final attributes of a faithful herald to share with you, from Anna’s example.
#1 - A herald knows [their] ROLE. (vv36-37a) We’ve got to know our role.
Anna knew HER role, and WE know WHY it was her role.
First, V36 informs us that she was a PROPHETESS. A prophetess is a female prophet; a spokeswoman for God. Prophets were God’s appointed messengers to whom He spoke directly, and through whom God spoke indirectly to His people. In the OT Amos 3:7 had stated that ““the Lord God does nothing
without revealing his secret
to his servants the prophets.”
And we know of at least 11 prophetesses in Scripture - 5 from the OT and 6 in the NT, but Anna stands alone as the only NAMED prophetess in the NT. Now, there’s an interesting wrinkle to note in her story, and in her role as prophetess, and that is the fact that for more than 400 years since the close of the OT canon, God had NOT spoken to His people. God wasn’t speaking through prophets anymore, in Anna’s day, up until Christ’s birth. The OT had concluded with the prophet Malachi foretelling a future prophet whom God would send in the spirit of Elijah (4:5-6); the prophet Isaiah had predicted that this future prophet would “prepare the way for the Lord” out in the “wilderness” (40:3). They were prophesying of course about John the Baptist, Zechariah and Elizabeth’s son, Jesus’ cousin. Who called Israel to repentance on the eve of Christ’s arrival. But from Malachi ch4 up through Matthew ch1, 400 years of silence from God have passed. No prophets. If they’re the mouthpiece of God, and God’s not SPEAKING, then prophets have essentially been out of work for 4 centuries at this point. Keep that in mind; we’re coming back to that.
But v37 tells us WHY Anna was a prophetess: because she was a WIDOW. “She was advanced in years (she’s OLD!) having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.”
I mentioned last week that the customary age for a Jewish girl to be betrothed at this time was age 13 or 14, so we assume Anna lived with her husband for 7 years - probably into her early 20s - and then all alone as a widow since then. Now, the ESV translates “until she was 84” here; but the Greek seems to suggest that Anna lived another 84 years AS a widow. So I believe Anna was actually well over 100 years old by the time we meet her here in Luke ch2. And what’s she been doing all that time? Since her husband died in his early 20s and she gave up her common domestic life to become a prophetess? V37 answers: “She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.”
That was her role. The apostle Paul will corroborate this assigned duty for widows, in his letter to Timothy later in the NT; he writes: “Honor widows who are truly widows… She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day” (1 Tim 5:3-5). You can imagine being a young, 20 year old woman in the prime of your life, full of youthful vitality with all kinds of plans for the future, ready to start a family with your beloved husband, until one day, he doesn’t return home from the field. And you get that devastating, life-altering news, that all those plans you had for your life have in a single instant been DASHED to pieces.
What would YOU do? It would be really easy to blame God, wouldn’t it? To become angry and bitter. In that day, a woman’s husband and children were her livelihood; now Anna was left with neither. Surely Anna MUST have asked the question: “God, how could you let this happen? To my husband… to ME?! What am I supposed to do NOW?”
But Anna, true woman of faith that she was, even before Paul would give us the definitive, divinely-inspired answer to that question a generation later - What should you do, if you’re a widow, left all alone? You “set [your] hope on God and continue in …prayer night and day” - a century before Paul commended it, Anna modeled it. She exemplified it. She didn’t just scream her questions angrily into the void; she genuinely sought the Lord’s will, His word, His way, for her life; and then she listened and obeyed. “God, this certainly wasn’t MY plan for my life - my husband dies at 20, leaving me childless, to serve as a prophetess for the next 84 years during a period of silence in which you’re not even speaking through prophets anymore! This isn’t the way I envisioned my life playing out, the ROLE that I wanted to play. But: not my will, but yours be done.”
Maybe some of you this morning can relate to Anna. You didn’t envision your life, your ROLE, turning out this way -
-You took the first job that you could find right out of college, thinking you’d just get your foot in the door somewhere while you discovered your TRUE passion, but 3 or 4 decades later now you’re still filing the same boring TPS reports all day long, wondering where the years have gone.
-Or you unexpectedly got pregnant super early marriage! You had big dreams and goals, career aspirations, that you put on hold; told yourself: “Well, once he gets old enough to be in school, I can always go back to work,” but then y’all decided to have a couple MORE kids, and before you knew it, your role had shifted to full-time, unpaid cook / maid / chauffeur / nurse / teacher / professional butt-wiper.
