Word of Salvation – Vol. 31 No. 45 – Dec 1986

 

Expecting In Blessed Condition

 

Sermon by Rev. A. I. De Graaf on Luke 2:36-38

Reading: Ephes. 4:28-5:8; Malachi 3:1-5

Singing: P/H 336, 335, 162, 111, 273.

 

Just like Mary’s real name in Israel was Miriam – like Moses’ sister – so Anna’s real Jewish name was Hannah, and sure, that does ring a bell doesn’t it?

Hannah… who also lay praying in the house of God and then God answered her prayer and she became “expecting…” she became what we call “in blessed condition” and eventually she became the mother of Samuel who anointed Israel’s first kings, among whom the great one, David.

This Hannah was “expecting” too.  She, too, was “in blessed condition”.  You wouldn’t say so at first, because she was a widow, and that does not seem a very blessed condition, and then she was very old, and in our day and age you’ve had it when you are no longer young.

Just as well God thinks differently from our silly age.  She was expecting all right, was Hannah, because she was waiting for the child who was sure to come because God is as good as His Word.

Yes… even though I wonder if it is as Child that she did expect Him, but then, the Lord may surely surprise His children with unexpected things too, may He not?  These two Hannahs waited not in vain because they waited for what the Faithful One had promised.

Let us look at Anna, and what she expected, and how she was not disappointed.  Maybe there is a way we can expect, and not be disappointed either.

Who was she… what do we know of her?

First, that after only seven years of marriage she became a widow.

There are people here in church who can speak from personal experience, what a rough deal that was.  After all God did say that it is NOT good that man should be alone.

Add to this the fact that in Anna’s day there surely were no pensions, and the beautiful law in Israel that made people share with the poor, the widows and the orphans, was in ugly disrepair as Jesus later was to say in anger when addressing the leaders of God’s people.

And yet from this widow, when over that large span of years we look at her, there comes to us a vibration of pure joy…!  If you would say: poor soul… poor thing that you are… widow, and old to boot, then it is as if I hear her protest: I am not poor, I am rich, for the Lord has fulfilled all my needs, praised be His Name, I am so happy… God is the One Who gives the joy of marriage.  But He can give other things instead, too.  Blessed is He.

Then we hear about Anna that she was a prophetess and that from the tribe of Asher!

Prophetess… that is: God had chosen her as His mouthpiece.  Yes, a woman.  God by-passed many men, including the leading office-bearers of the temple, so He might speak through her.  But note: she is from the tribe of Asher – one of the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom, which in the end had become so idolatrous, so rebellious, so disobedient, that the Lord had called in the Assyrians to wipe them from His land, never to return again.  In Jesus’ day even Galilee was populated by people from Judah (people who had come back from Babylon) – no wonder that, when at Caesar Augustus’ command people had to go to their home-towns, Bethlehem was chock-a-block and Nazareth empty.

But does that mean that God had forgotten these disobedient ten tribes?  Because their love was fickle as a morning cloud?  No, the same Hosea tells us that God could not forget Ephraim, and all of Jacob’s children were to share in the Great Future of God’s people.  We still await some of that.  And so here is this representative of Asher taking first place when at last the Messiah of God’s people comes for the first time to the LORD’s Temple.

Yes, that’s where she was, serving day and night… in the Temple.

Was it from the temple funds that she, a prophetess could live?  We don’t know.  But she was there taking part in worship day and night.  Whoever came to the temple, could always find her there.  Fasting and praying; saying “no” to good gifts of God so she could concentrate, concentrate, stretch herself out to God’s Great Day.  For concentration, yes, that’s what it does take.  For her the service of the Lord surely was no leisure time activity, to be indulged in when she had “nothing better” to do.

She was not one of those people who at the arrival of any visitor or with the weather being just a shade too cold or too warm, would stay away from worship.

Sure the Lord wants all kinds of things from His people, justice and mercy and holy living.  But you had better not take away the importance of being there when God’s people are at worship.  Hebrews 10:24 still speaks to the Lord’s New Testament Church about not staying away from services.  And thanks to the fact that Anna was ALWAYS there she did not miss out when – SUDDENLY – UNEXPECTEDLY – God’s surprise came.

And remember that this was the Temple in Jesus’ days… lots of things wrong with the place.  When Jesus was grown up, he had to sweep the place out twice with a whip.  Such a mess it was.  But Anna was there, at worship and never missing out.  That’s something different from staying at home because there’s a student on the schedule.

O.K. then, O.K., but what was she waiting for?  Ah, she must have known her Bible…!  You may expect that from prophetesses, that they know their Bible.  And in the last book she had in her Bible there was this saying by Malachi:

“The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in…!”

Suddenly the Lord, descending in His temple shall appear, so watch it, you saints in prayer now bending waiting long in hope and fear.  Suddenly He will come, so you better be around not to miss Him.

But does Malachi not speak of the Purifier, the one who shall clean with fire, with the lye-soap of the fuller?  The chopper-down of the fruitless trees?

Strange then… because what Anna sees, is a poor baby boy.

Yes, for that you had to be a prophetess, too.  The Spirit opening your eye and ears that you would S T I L L recognize the Lord’s Redeemer even when He comes as a soft whisper, a meek Lamb.  Then to fall down in prayer and adoration and say, “Lord, so this is IT; This is the One Who shall pay the price for the sin of Jerusalem… This then is the One Who shall set free the nation which is in bondage to the devil.”

Speak to the heart of Jerusalem: Comfort ye… I will give her double for all her sins…!  Yes, for God does do the unexpected thing as well as the promised thing.  And great was the joy of those who, with Anna, saw in this child not immediately the anger of God but His great patience, His great love.

You know, the reason why the oldest child had to be brought to the temple was, says the Bible, because God had wanted His nation to be a nation of priests.  Every eldest child was meant to be God’s priest, from all tribes and nations: Ye are to me a holy priesthood.

But Israel had lost that privilege at the worship of the Golden Calf.  Then the one tribe that had not danced around that idol, was chosen to be the TRIBE of priests instead.  Levi.

So Jesus, from Judah, was disqualified from the priesthood!  Yes, but by becoming the Lamb sacrificed for the sins of the whole world, He was to become the Only High Priest, too.  God surprises His people.  And Anna saw that.

The name of Anna’s father was Phanuel, which, like PeNiEl, is “The Face of God turned towards us.  Our century, our almost past-year, has been waiting for all kinds of things.  But also in our age, also in this decade, there are people who have something better to do than sit and wait for an inevitable (?) war.  Or sit and wait for the fairy-tale to come true.  They wait for the redemption and true freedom which the God and Father of our Lord Jesus… through His Son, shall bring to the whole world.

And so they are not content with less.  They stretch forward to that time when God shall be all in all and the whole of sin shall be rooted out from our sighing planet.  To that time when at last the senselessness, the futility – that makes people write gloomy things in papers at New Year’s Eve, and that makes television shows on that evening so strangely anticlimactic – when that futility shall make place for praise and full joy.

Not just Jerusalem, but God’s whole world awaits the redemption from sin; the redemption towards praise and fulfilment.  Therefore we pray much and at times we fast, too.  Sure, with anointed heads we fast because He came and He comes again.  It is a Feast to wait for Him.  The last thing people should say about such people is that they are gloomy or wet blankets.

With anointed heads they fast because He came and comes again.  They want to be ready when He comes and in all things that now happen around us, in all things that now thunder through our world they hear His coming footsteps.

Let me ask you: Do you also belong to the people who are thus expecting?  Who are thus “in blessed condition?”

AMEN.