It's a wonderful song. For our New Testament reading, we'll be looking at the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 2, this being the Lord's Day right before when we celebrate Christmas. Let's look at a passage related to the birth of our Savior. This is Luke, chapter 2. It's page 1019 in the Pew Bibles. Luke 2, we'll begin reading at verse 22 and go through verse 38. Luke 2, verse 22. This is the Word of God. And when the time came for their purification, and by the way, let me stop and say, they refers to Mary and Joseph, him refers to Jesus. Let me start over. And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, He took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother, Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was 84. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting. for the redemption of Jerusalem. Thus far, the Word of God. Please be seated. Let's pray. Our God, we ask for your Holy Spirit to be poured out upon us this evening. And we ask, Lord, that we would hear your voice in the Scriptures. So, Father, please open our ears. give our minds to understand and our hearts to receive. And we ask, Lord, that you would meet with us tonight through your word, for we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. It's always a pleasure to meet other Christian brothers and sisters for the first time. So let's meet Anna, who is described here in verses 36-38 as someone who was waiting, waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. So when you meet someone for the first time, let's say a new visitor to church, typically these might be the kind of questions that you would ask. What is your name? Do you have family? Where do you live? What brought you to church? So let's put ourselves back in the time frame of Luke chapter 2, and let's imagine that we've entered the temple, we've met this woman, and we're going to ask these questions. Question number one, what is your name? And Luke tells us that her name is Anna. which is the New Testament Greek version of the Old Testament Hebrew name, Hannah. They sound pretty much the same, don't they? Anna, Hannah, means favor or grace. And Samuel's mother was named Hannah. The Lord showed her favor. For years, she could not have children. And then the Lord answered her prayer, gave her a son, Samuel. And here for Anna, God shows her grace, shows her favor by allowing her to see in the flesh God's grace to sinful people here in this little baby. Question number two, do you have family? And Luke records that Anna was of the tribe of Asher. This is not one of the better known tribes of Israel. I think you know that twelve tribes of Israel came from the twelve sons of Jacob. It's a little complicated because Jacob had not one but two wives and the two wives competed with each other for Jacob's love by trying to out-produce each other in giving birth to children. And they brought their handmaids into this competition. So Asher is the eighth son of Jacob the second son of Zilpah, who is the handmaid of his first wife Leah. I told you it was complicated. And anyway, the birth of Asher made his mother so happy that she named him Asher, which means happy. Now, we don't know much else about the tribe of Asher, but it was one of those ten tribes that split off from Judah and Benjamin, and they formed this separate northern kingdom of Israel. which was so sinful and wicked that by the Lord's judgment mighty Assyria came in, conquered northern Israel, and took all the people off into exile and they never returned. And so Asher is one of these so-called ten lost tribes. And yet here is somebody from one of these lost tribes who survived this chaotic history, and here she is. And it just reminds us that God doesn't lose his own people. He brings them from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people from the four corners of the earth and brings them into the church of Jesus. Now, it's interesting that Anna would know that she was from the tribe of Asher because this conquering by Assyria, taken into exile, never returning, that happened 700 years ago. But you see, the Jews were very careful about maintaining their genealogies, their family lines, their registries. And so Anna knew that she was of the tribe of Asher. And all the kings of Judah had to come from the line of David. Those who served in the temple had to come from the tribe of Levi. And in particular, the priests within the tribe of Levi had to come from the family line of Aaron. And when they came back from the Babylonian exile, those Levites had to prove that they were really Levites. And they did that using these very carefully kept genealogies. And in fact, at the beginning of chapter 2, it tells us that Joseph and Mary, they're from Galilee, but they went to Bethlehem. Why was that? Because Joseph was of the genealogy, the family line of David. and Bethlehem was the hometown of King David. Now, you think I'm going on and on about genealogies, but I just want to make the point that knowing that Anna was from Asher gives confirmation that the genealogy of Jesus was totally correct. You can find it in Matthew 1, you can find