-Of maybe you feel totally inadequate for and ineffective IN your God-appointed role as HERALD of the gospel. You come to church every Sunday and you’re moved and inspired by this high calling and responsibility that God has entrusted you with - to proclaim his salvation to the nations - but you always leave feeling a little GUILTY, because you know the reality is that you’re NOT going to the nations; you struggle to even witness to your neighbors next door, your co-worker in the next cubicle over. And you think, “Well, that’s easy for YOU to preach, pastor - that we’re all supposed to be HERALDING the gospel; you get PAID to do it! You went to SCHOOL to train to do it! God’s given you the PLATFORM for it - the rest of us down here don’t have 250 people congregating every week for the expressed purpose of listening to us herald the gospel. Of COURSE you can repeat week after week that you’ll “go and make disciples, baptizing and teaching them”; that’s all in your JOB DESCRIPTION as a pastor. But what about ME? What role do I have to play in God’s kingdom.
And if that’s you this morning, friend, I hope you are able to find SUCH wonderful ENCOURAGEMENT in the example of little old Anna here. That of all the wealthy, powerful, important people in the Temple square that day - the high priests, the Roman officials; remember: the Temple was the center of civic life in Jerusalem, everybody who’s anybody would have been there - but guess what: not a single ONE of them gets named here. Not a mention. Who gets remembered and honored for the rest of human history, in God’s timeless word? Joseph - a poor, redneck carpenter; Mary - his scandalously-wedded teenage wife; Simeon - a kooky old man without any official role (he wasn’t a priest, he wasn’t a prophet; he was just some GUY, waiting around the Temple all day every day for the Messiah); and Anna - a lonely old widow who simply worshipped and prayed, all day long, for 84 years. That was her role. And it landed her a spot on the pages of God’s eternal WORD!
Friends, God doesn’t call the powerful; he empowers the called.
“God [chooses] what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; He chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong; …what is low and despised in the world… so that NO human being[d] might boast” (1 Cor 1:27-29); so that God ALONE gets all the glory!
When He chooses a stuttering, impulsive Egyptian (by upbringing) to lead His people OUT of Egypt.
When God chooses the youngest, smallest, adolescent shepherd boy to slay the 9 ½ ft. giant.
When God chooses uneducated, simple-minded, faith-lacking fishermen to be His disciples, lead His Church, and turn the WORLD upside down.
This is how God works; WHY? To prove that He CAN! That ONLY He can.
Not everyone is called to preach to hundreds of people every week; we can’t ALL have that role. Not everyone can write 5-figure checks, year-end gifts to the church that will single-handedly help us close the remaining gap in our 2021 budget. Not everyone can simultaneously serve in kids ministry, and youth ministry, and welcome team, and worship team, and… etc. like some of y’all do. But the Bible is very clear that we ALL have a role to play. Some role. And 1 Corinthians 12:25 actually says that God “gives greater honor” to the roles that we tend to think of as less important; God considers them “indispensable” (v22).
I can’t help but think about our OWN senior saints here at West Hills. Our own “Annas” and “Simeons”. Do we really believe, as a church, that June Nystrom, Warren McGinnis, JR and Sandi Smith, Barbara Underwood, Jean Briggs, Bob and Jan Dierberg - who have a hard time serving as front door greeters because it’s hard to stand for half an hour and open doors for people…. who can’t chase down and pick up a toddler anymore… maybe some of whom have outlived their retirement and social security and will never be the biggest donors to the church… if the ONLY way that they can serve the church anymore is the same way that ANNA did - by coming to worship the Lord in His house every single week, and by praying night and day for this church - do we really believe that they are EVERY BIT as “indispensable” here at West Hills as the guy who writes the $10,000 checks, as the gal who serves in 6 different ministries, as I AM - MY role as lead pastor here? Do we believe that??
I do. I really do. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t hold “Volun-Tour ministry fairs” the week after we celebrate ¾ of our church serving somewhere. 90% of our church giving financially. If that was good enough, we’d all just sit around patting ourselves on the back. But I believe we’ve ALL got a role to play; so we’re not gonna stop bugging y’all until we’ve got 100% of you serving somewhere, 100% giving something. There are no small parts, only small people. Don’t be small; know your role, and play your part.
#2 - You’ve also got to know your STORY. (v36) Know your story.
Luke sees fit, for some reason, to highlight for us Anna’s lineage, her back-story; these details that she was “the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.” And then of course Luke ALSO includes Anna’s personal life’s story, that she was married for 7 years before being widowed for the past 84. Why? Why did Luke bother including her story, even the back-story, for such a seemingly minor character in God’s BIG story?
Commentators have tried to make sense of it. They’ll point out that Anna’s father’s name, Phanuel, means “face of God”, so Luke includes that detail because Anna was among the first people in history to behold the literal face of God, in the flesh, in the baby Jesus. Others hypothesize that Anna is the fulfillment of Moses’ prophecy to the tribe of Asher from Deuteronomy 33:25, that “your strength will equal your days”, because Anna is really OLD.
