Today we meet one of my favorite people in all the Gospels – Anna. She was the next person the holy family encountered in the Temple that day:
“There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Anna is yet another witness confirming what the angel told Mary and Joseph about their firstborn. Simeon recognizes him as the salvation of his people Israel; Anna speaks about him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Anna was widowed at a young age, and did not remarry. Perhaps her widowhood gave her the freedom to put all her focus on her relationship with God, fasting and praying, like a proto-nun. We might wonder at her choice – was she just hiding? Should she have engaged the world outside the temple more? But some people find their greatest joy in turning full-faced to God, nurturing a relationship with enough complexity to hold us for eternity. And out of that relationship they have more to give to those with whom they cross paths.
I have known women like Anna, who have endured years of stress and suffered great loss, and have become wise and beautiful, like polished stones, tempered steel, purified gold. I’ve known others whom loss has wizened and withered, turned in upon themselves and against the world. Maybe a difference is that Anna turned to God in her loss, finding her life in God’s house. She allowed God to transform her loss into wisdom, to release in her the gift of prophecy, a holy ability to see the unseen and speak God's truth.
It’s not fun to think about our losses, but what comes to your mind when you think of great loss in your life? Maybe it’s one you’re dreading now. What was or is its effect on you? Where is God in that process?
Is the pain still acute, still fresh? Sometimes it is, even if much time has passed. Can you invite Jesus into that pain, to sit with you in it? Invite the Spirit to work it with you, like clay on a wheel, to bring something of beauty out of death and despair.
I don’t know exactly how we do that. I do believe that it can happen, because I’ve seen it, in people who turned God-ward with their grief and loss. And gradually, gradually, one day, like Anna, we may look up and find ourselves face to face with God.
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