it in Luke 3, and it shows and it proves that Jesus was of the line of David, and thus fulfills the promise that God made to David that his throne would be established forever. Okay, very good. There's more about Anna's family. We are told that she got married. She lived with her husband seven years. He died. She was a widow in the prime of life. So in those days, Jewish girls got married in their mid-teens, 14, 15 years old. I don't recommend that today necessarily, but this was a different day and age. So how old was Anna now? And Luke says she was advanced in years, so pretty old. And then he gives us the number 84. And the commentaries say that the Greek's a little fuzzy at this point. Was she 84 years old? Or had she been a widow for 84 years? And the ESV picks the first. But simple arithmetic says, OK, married at 14, The marriage lasted seven years, and then plus 84, I'm doing a little arithmetic here, she's 105 years old. It really doesn't matter, 84, 105. She's quite advanced in years. And we can learn a lesson from this, and that is that elderly members in the church can be very active, very involved, very useful in the church. And I just want to read you one of my favorite verses From Psalm 92, the righteous flourish like a palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock. There is no unrighteousness in Him. So, having myself now moved into the advanced age category, I'm glad that Scripture tells me I'm still full of sap. I'm still green. There's one other family detail, and that is that her father's name was Faneuil. So, wow, we're learning a lot here about this person. Question number three, where do you live? And I ask this of visitors to church because I'd like to know, do they live close to where I am so during the week I could reach out, interact with them? Or I'd like to know if they're from out of town, out of state, visiting? I'd like to know if they live locally and are looking for a church home. So I often ask this question, where do you live? And Luke tells us that Anna did not depart from the temple. Now this could seem to mean that she permanently lived on site. But more likely, this is kind of an allowable exaggeration. to say that she was so faithful, so regular in her attendance at worship at the temple, that it just seemed like she never left. And we have people in the church today, they're so regular, so faithful in church attendance, all the activities of the church, it just seems like they live here. And they're a blessing, what a blessing to us. Now, question number four is what brought you to church? And I like to ask visitors that. Did you see our website? Did a friend recommend coming here? You know, these kinds of things are interesting. And we are told about Anna that she was a prophetess. She had a special calling from the Lord. And probably, possibly, that's why after her marriage of only seven years, She never remarried. She just went straight into active service to the Lord because she had this very special calling. And Luke notes this because the voice of prophecy had been silent for 400 years. In your Bible, when you turn from the book of Malachi, that's the last book in the Old Testament, over to the book of Matthew, which is the first one in the New Testament, 400 years have transpired. That's the so-called intertestamentary period between the two testaments. Prophecy had been silent, and now suddenly the voice of prophecy revives. So we know that Zechariah the priest prophesied at the birth of his son, John the Baptist. It's the first time he was able to say anything, actually. And then Mary herself, the mother of Jesus, the angel comes to her and she prophesies. She says, my soul magnifies the Lord. She prophesied in song. Then the angel came to the shepherds out in the fields, prophesied to them the divine word. Good news, great joy for all the people. Then Simeon prophesies. We read this. And now finally, there's Anna the prophetess. This was a very special calling. Back in the Old Testament, there were a couple of women who the Lord had specially gifted in this way. Deborah, the judge. Huldah, less known to us, 2 Kings 22. And then in the New Testament, of course, Anna. And then in the book of Acts, the four daughters of the evangelist and deacon, Philip, are called prophetess. And we're not told here what Anna said, but we know in general that prophets had two functions. One was to foretell, to announce new revelation from God about future events, but also to foretell, to explain and expound the already revealed word of God. And very likely Anna did both of these things. And in our churches today, we are so blessed to have mature women who have a deep understanding of scripture and can teach younger women the things of God. Now, the age thing, that's a question I never ask new visitors to church. And especially, I never ask women because that's impolite. But Luke has given us this information. Now, how did Luke know all these details? There's a lot of information here, small little details, quite significant, actually. And that's because Luke found out these things and realized, Anna is an unusual person. Tribe of