The Messiah Anna Longed For

Isaiah 40:9-11 Get yourself up on a high mountain,
O Zion, bearer of good news,
Lift up your voice mightily,
O Jerusalem, bearer of good news;
Lift it up, do not fear.
Say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
¹⁰ Behold, the Lord God will come with might,
With His arm ruling for Him.
Behold, His reward is with Him
And His recompense before Him.
¹¹ Like a shepherd He will tend His flock,
In His arm He will gather the lambs
And carry them in His bosom;
He will gently lead the nursing ewes. (NASB)

Zion, the eternal, and Jerusalem, the physical and the future eternal, broadcast the good news. Both places, representing temporal and forever, proclaim the arrival of the Messiah with their message. The message is outside of time.

It is this same news that Anna announced to all who would listen to her from her post in the women’s temple, “Behold your God!”

Though he came with strength and power, he would not use them. To show that he had both at his disposal, he drove out demons and stilled the storm. But to show that his mission had its roots in humility, he came to a poor family and was born in a stable.

By the eighth day after his birth, his parents had likely moved to better quarters than the temporary stable abode. We do not know if Mary had the chance to tell Anna about the stable, the manger and the shepherds.

Still Anna had been around a long time and there were some things obvious to her. She would have noticed the clothes of Mary and Joseph. Mary probably wore a nice, but rough spun robe. Maybe she had made it herself or her mother had. It’s doubtful she owned any expensive purple, had valuable jewels, or wore fine sandals on her feet. Joseph, though clean, would have shown the effects of their travels down from Nazareth.

And when Anna spoke to them, their accents would have revealed them as residents of Galilee. For the most part, the poorer, less fortunate, and lower classes filled Galilee.

As a woman with nothing, Anna would have felt an immediate kinship to the newborn Messiah.

A kinship that he intended for all the meek and the lowly.