Stories that Stick: Anna

Note: This message includes Bethlehem member Carrie Bliss sharing reflections about her favorite story from the bible.

Over the last couple of weeks, Carrie Bliss and I have talked several times, scheming about our conversation tonight. She lives at Walker Place, not far from here. Her senior community has committed to keeping people safe so her days the last four months differ little, one from another. There are no casual outings or spontaneous shopping trips. Just periodic visits from staff and occasional musicians who wander by and serenade them. 

One of Carrie’s favorite stories from the bible comes from the Gospel of Luke 2:22-25, 36-38:

When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took the child Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord  (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel…

There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

Sharing from Carrie Bliss:

This started to be a little like a story… But first — fair warning — it doesn’t end. Especially now. Every morning I wake up to news that we could not have imagined a few months ago. But I’m getting ahead of the story. It’s about Anna. She’s that really old lady at the very tag end of Luke’s Christmas story. She’s 84! And in the temple day and night. Always.

Mary and Joseph bring baby Jesus to the temple. He’s 40 days old. And there, in the temple, Luke tells us about two older people who met Jesus. Simeon sang.  Anna praised God and told probably anyone who would listen about the child.

It’s a good thing for us and the rest of the world that it’s not the end of the story!

Let’s back up to the beginning of the Christmas story. We meet Elizabeth. Who Luke tells us was ‘getting on in years’. So Elizabeth and Anna are like bookends to the telling. Elizabeth became the mother of John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus. And then there’s John’s father, Zechariah, and Simeon  —  two “older” guys who sing what have become two of the three major songs of the church. We’ll sing Mary’s song in just a few minutes. The church has been singing these three songs ever since.

Back to Anna. Worshipping day and night in the temple, 1) praising God, and 2) telling everyone about this child. Simeon sang. Anna told. By the time Jesus grew up and began his ministry, those two were long gone. But the story was just beginning. And it goes on. Without the telling, we might not be here tonight. For our purposes it hasn’t ended. Doesn’t end.

Here are a few who carried it on. 

Phoebe (First century):
The word about Jesus is getting out.  Christians are beginning to get together. We hear about some of them. Phoebe was a leader and was very likely the one who brought Paul’s letter to the Romans from Paul, who was in Corinth, to Rome and read it to the Christians there.

Julian of Norwich (14th century England):
I’ve thought about her particularly in this time. She was “secluded, ” as I am — but I have lots more windows! She lived in a pod that was attached to the church. Wrote the first book by a woman in English. Revelations of Divine Love. And promised: “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

Elizabeth Fedde:
Elizabeth established deaconess work in this country and was a Norwegian deaconess and nurse. She came to/was sent to New York/Brooklyn to begin health care, hospital, orphanage, social services and more. Shen ten came to Minneapolis in the late 1880s. She first lived near 28th and Hennepin because it was near a streetcar line. The hospital and so on came later. As soon as she got here, people came to her because they needed help.

Sara Raugland:
She was born in 1862 and lived to be 98! We see Sara’s painting every time we worship at Bethlehem. Even when we worship online! She painted this one for the first Bethlehem church when she was 35-40 years old. And she painted over 200 altar paintings that tell the story.

Pauline Swanson and Lois Bernhardson:  
You may have known them. They came to Bethlehem in retirement but had been missionary nurses in Tanzania. They went/were sent into places and situations that they couldn’t have expected or even imagined.

Each of these and myriads of others have followed Anna’s example of praising God and telling the story. Here’s where you come in.  Keep it going! For tonight at least, I suggest that it started with Anna.

A sage woman from not so long ago — Maya Angelou — once said that at the end of the day, we won’t be remembered for what we said or did, but how we made people feel. Anna’s words have long since been forgotten, but Luke tells us that she spoke about this child to all who were waiting for the redemption of Israel. On an ordinary day, so like all the others, a faithful God intruded in Anna’s life and revealed a promise: in this child would come redemption. Through this child, Anna proclaimed, would come freedom to live as God’s people — freedom from sin, freedom from oppression, freedom from false gods and false promises. 

I wonder what it was exactly that Anna said or did that inspired such hope. Her words are not remembered, but their meaning resonated. 

It was just an ordinary day when Anna encountered a young couple in the temple bringing their newborn child to fulfil the ancient practices of purification and redemption. Many generations before, God had delivered the Israelites from slavery to freedom and made a covenant with them, saying, your firstborn belongs to me. So parents would bring their firstborn sons to the temple to “redeem” them. The “cost” would be paid, and the child would be given back for life. 

Anna made the bold proclamation that this child was not only being ritually redeemed, but he would bring redemption for all of Israel. She proclaimed that in the midst of chaos, they were meant for life. Long after Anna’s words have been forgotten, she is remembered for naming a truth that transcends external circumstances, a truth that brings hope and promises life. God comes to us in unexpected ways and promises us that sin and oppression and false gods will not have the final word. A child has come to show us another way, a way that affirms life. 

The prophecy of Anna was carried forward by Phoebe, Julian and Elizabeth. Sara, Pauline, Lois and now us, too. 

Light shines in the darkness. But darkness has not overcome it.