Asher, that's one of the lost tribes, and here's someone. very advanced in years, very devoted to service, and so forth. And so he drops in these little details. They're clues. And he expects his readers to pick up on these clues, to understand their significance, like we've already been discussing. So how did Luke know all these things? Well, Luke accompanied Paul on his second missionary journey. Luke accompanied Paul on his third missionary journey. And at the end of the third missionary journey, Paul returned to Jerusalem, he was arrested, and then for security reasons moved to Caesarea. And there he was in custody for about two years before traveling to Rome, again accompanied by Luke. But during those two years, Bible scholars think that Luke was busy doing interviews with people in Palestine, collecting material for writing his gospel. And when you look at Luke 1 and Luke 2, you have to think, Luke must have talked with Mary, the mother of Jesus, who would at this point be in sort of her 70s. Because all this information had to have come from Mary. Now, Luke begins his gospel by saying that, it seemed good to me to write an orderly account a narrative of the things that have been accomplished. And so he talked to a lot of people and very likely talked to Mary. Now, what would Mary have said to Luke about the childhood of her firstborn son? And then from all that information, Luke seems to have picked just several items Of course, the birth of Jesus, which is in all the Gospels. But then three other things which are only here in the Gospel of Luke. The circumcision, which is when Jesus was eight days old. Then the presentation at the temple, and Jesus would have been 40 days old, about a month and a half. And then finally, Jesus in the temple asking questions when he was 12 years old. And Luke apparently learned all this from Mary. Now, back to Anna. Luke describes her as waiting. Waiting. What was she waiting for? No, actually, the better question is, waiting for whom? She was waiting for a person. Now, this meeting of Anna with baby Jesus occurred when Mary and Joseph come to the temple and there's the presentation. Actually, they accomplished two things with this visit to the temple. One was they redeemed their son. So ever since the original Passover, God said, it's right here in verse 23, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. All firstborn sons belong to God. but you could buy the firstborn son back for five shekels. So that's one of the things that Mary and Joseph did. But there was something else they accomplished also, and that is the ceremony of purification for Mary after having given birth. And for that they offered a sacrifice, it says here, verse 24, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons, according to the law of the Lord. But again, Luke gives this specific details of what kind of offering they gave, because he expects us, the reader, to catch that therefore they were poor people. Because the usual offering for purification was a lamb. But the law of the Lord says, if you're poor, you can just give two turtledoves. And that's what they did. Now, the meeting that Anna has with Jesus, the baby Jesus, is kind of a postscript to the meeting with Simeon. The meeting with Simeon is the big meeting. And then we find out about Anna. So Simeon was a righteous and devout man. The Holy Spirit was upon him. and had told him that you will see the Lord's Christ, that is the Messiah, the promised Messiah, before you die. And so he's led by the Spirit into the temple exactly at the right time when Joseph and Mary are there. And we're told here that he took the child in his arms and blessed the child, blessed the Lord, blessed the parents, also gave them a warning. And then we are told, verse 38, that Anna, at exactly that very hour, shows up. God's timing is just so exquisite. And here she is. Now, she may have heard what Simeon said in blessing the Lord and blessing the parents, Lord, let your servant depart in peace according to your word. And I think, likely, she knew the promise that the Holy Spirit had made to Simeon. that you will see Messiah before you die. And here he is. And possibly she heard Joseph say something to Simeon about, yeah, we're from out of town, we're in Bethlehem, because that's the line that I belong to, the family line of David. And furthermore, he might have told Simeon that this baby was born in Bethlehem. And there was a prophecy about Messiah being born in Bethlehem. That's what the wise men were told when they came asking. And finally, perhaps, Joseph said, this whole baby thing was very unusual because my wife, still my betrothed, gave birth while still a virgin. And there was a promise back in Isaiah, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. And Anna, you can see the antenna going up. And she realizes immediately, this is the one, the chosen one. The Messiah has come here. Now, we've described Anna. She's a rather remarkable person from this lost tribe of Asher, a prophetess, very unusual, very devoted to the Lord in service, and rather aged. And I went online, I went looking for sermons about Anna, and