ANNA AN EXAMPLE OF FAITH
Luke 2:36-38 Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayers night and day. And coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
Anna means she was gracious or, to say it in Hebrew, 'Hannah'.
Her father's name was Phanuel the equivalent of the Hebrew word Penuel, was the name Jacob gave to the place where he had wrestled with the angel of the Lord (Gen 32). The name means 'face of God'.
Asher is simply the Greek form of Asher, which means happy, the eighth of Jacob's twelve sons (Gen 30:13). When Jacob blessed his twelve sons before his death, he said of Asher that this tribe would be materially well off and "yield royal dainties" (Gen 49:20). Moses spoke in similar terms of Asher; Asher would "dip his foot in oil" (Dt 33:24). That's also what happened: when Joshua divided the Promised Land among the twelve tribes, Asher received an inheritance in the far north of the land, beside the waters of the Mediterranean Sea - fertile land (Josh 19:24-31). But with the material blessings came temptation that the tribe of Asher could not withstand; the people of Asher did not have the strength of faith to obey God's command to drive out the Canaanites (Judges 1:31f); they dwelt in their inheritance together with the Canaanites. Their spiritual shallowness was highlighted some years later when Deborah called upon all Israel to pull together and resist Jabin king of Canaan, for Asher declined to help. The Scriptures say that "Asher continued at the seashore, And stayed by his inlets" (5:17); the tribe of Asher stayed home, continued their daily work, offered no help to the brethren in Israel. After this, Asher disappears from the scene.... When Sennacherib, king of Assyria, took the northern tribes into exile, whatever was left of Asher also was carted away..., to be forever lost to the pages of history.... But see: in the temple of Jerusalem is one from the tribe of Asher!
Turning Negatives into Positives
Anna's presence in the temple pointed up the marvel of God's faithfulness. A remnant. As Anna's person was living testimony of God's faithfulness (despite Asher's apostasy God preserved a remnant), so Anna's message about the baby was living testimony of God's faithfulness - the redemption proclaimed in the temple was coming to fulfillment, for the salvation of those who now lived in darkness.
The details of Anna’s life are not given to satisfy our curiosity, but as clues to her character. I believe that Luke intended the reader to infer the incredible character of this woman by considering the details he has supplied. As a young widow, the natural thing for Anna to have done would be to remarry. She must have had many such opportunities. As a member of the lost tribe of Asher, there must have been a strong incentive to marry and bear children, since this tribe may have been in danger of extinction. Her greatest womanly contribution, as well as her womanly fulfillment, would seem to have been marriage and child-bearing. Nevertheless, she remained single, lived out her life in the temple, occupied with prayer and fasting. Her person: in large part that was her message. What's the purpose of living on and on and on, from one new year to another, when you're lonely and alone, vulnerable....
Past - regret - if only
Future - worry – what if
Present - how
Widowhood she was very old, had been married for seven years, was a widow for 84 years (or, depending on how you read the text, was now 84 years old, and so a widow for well over 60 years). The girls of Israel commonly married at 12 to 14 years of age, and it's safe to assume that Anna married at the average age. But she "lived with a husband seven years from her virginity"; by the time she was, say, 20, she was a widow.
We're told also that she never left the temple, and that day and night she served God with fastings and prayers.
The longing for companionship, someone to talk to, someone with whom to do things, someone to hold you - how deeply the empty place touches one's being.... And the question lies close at hand: why do I still live? What purpose has my existence...? For the single of Israel, congregation, this deep sense of loneliness and its accompanying sense of purposelessness was compounded by the fact that Israel knew no social securities as we know them. In Bible times the woman's protector (both in physical and in economical terms) was her husband. The woman who lost her husband was vulnerable to the parasites of society (cf Job 22:8f; 24:2f,21). Anna was a widow. Besides having to cope, then, with the empty place, with the longing for companionship, with the sense of purposelessness in her life, she also had to cope with the pressures of living in a society that -despite God's law? was hostile to widows.
On and on and on went her life..., and always she remained a widow..., lonely..., vulnerable.... Why did God, year after year, add another year to her life...?? How did she respond to her situation?
Hidden in the Temple
What should she do every day? How does one eaten up by loneliness and aimlessness pass one's time?? Ps 68: "A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, Is God in His holy habitation" (vs 5). Ps 146:"The Lord watches over the strangers; He relieves the fatherless and widow; But the way of the wicked He turns upside down" (vs 9). Anna knew where God's "holy habitation" was; that was in the temple, behind the veil, in the Most Holy Place. With her protector dead, she sought the Protector, and so made her home in the house of God, the temple. That's what Luke records: she "did not depart from the temple." In the presence of the God who "relieves the fatherless and widow": that's where she made her home; her God, her Protector, her Saviour was the focus of her life.
Night and day, day after day, night after night she continued in her service. From everywhere in the land the people came with their sacrifices, year after year. And always Anna was there, the widowed solitary survivor of Asher, serving "God with fasting and prayers night and day". She was a fixture in the temple, known to the people of the land. As they returned the following year with their sacrifices, they knew: Anna of Asher, widow for scores of years, would still be praying, praying night and day with fasting on behalf of a straying people - unless the Lord had finally granted her the crown of glory....
Proclaiming His Presence
Luke tells us that she "spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem." See there, beloved of the Lord, the response of this old woman of Israel to the answer of her prayers: she believed that the redemption she had sought and prayed for over the span of so many years was now at hand, and so she made it her business to tell others who shared with her the expectation of the Messiah's coming.
Whether the eighty-four years refer to her age, or to the years of her widowhood, is unclear, and unimportant. The emphasis is on the “fourscore and four,” the prominent factor of which is four, the number of testing.
Its being said that she “departed not from the temple,” doesn’t mean that she lived in the temple, but that she spent much time there, which is another way of saying that she spent much time in the presence of God. This was the secret of her godly life, as it must be of all who would hope to merit the commendation given her.
Fasting, which was for the OT age only, was the symbolic announcement of refusal to gratify fleshly lusts.
The hearts of believers need cheering today, not only by our reminding them that the Savior has come, but that He is coming again, and that that coming is near. In her dwelt the Spirit of the coming Christ, indicating to her and through more of God's plan of redemption (I Pet 1:11). Though we know not a word that came from her lips, the very fact that a survivor from Asher prayed in the temple was proclamation of God's faithfulness; more, the very fact that a widow devoted herself year in, year out to fasting and prayers spoke volumes to a people who loved their sins.... Her service in the temple was a condemnation of their sins and a call for their repentance. The Spirit of Christ in her (I Pet 1:11) made her aware that the infant in the arms of yonder old man was the fulfillment of all her expectations and the fulfillment too of the expectations of all the prophets who had gone before her.
No matter how long you have waited for God's Promise, no matter what your situation looks like to the natural eyes, seek God, hide in His Presence, proclaim His goodness, and remember in ONE DAY Anna was used to fulfill God's purpose, more than some fulfill that purpose, taking their whole lives!
