Advent 2025: Longing and Obedience - Esther Guy - Luke 2vv36-38

Esther Guy leads us through an examination of longing, and it's connection to a life of wild obedience.

Transcript

Welcome And Advent Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Amen. I I'll set up, yes. I awkwardly was moving everything in the first service. All right. Hello, good morning, Ecclesia and guests to Ecclesia. It is wonderful to see you all, even though there is a light shining into my eyes. That's all good. That's all good. Oh. We can always move back here. We can rearrange the furniture. Sure. Alright, here we are. Here we are. Can everyone see me? Yay, okay. This is the second week of Advent. Right now at Ecclesia, we're doing a series considering Advent with the women of the story, Elizabeth, Anna, Mary, and the women in Jesus' genealogy. Today we're looking at Anna. Before we dive in, just a heads up that we are messing with the chronology a bit because when we meet Anna, it is after Jesus was born. But her story is still at home in our series because it deals with a central theme of Advent, longing. And we'll talk more about that later. I also want to take a moment in the beginning to acknowledge something tender. When Pastor Ian asked me if I could preach about Anna, I got really excited and I said, I love Anna. And this may seem odd, because Anna is given only three verses in all of scripture, and she's someone who's often forgotten. But Anna has a special place in my heart because of all the women that we'll be looking at in our series, Anna is the only one with no mention of her ever having children. Maybe she did, but with all the details the gospel writer gives us, that is not one of them. And based on the details that we that he did provide us, it is likely that she never did. So why does this matter to me personally? Because I am a married woman who struggled with infertility, and I will never bear a child. And it gives me great peace to know that there is room in God's beautiful story for women like me. I haven't been part of Ecclesia for too long, and I don't know what pains may be carried in this room. So for the women and men here who may be longing for children and are feeling the pain of this hope unfulfilled, I want to take this moment to acknowledge your presence and to tell you that the testimony of Scripture points to a God who sees you and has not abandoned you. This morning, we're gonna go on a journey and explore who Anna was and what does her story illuminate for us today? And as we do that, I want to give you two questions to ponder. What are you longing for? And in your longing, what kind of person are you becoming? Let's look at Luke chapter 2, starting with verse 25. There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel's consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord's Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, he entered the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him up in his arms, praised God, and said, Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace as you promised. For my eyes have seen your salvation. You have prepared it in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory to your people, Israel. His father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and told his mother Mary, Indeed, this child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, and a sword will pierce your own soul, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. There was also a prophetess, Anna, a daughter of Thaniel of the tribe of Asher. She was well along in years, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and was a widow for eighty-four years. She did not leave the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayers. At that very moment, she came up and began to thank God and to speak about him to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. Who was Anna? Anna was a prophetess. Aside from her name, this was the first thing said about her. We'll come back to this later. Before we get there, we're going to explore a history of longing that goes back many generations before Anna was born. Anna often gets overshadowed by Simeon. His part of the story is longer, and we are given his poetic words. At first glance, Anna's three verses pale in comparison to Simeon's fantastic story. But when we look closer, there's so much to see in Anna's story. We actually get less information about Simeon, nothing about his family history or daily life, and hardly anything about his life leading up to this point. But Luke gives us a bunch of seemingly random trivia about Anna. Why would Luke include all of these details about Anna that if we are honest, we'd rather skip past so we could get to the good stuff? I want us to consider that Luke included these details because they're actually important to understanding the story. Not just the story of Anna, but also the larger story that we are part of. The story of God's love for humanity and his desire to dwell among us. So let's look at these details. Anna was of the tribe of Asher. Asher was a tribe in the northern kingdom. For those of you who know your Old Testament history, you know that at some point in the story, Israel was divided into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. Both of them strayed from God and did bad things and experienced exile. But the northern kingdom was more bad, and they experienced exile first. Anna's family was likely part of the diaspora, invaded by Assyria, exiled and subject to captivity. Then at some point they returned and moved to Jerusalem. Anna's family didn't just know the story of exile, they lived it. It wasn't just something sad that happened in their past, it was traumatic. And that trauma lingered in that family's line, generational, in their generational memory. With this in mind, we come