Anna the Prophetess Luke 2:21-39
At the Presentation of the infant Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem two older people appeared. One was Simeon who had been waiting for the consolation of Israel and scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit was upon him and the other was Anna a Prophetess.
36: There was also a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old: she had lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, 37, and then was a widow until she was 84. (e) She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 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.
This is a very compact description of Anna but there are several things that could get missed in the text as the main players in this story are the Jewish parent actions of Presenting Jesus as the Law required at the temple. It seems Jesus would have been circumcized closer to home and then his parents waiting the time of purification for Jewish women ( forty days check details and source) took the journey up to Jerusalem with their little son to consecrate their son to God.
The stage is the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, full of the noise, smells sounds of animals for sacrifice, people coming through the gates of the city to worship and the jostling around of the crowds at a busy sight. There is tension under the Presentation that can become lost in the beauty of the story. It is the when of this occurrence. Reading Matthew 2 we miss this bit little important bit of the infancy of Jesus and we are caught up in the Visit of the Magi, the rage of Herod, the killing of all little boys under 2 in Bethlehem and the Flight into Egypt. The Presentation of infant Jesus at the temple had to come before the flight into Egypt. After the birth in Bethlehem, after the shepherds had come to worship Him, there is a time question, a window of time some people think it could be about two years. It may be in this time as the time of women's purification by Jewish law is set and perhaps before the Wisemen have the chance to arrive that Anna and Simeon come on the stage in this important moment in the life of Christ.
What does the story of Anna say to us today? That she had a keen spiritual insight due to her prayer life and devotion and her role as a prophetess. We know she waited, fasted and prayed. Not for a few weeks, not for a few months but for 84 years. She is both the last prophetess of the Old Testament and the First of the New. She is compared to Judith in her virtue and long years. Even after years of waiting for something that did not seem to readily appear, at the exact moment that Mary and Joseph and the Christchild came into the Temple, she and Simeon were both there. Waiting and right on time. Anna stretches me to be so sensitive to the voice of the Spirit that even in the midst of the dark, the light appears. This is why Candlemass the time between the dark and the light. the time of the Presentation is that time where the light appears, and a little old lady who had sat there waiting for 84 years was waiting. Can we be that patient and persevere.