Here’s MY theory: Luke includes Anna’s story, because our stories are IMPORTANT. And because SHE is important to God. Isn’t it just LIKE God, to give us almost NOTHING in the way of a backstory for guys like Caiaphas, the high priest… Pontius Pilate, the Judaean governor… but then to say, “Oh, but let me tell you all about this widow named Anna, who no one else in the Temple courtyard probably even noticed. Here’s her family tree, and here’s her life’s story…”
Our stories are important. Anna’s story made her who she was, it enabled her to serve the role that God had assigned her in HIS Story.
How about you - do you know YOUR story? You better, if you want to be an effective herald of GOD’S story. If you’re a believer, then you’ve got a TESTIMONY to share. A testimony is the way in which God has weaved YOUR story into HIS story. How God - in his Sovereignty and His MERCY - took your uncompelling, otherwise insignificant little story and REDEEMED it, so as to write you INTO HIS OWN grand, history-spanning, humanity-saving Story.
Friends: that is no small thing! Don’t ever say, “Well, my story isn’t that remarkable; I grew up in a Christian home, professed faith in Christ at an early age; I strayed some during HS and college, but God showed me my need for him and brought me back to him; pretty typical.” Let me ask you: have you been BORN AGAIN? Have you died to your sin, and been raised to new life in Christ? I got to preach on John 11 last week at YAM; you remember that time when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Has anyone… EVER… read that story and thought to themself, “Eh, pretty typical. Not that remarkable.” NO! It’s downright MIRACULOUS. Do we realize that that’s exactly what Jesus has done for US, spiritually, if we’ve been born again?! Ephesians 2: You were DEAD in your sins, but now God has made you ALIVE together with Christ. I don’t care if you were 5 years old at VBS, or 25 years old, strung out, face-down in a dumpster in some back alley - it’s not about how SENSATIONAL your story is; it’s about how sensational your GOD is! - if God convicted you of your sin, convinced you of His sufficiency to forgive your sin through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus on the cross, in your place, and then called you to NEW life in Christ and gave you a NEW heart to replace your old, dead one, then YOUR story - brother, sister - is a MIRACLE! It’s nothing short of a miracle.
Do not TRIVIALIZE the work that God has done in your life by minimizing your story. KNOW your story. And then SHARE it. You want to be an effective herald? Just share your story. Listen: you don’t have to be the world’s greatest apologist to be a faithful evangelist. You don’t have to have the perfect answer to the skeptic’s every question. You don’t have to have ½ the NT memorized, or be gifted in public speaking. Just know your story, and SHARE it. Because here’s the thing: no one can DISPROVE your story. You wanna debate the origins of the universe, or the teleological argument; an intelligent atheist is gonna bring all the evidence that she can find to discredit your position. But when you say, “All I know is that my life was a WRECK, but then JESUS came into it and changed EVERYTHING for the better,” how is an unbeliever gonna respond, “No he didn’t!”? No, at the very least they’re gonna say, “Wow, that’s really cool. I’ve never had an experience like that.” And walk away, with a LOT more to chew on.
Sharing your testimony is one of the BEST ways to herald the gospel. Not because your story is so exceptional, not because you’re so great, but because GOD is so great, and His WANTING you to be a part of and His WORKING you into HIS story - that is exceptional.
#3 - To be a herald, you must know your LORD (v37b). Know your ROLE, know your STORY, but most importantly, know your LORD.
V37b: for 84 years, what was Anna doing, every waking hour of her life? “She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.”
It’s one thing to BELIEVE the Lord, it’s a whole ‘nother thing to KNOW the Lord. Mary believed the Lord, when He spoke to her through the angel Gabriel. That’s a beautiful thing; Mary was blessed for it, and rightfully so. She succeeded where Zechariah had failed, and he had to be chastised with 9 months of MUTE-ness. So I’m not here to take anything away from MARY. But it’s one thing to simply believe an angel of God when he appears, announcing good news to you - incredible news, to be sure, but good news nonetheless, that Mary no doubt WANTED to believe… and it probably helped that God sent a supernatural being as her messenger. And I know she’s the mother of Jesus, but personally, I don’t find Mary NEARLY as impressive as Anna is. Anna, who despite NOT having any angels show up to assure her that God was working all things for her good, according to His plan - her husband’s early death, her childlessness, her praying NIGHT AND DAY as a prophetess for a single word from the Lord, yet hearing nothing but SILENCE back from Him for 84 years - Anna, who had every reason NOT to believe, and yet who not ONLY believed, but who WORSHIPPED. She WORSHIPPED, with fasting and prayer, around the clock.
