Below you will find a reworked version of readings used in my congregation’s last Christmas Eve Service. Each year, I attempt to highlight the Christmas narrative’s connection to the four main truths of the gospel. This set of devotional readings examines the life of the prophetess Anna who was one of the first to declare the glories of the Christ child. The readings and their corresponding Scriptures which are listed in the titles of each section are designed to be read on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning before you dive into the goodies surrounding your tree or any other time you so choose.
Merry Christmas!
God, Creation, and Anna: Luke 1:26-38
As Mary set off in haste to talk through her news with her cousin Elizabeth who had also miraculously conceived a son, a very old and very unpregnant lady named Anna once again made her slow and methodical walk up the temple stairs to pray and fast.
The eighty-four-year-old Anna had not always trodden this path. Like many of her peers, she had married at a young age and eagerly anticipated all the joys that come with being a wife and a mother. But the children never came. And then before she could celebrate her eighth wedding anniversary, her husband died. Joy and hope gave way to sorrow and the very depths of grief. And though none would have faulted her for descending into the hopeless bitterness that made Job’s wife infamous, Anna did not curse her God. Instead, she pursued Him with her all.
Being a prophetess, Anna knew that the world had not always been broken. According to the great prophet Moses, the moment of creation – those six days during which God sent the waves crashing across the soft sands of the shore, told the massive brachiosauruses to eat some leaves, and made man from the dust of the ground – was a good and pure moment. As the first book of our Bible notes in Genesis 1:31, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”
As Adam and Eve set about naming God’s creation and ordering the garden of Eden in the days that followed, they could not fathom the irritation that would come from a bug bite much less the ideas of sorrow, barrenness, and widowhood. Adam and Eve knew only goodness, love, and justice. The animals, the trees, and the wind moved in perfect harmony with them. More importantly, our first parents communed freely with God. In other words, the founders of the human race knew only perfect wisdom and goodness. Everything from the grass under their feet to the clouds above their heads was good…very good.
But all did not stay good. Death had robbed Anna of her husband. The creator of the universe now resided behind a curtain which Anna could not even see much less pass through.
But all that was about to change. The Holy Spirit had told Anna’s friend Simeon who also faithfully spent his days in the temple that the consolation of Israel was coming! And so, far removed from all the important happenings, Anna prayed and fasted. And waited!
Man, the Fall and Anna: Romans 5:12-14
Anna waited for the consolation of Israel because she knew humanity faced a problem that it could not resolve on its own. Though God had created the world good, Adam and Eve with the help of a snake had become disenchanted with their creator and had decided to eat a piece of fruit from the tree of “the knowledge of Good and Evil.” They believed that God had been using his law to unjustly limit and suppress their full potential. They thought that eating the fruit…that rebellion would end in glorious liberation (Gen 2:16).
As they began to digest the fruit, Adam and Eve did experience something new. But it was not power and wisdom. They discovered shame, nakedness, and death. And instead of becoming equal with God, they found themselves forever separated from their creator and at odds with creation. Mosquitoes would now bite, weeds would grow, and cancers would form. They had sinned and had committed the first act of lawlessness, breaking both themselves and the universe.
And unfortunately, what began with Adam and Eve would not stay with Adam. When Adam fell, he corrupted not just himself but all of humanity. In other words, we all die because we are all sinners in Adam. To quote Paul one of Jesus’s earliest followers, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men (Rm 5:12).” As the American thinker Benjamine Franklin once concluded, “Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes.” While we might protest being labeled sinners, none can dispute the realities of death.
Though we also might think it unfair to be condemned in Adam, we cannot realistically assume that we would have done any better than Adam. When given the opportunity to choose between good and evil, we still follow Adam and choose evil. As Paul noted in Titus 1:13 both our “minds” and our “consciences are defiled.” We choose evil not because someone forgot to send us a Christmas card but rather because we are at the most basic level sinners.
Thankfully, no one is as evil as they could be. None of us has attempted to steal Christmas from the Who’s down in Whoville, laughed at Rudolph’s red nose, or denied Bob Cratchit the money needed for Tiny Tim’s surgery. But we have all harbored bitterness in our souls, lusted after that which was not ours, and spoken words that we wish we could take back. Like Adam and Eve, we have chosen evil believing that God has held something back from us. And now we all need a savior. To quote Paul again “The wages of sin is death (Rm 6:23).”