to Anna's father. Anna was a daughter of Thaniel. The Hebrew name Penuel or Peniel means the face of God. The Old Testament doesn't give us stories of any great Peniels, but what we do see is the face of God repeatedly used as a metaphor for God's favor. In Gospel Women, Richard Bakham wrote that this motif of the face of God appears in a number of key passages in connection with the theme of exile in return. In Deuteronomy, God's threat to judge the people if they turn to other gods is expressed as, I will hide my face from them. Conversely, in Psalm 80, a psalm that would be easily understood as a prayer for God to restore the northern tribes to the land. This refrain occurs three times. Restore us, O Lord, God of hosts, let your face shine that we may be saved. God's face shining on the exiles is his favor bringing them back from exile to the land of Israel. And then Daniel's prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem asks, Let your face shine upon your desolated sanctuary. The positive use of the image of God's favor as his face shining recalls the priestly blessing. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. Thus the name Penuel used to evoke the image of God's face shining on the exiles to restore them to the land can be easily linked with the name Hannah, which means God's grace. It could be that these two names were common in the use of the Midian diaspora because they expressed the hope of restoration. Or it could be that they were chosen specifically and deliberately within this family of returnees. Looking at Anna's family history as someone from the tribe of Asher and the daughter of a man named Faniuel, we see generational memory and trauma, but also hope and longing. Proverbs 13:12 says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Have you ever waited a really long time for something? Could you imagine hope deferred for hundreds of years? Generations of people going their whole lives waiting. That was the reality for Anna's family line. How about us? What are you longing for? When I speak of longing, I'm not talking about wants and wishes like I want it to be Christmas morning already, so I can open presents, or I wish I was at Disney World. I'm talking about something more deep. Your deepest pain points and your deepest hopes. The things you'd rather not think about, because you're scared that if you did, you'd fall apart. When you look at the world we live in today, when you look at your life and in your heart, what are you longing for? Let's keep going. Her name was Anna. Without making too much of this, the names that we have can give us insight about where we come from and who we're becoming, or at least who we believe we're becoming. My name is Esther. I have a biblical name, and I cannot tell you the number of times people have called me Queen Esther or have told me, Esther, you are here for such a time as this. And when I was growing up, I internalized that story in ways that my friends who were not called Esther did not. And there's more to my name. I was named after a woman named Esther Morocco, an American missionary to the Philippines, and my grandmother's best friend. My name reflects spiritual significance and generational memory. Similarly, Anna's name held spiritual significance and generational memory. The name Anna is derived from the Hebrew name Hannah, who was the mother of Samuel the prophet. Had Anna internalized the story of Hannah? We encounter Hannah in 1 Samuel 1 and 2. Hannah struggled to have a child, and in her deep longing, she prayed from the depth of her anguish with many tears at Shiloh, the main sanctuary for the Israelites at the time. And she promised God that if he gave her a child, she would give him back to the Lord for his service. And when God answered her prayers, she prayed a prophetic prayer that foreshadowed Mary's Magnificat that we read earlier. How much of that story influenced Anna, particularly in the time after she lost her husband and chose to commit her life to service at the Lord's temple? There's another Anna that Anna's family would have known of when they named her, a book written in the intertestamental period, the Book of Tobit, a book with numerous expressive prayers, and that speaks of Israel's faith during the time of exile. What kind of imprint did this story make on Anna's psyche and self-image as she continued to be faithful under Roman rule and oppression? Anna was well along in years. In other words, Anna was old. She lived most of her life in the intertestamental period, the years between the last words of the Old Testament and the events surrounding Jesus' birth. Anna would have seen things. Was she there to witness Rome conquer Jerusalem? How many attempted revolutions did she witness? How many times was she disappointed? How many times did she pray? How long, O Lord? She had been married for seven short years. And she was either 84 years old or a widow for 84 years. Either way, she was a widow for most of her life. And instead of remarrying, she devoted her life to serve God. Because she was at the temple every day, she would have been immersed in scripture, which means she would have had a deep knowledge of God's character, the stories of God's faithfulness to his people, and the words of the prophets who came before her. Anna was a woman of prayer. There's a character in intertestamental Jewish literature who Anna often gets compared to: a widow named Judith, who delivered her people from a brutal foreign power. The book of Judith, though apocryphal, gives us insight into the psyche of the Jewish people in the first century, and it helps us see Anna with more dimension. In Judith, um, in that book, Judah said to the town leaders during a time of distress, therefore, while we wait for God's deliverance, let us call upon him to help us, and he will hear our