How’d she do it? Cuz some of us, if we’re honest, have reservations about going to HEAVEN, because we read the Bible’s description of sitting around God’s throne and singing His praises for all eternity and frankly, we’re afraid that sounds pretty BORING. We come to church and we struggle to sing with all our hearts for just 15 minutes; Brian repeats the bridge a SECOND time and we’re like, “Really Brian? Come on, man; we get it - Jesus is “Holy, holy, holy”... how many times you gonna make us sing it here?” Some of you are looking at your watches NOW, thinking, “He said 40 minutes; he’s already WELL past 30 and he’s not even halfway through point #3 of 4!” That’s right, I’m on pace for 50 minutes. And you’re gonna worship God ENDLESSLY for all of ETERNITY; I’m just giving you some practice. Anna prayed all day, every day for 84 years, but God help us if the worship service goes 5 minutes long and we miss kick-off.
What motivated Anna to worship so devotedly like that? I’ll tell you why she did it: because she KNEW the Lord. She knew the Lord.
Polly and I watched King Richard this past week - have you seen it yet? The new Will Smith biopic about Venus and Serena Williams’ upbringing, and particularly, their father Richard. It is REALLY good. You need to see it, especially if you’re a tennis fan, like me. But I’ll be honest, I was never a huge fan of Venus or Serena. Mainly for superficial reasons, I didn’t like all the grunting, when they hit the ball, didn’t seem very lady-like to me; didn’t like their outfits, not very modest. But after watching this movie, I feel like I KNOW them now. I see the Williams sisters in a whole new light. It makes me want to go back in time and RE-watch all their matches, so I can CHEER for them this time, knowing all that they had to overcome, to achieve all that they did. It’s extraordinary.
But now imagine that instead of getting to know a couple of girls who can hit a tennis ball really hard, you’re getting to know the ALMIGHTY GOD OF THE UNIVERSE! Who not only created it all, who not only sovereignly RULES OVER it all, sustains it, but who personally entered INTO this broken mess of a world that we had WRECKED with our sin, in order to RESCUE us at the highest cost imaginable - the life of His perfect, only Son - and who did it ALL because of His unexplainable but undying LOVE for you and me.
Friends: knowing HIM makes worshipping Him EASY. Knowing THAT kind of a God - as your FATHER - it makes repeating the chorus a third time, it makes a 50-minute sermon, it makes 84 years of night-and-day worship feel insufficient. Feel lacking.
The sky’s your canvas, earth your footstool, Heaven is your throne,
But condescending, endured the cross to make our hearts your home.
A God so Great and yet so Good, my soul can scarce believe.
All praise I’d sing, yet still not bring all You’re owed to receive.
God deserves it ALL! All praise, all honor, all glory; all our hearts, minds, souls, strength… our entire LIVES!
To KNOW God is to LOVE God. And to LOVE God is to SHARE God’s love with others, because we want everyone else to know Him too. Those who herald the Lord most publicly and passionately, will be those who KNOW the Lord most personally and profoundly.
Lastly, #4 - A herald must know their COMMISSION. (v38) Know your COMMISSION.
We all have a unique, distinct role to play; each of us may herald the gospel differently, in our own particular ways, in accordance with our God-given giftedness and wiring. But at the end of the day, brothers and sisters, we have all received the same COMMISSION. We recite it every week: “to go and MAKE DISCIPLES”. The question isn’t “IF” we’re called to herald; the question is “HOW” we are called to herald.
But in EVERY case, the answer boils down to the same two basic responsibilities; they’re the same two tasks that Anna devotes herself to here, after finally hearing God’s answer - after SEEING His answer to her prayers, in the flesh, the baby Jesus - in the first half of v38: “And coming up [presumably from her prayers in the Temple] at that very hour”, she BEHOLDS the child, her long-awaited MESSIAH, after 84 years of non-stop prayer, and what is her response? “She began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” She WORSHIPS - she gives thanks - and she WITNESSES - she tells everyone who will listen to her about Christ’s arrival.
And friends, that is our shared commission still today, as heralds of God’s good news - of what He has done for us in the person and work of His Son Jesus, to adopt us as His very own children - we ought to WORSHIP Him for it, and we ought to WITNESS to others about it.
Know your ROLE. Know your STORY. Know your LORD. And know your COMMISSION. Church: may WE be like ANNA. Unheralded heralds. Unremarkable messengers of a remarkable God. Insufficient worshippers of an all-sufficient Father. Imperfect witnesses to a perfect Savior.