| Christmas +1 (2) | | Date Created: Dec 28, 2005, 08:34 AM |
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The Gospel reading for this coming Sunday is Luke 2:22-40.
Simeon and Anna are strange birds. The time between Malachi and Jesus is often thought of as a time when there no prophets. But here's this woman who Luke calls a Prophetess, who never left the Temple. What does Luke mean for us to think about this? |
Some commentators take the line the she is only called 'prophetess' because of what she said in Luke 2 -- that it wasn't an office or a title that she held, merely that what happened to her in this one episode in her life was prophetic. That seems to me unlikely. The story reads as though Luke wants to lead up to the incident with Jesus by telling you that this woman was worthy. Look at the rest of that preliminary stuff, and compare it with the story of Simeon in v. 25 or other stories in Luke's work such as the centurion in 7:4-5 or Cornelius in Acts 10:2. Prophetess is most likely to refer to her life in general, one of the reasons that she is to be regarded by the reader as a worthy person to see Jesus and a trustworthy witness to his greatness. They're nowhere near as common as male prophets but she's not the first female in the Bible to be called a 'prophetess' by any means. Before Anna, you've got Miriam (Ex. 15:20), Deborah (Judges 4:4), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14), and the wife of Isaiah (Is. 8:3).
Like Simeon, Anna's links are suspicious in terms of anti-Roman 'liberation' language: she spoke of Jesus 'to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.' It's remarkable that Luke, often thought to be the most Gentile of the Gospels, unlike the later church (and heretics like Marcion) does not take the opportunity to bad-mouth Judaism or the Temple or Jerusalem in general. Instead, through both Simeon and Anna, he shows that the Jewish ideas of devout-ness, Temple and prophecy were not to be despised, even if people misunderstood and misapplied them in anti-Gentiles ways. That will be remedied. Anna does not leave the Temple now, the appearance of the child has not rendered it irrelevant. In Luke, no one leaves (see the final verse of the Gospel). |
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