Advent is a season of waiting. A season of hope. A season of preparation. A season of joy. We are able to wait because we are people of hope. We are people of hope because we believe that God is faithful and active in bringing about redemption. When we lose sight of God’s faithfulness, we slide into business, fear, and the need to make something happen. In short, we reach out to take hold of the vapor that is trying to be the source of our own security. God is the only one who can bring us peace, joy, and security. When we try to force those things on our own, we try to hold on to a vapor and we clinch our fists tight to not let it go. Advent is a time to remember that God is faithful in bringing about redemption. So, loosen your grip. Relinquish control. Let God be God and find rest in knowing that God is faithful in bringing about redemption.
This “rest in knowing” is not a posture of laziness. Nor is it inactive. Our waiting for the coming of Christ is an active waiting. In this active preparation, there is rest because we are at peace rather than buying into the business and chaos the world has to offer in their forms of security. This coming week of Advent, we are going to focus on how waiting leads us to preparation, how waiting is always active. When we look at the birth story of Jesus in Luke, the obscure person who stands out to me, as a person of active waiting, is the prophet Anna in Luke 2:36-38.
We know very little about Anna. She is a prophet who is an elderly widow. We know her father and her tribe. When we read between the lines, as Luke and the other gospel writers encourage us to do, we see connections to Hannah 1 Samuel (Anna is the Greek form of Hannah). In 1 Samuel 1, we see Hannah, barren and tormented by Peninnah, crying out to God for a son whom she will dedicate to his service. Samuel was born to Hannah and then spent his life in service to the Lord. At this point in Luke’s narrative, he has already drawn parallels between Mary’s song (Luke 1:46-56) and Hannah’s song (1 Samuel 2:1-10). The Gospel writers expect their readers to be familiar with these stories and draw connections.
What parallels do you see between Hannah’s story with Samuel and Anna in Luke 2?
One thing I noticed in my readings that I haven’t noticed before is that Hannah dedicated herself to prayer and crying out to God for a blessing and then followed through when the prayers came to fruition. Anna also dedicated herself to worship, fasting, and prayer till she saw God’s movement towards redemption. At the moment she saw Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, she gave thanks to God and began proclaiming the good news of the one who was going to bring redemption. I don’t know if Luke was intending this connection, but I see both women fervently active in their waiting for God’s action and then responded once they received God’s response.
In the case of Anna, she continued in her dedication to active waiting for near eight decades. I imagine there were lots of young couples, with baby in tow, who were at the temple for dedication. Anna’s eyes were prepared through her active waiting to recognize where God’s action was going to take place.
In this season of Advent, what does preparation look like in anticipation for what God is doing in the world?
What do we need to learn about worship, prayer, and fasting as means for developing eyes to recognize where God is working?
The world looks very different right now and we’re entering into a new terrain as a church. Will we look back to how things were done in the past or will we look forward to how God might take us into new pastures? Either way, we need to learn to wait on God, see how he is working and meet him there.