Women in white raiment

by John Lemley

We can not close this chapter without making mention of Anna the Prophetess. It would seem that at the coming of the Saviour into the world, earth and sky clapped their hands for joy, and the mountains and hills broke forth into singing. Not only did Zacharias prophesy, saying “Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel;” and Mary sing her hymn of praise, in which she exclaimed, “My soul doth magnify the Lord;” and the angels who sang, “Glory to God in the highest;” and the aged Simeon, who, coming into the Temple, and taking the child in his arms, burst forth in doxology, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation,” but also Anna the Prophetess. Scarcely had the sweet strains of the aged Simeon ceased, when the prophetess, coming into the court of the women, in the Temple, and seeing Mary presenting herself with her babe, caught the meaning of the scene and added her voice of praise, “and spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.”

It was very fitting that women should have such a prominent part in these human and angelic songs over the nativity of Him who, in after years, proved women’s best friend. Who alone, of all earth’s great teachers, wept with and over woman’s broken heart; who alone pitied woman taken in sin; who alone stood up in defence of woman against cruel criticism; who alone placed in contrast a poor penitent woman over against a well-washed, and we had almost said, “white-washed,” Pharisee; who, on the way to the cross, had words of comfort for womanhood, in the ever-memorable exclamation, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me!” And why should not these daughters weep for one who had elevated them to their true position? Surely, they might well weep, for they had never had such a friend.

Anna was a daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, and of very great age—eighty-four years. Her age is specially mentioned, to show that, though she had passed but few years in the married state, she had reached this advanced age as a widow; a fact redounding to her honor in a moral sense, and ranking her among the comparatively small number of “widows indeed,” whom Paul especially commends. It is somewhat remarkable that the name of Anna’s father should be mentioned, and not that of her husband. Perhaps her father survived her husband, and may also have been known as one who waited for the consolation of Israel. The pious words Anna uttered in the presence of Mary and her child in the court of the women can not be the only reason of her being called a prophetess. Such an appellation must have been caused by some earlier and frequent utterances, dictated by the Spirit of prophecy, by reason of which she ranked among the list of holy women who, both in earlier and later times, were chosen instruments of the Holy Spirit. If the spirit of prophecy had departed from Israel since the time of Malachi, according to the opinion of the Jews, the return of this Spirit might be looked upon as one of the tokens of Messiah’s advent.

In Simeon and Anna we see incarnate types of the expectation of salvation under the Old Testament, as in the child Jesus the salvation itself is manifested. At the extreme limits of life, they stand in striking contrast to the infant Saviour, exemplifying the Old Covenant decaying and waxing old before the New, which is to grow and remain. Old age grows youthful, both in Simeon and Anna, at the sight of the Saviour; while the youthful Mary grows inwardly older and riper, as Simeon lifts up before her eyes the veil hanging upon the future. Joseph and Mary marveled at the revelations, not because they learned from Simeon’s prophecy anything they had not heard before, but they were struck and charmed by the new aspect under which this salvation was presented.

There is something very beautiful in this aged Anna, the prophetess, who “departed not from the Temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.” And the reason given for this consecrated devotion is, she “looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” This aged saint, into whose obscure but loyal keeping the spirit of true religion has always retired in times of a degenerate and formal faith, under the Divine Spirit, refused to depart from the courts of the sanctuary day nor night. Many a long and weary year she had waited for redemption in Jerusalem, and had watched with eager eyes the long procession of fathers and mothers as they presented, according to custom, their first-born at the altar steps. But the Child for whose coming she had waited with such spiritual patience had not come.

At length the supreme day of her life had dawned, and with an unusual expectancy she goes early to her accustomed vigil. As the humble Joseph and Mary draw near, unheralded of men and with no sign of lineage or worth beyond the rank and file of common people, the clear vision of the aged prophetess discovers the King, and with a joy that blossomed into song, she unites with the devout Simeon, who like herself, was also “waiting for the consolation of Israel,” the praises that redemption had at last come to Jerusalem. There was providential coincidence in her coming in just at “that instant,” when Simeon was prophesying and when the babe was in the Temple, for a divine propriety, so to speak, seemed to require that the new-born Saviour should first receive the homage of the elect of Israel.

ANNA, THE PROPHETESS.

With this temple scene, the aged Anna comes into and goes out of history, but in its light certain great facts are made luminous forever, namely, that Jesus the Christ comes into our common humanity along no royal road, but through the great common gateway of common people. Jesus touches life at its majority points, meeting our needs and our weakened nature with a brotherhood that loves us and lifts us up. Christ’s first welcome into the world was not through Herod, nor the famous Council of the Seventy, nor through the wise Scribes, or great Pharisees, but through the trembling arms of an aged man and woman.

To pause upon the romantic fitness of this temple scene were easy, when the heart of the old and the new, the beginning and the end of life throb together, but rather we turn to the mission of Christ to old age as embodied in this incident of Simeon and Anna. Age is to a well-spent life what the fruit is to the vine, the garnered and best part of it. That ripeness of experience, of mind, of judgment, which comes alone from long and patient drudging on until the mile-posts are many, that calm which comes at the sunset—these are the crowns that come to the soul as it stands on the delectable mountains with the Celestial City in full view. Youth is clear-visioned and hopeful, early life is busied with palpable ambitions, and later on is occupied with the harvesting of ventures and the fruitage of success. But age has nothing but a memory and a hunger, therefore it was a fitness and a providence that Simeon and Anna should reach out their trembling hands in initial welcome to the Son of God.