The Messiah Anna Longed For

Psalm 35:19 Let them not rejoice over me who are wrongfully my enemies;
Nor let them wink with the eye who hate me without a cause.

Psalm 69:4

Those who hate me without a cause
Are more than the hairs of my head;
They are mighty who would destroy me,
Being my enemies wrongfully;
Though I have stolen nothing,
I still must restore it.

Anna could identify with these prophecies about the Messiah. As a widow in Jerusalem, she had no stature. As a widow without children, many would have looked upon her as cursed by God and worthless. In her society, she had no value. For someone who loved and tried to honor God, she was the lowest of the low.

People coming into the temple might have appreciated her prophecies from time to time, but she probably didn’t receive a lot of honor. There were probably even people who treated her with contempt for not conforming to the image of what a good Hebrew woman should be.

I’m sure there were times when the scorn turned to hate.

Can’t you see it? While she’s still youthful and serving, some priest telling her to go do something real like marry a good man and raise children? Or when she’s grown older in the Lord, trying to comfort a supplicant in the woman’s temple and being cast aside as a useless old crone?

Her years of service had to have moments of rejection and pain by the people she tried to serve.

Who are the godly people that we fail to esteem?