Anna the prophet

Luke 2:22-40

Anna is the only named prophet in the nativity story. Luke is intentional to highlight the important roles women had as those who first discerned God’s plan to restore the world through Jesus Christ.

Anna provides us a picture of a woman of great strength and faith for the encouragement of all people, but her story is especially poignant for older women. We know from Luke’s account she is agile and able to move about the temple in worship. Although she was somewhere between 84 and 105 years old (depending on the scholar you ask), she was alert, spiritually aware and dedicated to her ministry. She has been called the “worship workaholic”, available 24/7 for worship, prayer and her prophetic ministry.

Anna was widowed at a young age and dedicated her life to service to God. She chose to dwell in the temple and live out a life of worship and prayer. She was likely able to do so because she was the eldest representative of the tribe of Asher. She is the only character in the New Testament said to belong to one of the northern tribes of Israel. Luke’s deliberate mention of her name provided assurance to early readers that the northern tribes and exiles were included in the messianic hope provided by Jesus.

Anna was someone who dedicated her life to listening to the reading of the sacred scriptures daily. She was a woman of great wisdom and understanding. She had complete faith in the prophecies she heard every day and prayerfully considered their words. Similar to the wisemen who read the sky and knew that Jesus had been born, Anna too had been made aware. Perhaps she also saw the “star in the east” and anticipated the day when she might see the Messiah with her own eyes.

God led her that day in the temple to be the first in the world to declare that baby Jesus was indeed the Christ.