I found a lot of sermons that focus on the importance of devotion to the Lord. And I found sermons that focus on even the aged people, the elderly members in the church can be very active and useful. And these are good points, very good points, but they're not the main point. And in fact, Anna is not the main person. The spotlight is on this group, Simeon, Mary, Joseph, Anna, and the baby. And the infant Jesus is the main person in this whole thing. Now, we are told that Anna and others were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. At this time, Israel was under Roman rule. They were oppressed. But redemption of Jerusalem does not refer to political liberation from Rome. It means salvation from sin, spiritual deliverance for all of Israel. And Jerusalem just represents all of Israel. She's waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. And Luke says that Simeon was also waiting. And he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, the comfort of Israel. And both of these phrases, redemption of Jerusalem, the consolation of Israel, are actually names for the Messiah, the one who brings comfort, the one who brings redemption. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem, cry to her that her warfare has ended, her iniquity is pardoned. Back in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve made a big mistake. They sinned. But God promised something. He said a seed of the woman would come and crush the serpent Satan's head. And God's chosen people, the Israelites, for hundreds of years, I think thousands of years, had waited and waited. And Simeon and Anna have waited their whole lives. And now, the moment is here. This is the one. And we know this, Paul writes, that when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to save those, redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons. This enormous event in human history, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, we celebrate every year, and rightly so. We call it Christmas, or we call it Advent, which means coming. And actually, maybe it should be called better, the first Advent. Because there will be a second Advent. Jesus will come back, this time not as a baby, in these humble circumstances. but as a triumphant warrior on a white horse with all the hosts of heaven. And as we wait for that second coming, as we wait for redemption, that is to say the total, complete fulfillment of the redemption that we have in Christ, can we learn things from Anna? While we wait, what should we be doing? And I'll just mention two things. One is waiting and worshiping. So we are told that Anna worshipped night and day. She was an institution in the temple. You went to the temple, you saw Anna. She was always there. She never seemed to leave. Now, she didn't do all this service at the temple in order to earn salvation. No, indeed not. It was purely gratitude to the Lord. She saw these sacrifices. lambs and other animals being offered, blood spilled. And she saw a picture of God's gracious forgiveness of sins. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. And the temple itself, from that she got the picture of the Lord's nearness of presence. So here she is in the temple night and day, And let me take a lesson from that and encourage you, brothers and sisters, to be very faithful and regular in your church attendance. You may have heard this saying that you are what you eat. If you eat healthy food, your body will be healthy and so forth. And here at church, we are fed a healthy diet from the bread of life. Keep that in mind. And if it's a blessing to you to come to the morning service, it could be a double blessing if you're able to come also to the evening service. And I like to quote this Psalm 92, verses one and two. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night. Worship is, you might say, a warm up for heaven. we get warmed up for heaven, because in heaven we will have this delight to be before the throne of God, to serve Him day and night in His temple. So, as you worship, as you come to worship, it's a foretaste of heaven. It's a warm-up for heaven. Now, it says that she worshipped night and day, worshipping with fasting and prayer. Prayer is what we call a means of grace, along with the word of God and sacraments. Fasting is not considered a means of grace. It can be very helpful to your prayer life if temporarily and voluntarily you abstain from food to some extent. And I've done this upon occasion. The OPC recently had a day of fasting and prayer. It can actually help sharpen your mind, help you focus on things, and thereby enhance your prayer life. It is a secondary means, fasting, but prayer is the primary means of grace. And she began to give thanks to God. Coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God. Thanksgiving is a major component of prayer. I think I may have mentioned this before, but a long time ago I learned this nice little framework for prayer, which is the ACTS framework, just like the book of Acts in the New Testament. A stands for adoration. C stands for confession. T stands for thanksgiving and S for supplication. And