voice if it pleases him. And then later in the book, in a raw and desperate prayer, she cried out, Oh God, my God, hear me also, a widow. And then later she says to God, For your strength does not depend on numbers, nor your might on the powerful, but you are the God of the lowly, helper of the oppressed, upholder of the weak, protector of the forsaken, savior of those without hope. Please, please, God of my Father, God of the heritage of Israel, Lord of heaven and earth, creator of the waters, king of all your creation, hear my prayer. When we think of Anna praying at the temple, rather than picturing her as a serene stoic figure, we should see a woman who, through her prayers, was passionately fighting on behalf of her people. This rhythm of showing up every day at the temple, serving God, fasting, praying, being immersed in God's word. These weren't just things that Anna did. These were transformative practices that shaped Anna to be the kind of person who remains faithful to God and steadfast for decades. The kind of person who lives in anticipation for what God will do even in seasons when the longing hurts. And the kind of person who is in tune with God's heart and knows the sound of his voice. That is the kind of person that I want to be. This brings us back to the first detail we're given of Anna. Anna was a prophetess. What does that mean? When we hear the word prophet, a whole bunch of things come to mind, many of which do not capture the essence of what a prophet of God truly is. So at the risk of being overly simplistic, I want to offer this definition of a prophet. A prophet is someone who is called by God to be his spokesperson, and who is led and empowered by the Holy Spirit to communicate a message of critique and hope. As a prophetess, Anna followed in the footsteps of Miriam from the Exodus, Deborah from the time of the judges, and Huldah, who counseled the king of Judah during a time of reform. And as a prophetess, toward the end of the intertestamental period, she would have given encouragement to those awaiting the arrival of the Messiah amidst their suffering and oppression under Roman rule. She would have spoken words of critique and hope, words that sounded like this is not the way things should be, and there's something better. And this would have come through in the ways that she prayed and cried out to God. So now we have a clearer picture of who Anna was. So let's go back to the story. Mary and Joseph brought baby Jesus to the temple. Simeon sees him and says to God, You can dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation. And Anna notices all of this. She sees Jesus, stops what she's doing. And verse 38, at that very moment she came up and began to thank God and to speak about him to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Israel. This family of the tribe of Asher suffered and longed for the Messiah for generation after generation with just enough hope to name one of their sons Face of God. And then one day the daughter of the man named Face of God actually, literally saw the face of God. Can we take a moment to savor how beautiful that is and how beautifully God writes our stories? Now here's the thing: Anna didn't just see Jesus, she recognized him. How many people saw baby Jesus that day and just walked past without realizing that they glimpsed the long-awaited Messiah? And throughout Jesus' life, we have story after story of people seeing him but not recognizing him. What a sobering. Thought that someone could be in the presence of God and not recognize or even notice him. Isn't that our struggle today? God is with us, he is working in the world and in our lives, he is still speaking, and yet how often do we miss him? In our longing, what kind of people are we becoming? And how can we become the kind of people who truly see Jesus? I used to be a five-year plan person until all of my five-year plans kept falling apart and I realized they're nowhere in the Bible. And years ago, yeah, read your Bibles, it's good. Um, years ago, I sensed the still small voice of the Holy Spirit speak words to me that have become my life's mission. Walk in daily wild obedience. This idea of daily wild obedience comes from Luke 9.23, when Jesus said, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. And also Galatians 5, when Paul talks about walking in the Spirit. Daily wild obedience. That is what we find Anna doing when we meet her in Luke's gospel. She was walking in daily wild obedience, being faithful in the daily rhythm she felt God calling her to, while also being led by the Spirit and having attentive eyes to what God was doing in the moment. Remember, Anna was human. We look at her now and we see a faithful woman, but she probably didn't feel like that all the time. I am sure that Anna had her days when she did not feel like being faithful, days when she had her doubts and thought, does God hear my prayers? Has he forgotten us? And I wonder how much of her praying and prophesying sounded more like the prayers of Lament of Jeremiah and in the Psalms. And I'm sure that there were days when Anna felt nothing. Days when she showed up simply because that's what she was committed to do. Daily, wild obedience. At the same time, I also wonder, did Anna know Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth, whom Kathleen preached about last week? In Luke 1, 21 to 22, it said, Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah, amazed that he stayed so long in the sanctuary. When he did come out, he could not speak to them. Then they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. Was Anna one of those people? If not, surely she would have heard the rumors. Anna, did you hear what happened to Zechariah? Isn't that wild? Was there a part of her that knew something, someone, was coming soon? A spark of hope that said, could