Anna knew this lesson well. She had experienced the groanings of creation within her soul as she dealt with infertility and then with the death of her husband. Though she had spent her life faithfully seeking after God, God still did not freely walk with man. As God told the prophet Moses, “Man shall not see me and live (Ex 33:20).” Even the sacrifices that filled the temple with a mixture of gruesome and savory smells could not restore what Adam and Eve had destroyed. They pointed to the solution but were not the answer to sin and death. Something and someone greater was needed! Anna was waiting because that someone greater was coming!
Christ the Hope of Anna: Luke 2:1-21
Though Anna’s life had proved hard and difficult, she rejected the lie that had snookered Adam and grounded her hope not in travel, alcohol, or shopping but in the Lord.. Despite her circumstances, she trusted in the goodness of her God knowing that “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all (Ps. 34:19).”
Then in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, her trust was rewarded. Luke 2:38 reports that she got to see the Christ child…the Messiah who could do what no other man could do. That little boy would live the perfect life that Adam and all his descendants should have lived. Then what Simoen, told Mary that “a sword would pierce through you own soul,” would come true. Jesus would be wrongfully crucified, having never sinned (Lk 2:35). But in dying on the cross and in rising again, Jesus would defeat sin and death, paying its penalty and then gifting us his righteousness so that he might create a people for himself. To quote the priest Zechariah who months earlier had prophesied: “the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Lk 1:79).” And Jesus does so not only for the sins of Israel but for all who repent and believe irrespective of their origins, talents, or gifts. As Simeon notes, this salvation was both “a light of revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel.” Jesus came to restore all that Adam had lost.
Though Anna saw but the very beginning of Jesus’s earthly life, she had every reason to rejoice for the plan of salvation depended upon the Lord. As we well know, the God who kept his promise to her and Simeon and to the saints of old to send a Messiah would also raise that Messiah from the dead. In the coming of Christ at Christmas, we see both the promise and the glory of salvation and the hope of redemption.
And like Anna, we too should rejoice afresh in the goodness of God this Christmas. The salvation of all who hope in Christ is just as certain as God’s previous promises. No matter our emotions, no matter how hard our life is, and no matter how long we have been waiting for deliverance, one day soon we too will see the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Puritan Thomas Watson noted, “it is nothing to follow God in the midst of all encouragements, but it is wonderful to follow God in the midst of all discouragements.” Do not lose heart friend, keep praying and fasting. How sweet will that day be for when we are all with Christ for those who clung to promises of Christ when all seemed lost? Take heart friend, Christ has come to save us from our sins!
The Gospel and Our Response: Revelation 16:15a
In a few hours the waiting associated with this advent season will give way to the joys of Christmas morn. Like Anna, we will celebrate the arrival of Jesus and will gather round Christmas trees engulfed in presents and around dining room tables stuffed with food.
While the ritual of this advent season is all but over, another greater advent remains in place…the advent of Jesus’s second coming.
Though Jesus has come as a lowly infant, and lived, died, and risen again to establish his kingdom and redeem sinners from the curse of the law, the fullness of that kingdom has yet to arrive. That wicked serpent who deceived Adam and Eve still reigns on earth. Even believers must still battle sin, sorrow, and death.
For all to be made right in both heaven and earth, Jesus must come once again. When he does, only those covered by the blood of the Christ child will be ushered into the new Eden where everything will once again be very good. Those who have ignored the message of Anna will be cast into the fires of hell to satisfy the eternal righteous of our creator. Friend, if you have not embraced the redemption of Jerusalem as your savior, I encourage you to do so tonight. Come and discover the hope of Anna for yourself.
Just as Jesus suddenly appeared in the temple to the delight of Anna and many others, he will also appear a second time without warning like lightening flashing down from the east to usher his people into the new heavens and the new earth…the new Eden (Matt 25:27). Take heart friends; the redemption of Jerusalem has come and will come again soon!
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