if you structure your prayer according to this acronym, it can be very helpful. If you know Jesus, the Holy Spirit has worked in your heart and you receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, we have so much to be thankful for. When the Israelites came back from Babylon after 70 years in exile, and they were rebuilding the temple, they laid the foundation stones, they gathered, they had a big celebration. And Ezra records, they sang responsibly, praising and giving thanks to the Lord. And this is what they said, they sang, For He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord. waiting and worshiping. And then there's something else that we can do while we wait for the second Advent, and that is waiting and witnessing. So the last thing that Luke tells us about Anna is that she began to speak of Him, which I presume is the baby, Jesus, to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. So there was a group of people who were waiting, just like Anna, for redemption. And we know this included Mary and Joseph, included Zechariah the priest and his wife Elizabeth, parents of John the Baptist, included Simeon, included Anna, and apparently there were others, a number of others, all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. And when we read the gospel so often, We find the Jewish religious leaders hard-hearted, rejected Jesus. And then to know that there was this faithful, righteous remnant. How refreshing is that? That they were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. Elijah the prophet had this huge confrontation with the priests of Baal on top of Mount Carmel. And then afterwards, he ran off into the wilderness. And he was so lonely, he prayed to the Lord. He said, I, even I only am left. And they seek my life to take it away. God answered him and said, no, Elijah, I still have 7,000 people in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal, the false god. And Paul, the apostle Paul, picks up that episode about Elijah in Romans chapter 11 and says, so too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And I'm looking out, I see part of that remnant right here, and we should do everything we can to invite others to join this righteous remnant. She spoke of him Commentaries tell me that the the Greek here is that it's not a one-time speaking over and done with kind of testimony thing It's that she kept on speaking. It was a habit with her. Well, of course she was a prophetess So she kept on speaking of Jesus to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem and brothers and sisters we have a similar responsibility as we wait for Jesus to come again and we should be proclaiming Christ, because there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. It's urgent. O be ye reconciled to God. So we have a, what you might call a prophetic responsibility to foretell the word of God, to speak about Jesus. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And I'm quoting here Revelation 19.10. Now I want to conclude by looping back to one of these family details about Anna, that her father's name was Phanuel. And that's the Greek version of a Hebrew name, Peniel. Ah, the bells start ringing. Genesis 32. Peniel is mentioned. Okay, Genesis 32 tells about Jacob coming back to his homeland after many years apart, and he knows he has to face his dreaded brother Esau. And so all by himself, he's by the river Jabbok, and he's praying. And it says, it tells us in Genesis 32, that he wrestled with the angel of the Lord. And he said, I will not let you go until you bless me. And God did bless him. And God even changed His name from Jacob to Israel. And then Jacob said, he called the name of that place Peniel. For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered. Peniel means face of God. At the first advent, Simeon sees the face of God. My eyes have seen your salvation. Jesus is salvation. Anna saw the Messiah face to face. And I wonder if, just as Simeon picked up the baby and held him, I wonder if Anna picked up the baby and held him. Because so many times at church, when parents bring a newly born baby for the first time to church, every woman in the congregation wants an opportunity to hold that baby. She saw him, God, face to face. And at the second advent, when Jesus comes back, or when He comes to take you home, to be with Him in heaven at death, we too will see Jesus face to face. Job said, in my flesh I shall see God. So, dear people of God, let me say not only Merry Christmas, but also Maranatha, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, we do ask that you would grant that all of us would be sons and daughters of Faneuil who wrestle with you to fulfill your promises of redemption. And we'll not let you go until you give us blessing. And you do give us blessing. So Lord, give us that same desire that Anna had to serve you night and day in prayer and praise and proclamation. with Jesus Christ as the object of our devotion. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born in the flesh, died on the cross, raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, ruling in glory and returning.