it be in my lifetime? Maybe. Whether Anna's presence at the temple on this particular day was an act of hopeful anticipation or steadfastness in the midst of discouragement, she showed up with attentive eyes. And because of Anna's daily wild obedience, not only did she see the face of God, but God also used her to help others see too. Anna longed for the Messiah, and in the waiting, she became the kind of person who could recognize him when others couldn't. Let's be like Anna. In our longing, let's be people who walk in daily wild obedience. People who remain faithful to God throughout our lives, faithful in communion with God and his people, in prayer and in reading God's word so we can know him and recognize his voice. People who live in anticipation for God to move, who dare to hope even when the longing hurts, who can be brutally honest about the realities of our world while also not succumbing to despair because we know the one who holds all things together. People who are in tune with God's heart and know the sound of his voice, who have eyes to see when God works in our lives, in others, and in the world. A sentence brimming with hope. But at the same time, my words were very different. I kept saying, I feel like Springfield is killing me. This was not a statement of hope, but of despair. Springfield, Missouri is one of the whitest cities in America. It was hard to be an Asian American there. Ubiquitous, angry stares, store workers refusing to give me service, countless ways I'd been othered. And then with the rise of anti-Asian hate in 2020, it got harder. There was a season in 2022 when I realized I had been absorbing so much racism that I didn't have time to recover from one traumatic experience before another would happen. At the same time, since about 2021, I felt God pulling my heart away from my profession as a piano teacher at a university and towards returning to vocational ministry. Not just ministering through my vocation as a professor, but doing explicit ministry as my job where I could talk about Jesus openly. For two years I felt this call burning on my heart, but no doors were opening. And the whole time God kept telling me, Esther, don't search for a position. Just trust me. So I waited and waited and waited. And in the waiting, I walked in daily wild obedience. I kept teaching piano at the university, and that led to us starting a Bible study on campus and countless amazing conversations about Jesus and the Bible with students. I kept working along my husband, who is a college and young adults pastor at our church. I taught, mentored, set up chairs, all the things. I poured my heart into those students. And it may have been hard to stay in Springfield, but those students were really hard to leave. I studied. I felt drawn to read and learn more about my Filipino heritage and more broadly, Asian American history and theology from Asian American voices. Something inside me, probably the Holy Spirit, kept telling me that I needed to know this. I didn't know why, I just knew I did. I was walking in daily wild obedience, but the waiting was hard, and by all appearances, it looked like God was doing nothing. And I felt broken and stuck, and I cried a lot. In April 2023, I reached my breaking point and I prayed, God, how long? I can't do this anymore. You need to do something. And that month I was on Instagram and I was looking at stories and I saw that an organization I had never heard of called Mana Christian Fellowship was looking to hire two campus ministry positions. At first I ignored it, but then something told me, no, go back and look. I clicked on the link and I thought, wow, these job descriptions sound like me and Daniel. And then I saw a picture of the group, and it was mostly Asian faces. And I thought, wow, they even look like me. But then I saw where Mana was. Princeton University. And I thought, we did our undergrad at a small Bible college in Springfield, Missouri. There is no way they are going to hire us. So I sent the link to my husband as a joke, and I was like, wanna move to New Jersey? Ha ha ha. And he said, um, we should actually apply for this. So we did. And here we are. In our longing, God is inviting us to be people who walk in daily wild obedience. We're gonna move into a time of being still before God. I have some questions I want us to prayerfully ask ourselves. What are my deepest longings? And as I long and wait, what kind of person am I becoming? First, what are my deepest longings? Some other ways to ask this question: what hurts? What am I afraid to hope for? And when I examine my deepest longings, how much of them are shaped by a love and desire for God? Do I really long for Jesus and God's kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven? And second, in my longing, what kind of person am I becoming? Notice that I did not say, as I long and wait, what kind of things am I doing? This isn't some self-help formula or a transactional thing. This is about the practices that are forming us. It is an invitation for us to lean into the Holy Spirit's transformational work in our lives as we walk in daily wild obedience. So back to the question in my longing, what kind of person am I becoming? Am I cultivating the kind of life in which I can recognize God's presence and work in my life, the lives of others, and in the world? And if not, what needs to change? So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna have these questions up on the screen, and I'm gonna step away so you and the Holy Spirit can ponder these questions together. We'll have some music to make it a little easier. And I invite you to just sit with these questions. Maybe you want to quietly pray or journal. Maybe you just want to sit in the stillness. Either way, let's make space for the Holy Spirit to do whatever he wants to do in this time.