ANNA, too, was one of the Quiet in the Land. We know nothing about her except what these verses tell, but even in this brief compass Luke has drawn us a complete character sketch.
(1) Anna was a widow. She had known sorrow and she had not grown bitter. Sorrow can do one of two things to us. It can make us hard, bitter, resentful, rebellious against God. Or it can make us kinder, softer, more sympathetic. It can rob us of our faith; or it can root faith ever deeper. It all depends how we think of God. If we think of him as a tyrant we will resent him. If we think of him as Father we too will be sure that
A Father’s hand will never cause
His child a needless tear.
(2) She was eighty-four years of age. She was old and she had never ceased to hope. Age can take away the bloom and the strength of our bodies; but age can do worse – the years can take away the life of our hearts until the hopes that once we cherished die and we become dully content and grimly resigned to things as they are. Again it all depends on how we think of God. If we think of him as distant and detached we may well despair; but if we think of him as intimately connected with life, as having his hand on the helm, we too will be sure that the best is yet to be and the years will never kill our hope.
How then did Anna come to be as she was?
(1) She never ceased to worship. She spent her life in God’s house with God’s people. God gave us his Church to be our mother in the faith. We rob ourselves of a priceless treasure when we neglect to be one with his worshipping people.
(2) She never ceased to pray. Public worship is great; but private worship is also great. As someone has truly said, ‘They pray best together who first pray alone.’ The years had left Anna without bitterness and in unshakable hope because day by day she kept her contact with him who is the source of strength and in whose strength our weakness is made perfect.
THE DAWNING REALIZATION
Luke 2:41–52
Every year his parents used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years of age, they went up according to the custom of the feast, and when they had completed the days of the feast and returned home, the child Jesus stayed on in Jerusalem. His parents were not aware of this. They thought he was in the caravan and when they had gone a day’s journey they looked for him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances. When they did not find him they turned back to Jerusalem, looking for him all the time. After three days they found him in the Temple precincts, sitting in the middle of the Rabbis, listening to them and asking them questions. All who were listening were astonished at his understanding and at his answers. When they saw him they were amazed. His mother said to him, ‘Child, why did you do this to us? Look you, your father and I have been looking for you and we have been very worried.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I was bound to be in my Father’s house?’ They did not understand the meaning of what he said to them. So he came home with them and went to Nazareth and he was obedient to them. His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew wise and grew bigger and increased in favour with God and man.
THIS is a supremely important passage in the gospel story. It was laid down by law that every adult male Jew who lived within fifteen miles of Jerusalem must attend the Passover. In point of fact it was the aim of every Jew in all the world at least once in a lifetime to attend that feast.
A Jewish boy became a man when he was twelve years of age. Then he became a son of the law and had to take the obligations of the law upon him. So at twelve Jesus for the first time went to the Passover. We may well imagine how the holy city and the Temple and the sacred ritual fascinated him.
When his parents returned he lingered behind. It was not through carelessness that they did not miss him. Usually the women in a caravan started out much earlier than the men for they travelled more slowly. The men started later and travelled faster and the two sections would not meet until the evening encampment was reached. It was Jesus’ first Passover. No doubt Joseph thought he was with Mary, Mary thought that he was with Joseph and not until the evening camp did they miss him.
They returned to Jerusalem to search for him. For the Passover season it was the custom for the Sanhedrin to meet in public in the Temple court to discuss, in the presence of all who would listen, religious and theological questions. It was there they found Jesus. We must not think of it as a scene where a precocious boy was dominating a crowd of his seniors. Hearing and asking questions is the regular Jewish phrase for a student learning from his teachers. Jesus was listening to the discussions and eagerly searching for knowledge like an avid student.
And now comes one of the key passages in the life of Jesus. ‘Your father and I,’ said Mary, ‘have been looking for you anxiously.’ ‘Did you not know,’ said Jesus, ‘that I must be in my Father’s house?’ See how very gently but very definitely Jesus takes the name father from Joseph and gives it to God. At some time Jesus must have discovered his own unique relationship to God. He cannot have known it when he was a child in the manger and a baby at his mother’s breast or he would be a freak. As the years went on he must have had thoughts; and then at this first Passover, with manhood dawning, there came in a sudden blaze of realization the consciousness that he was in a unique sense the Son of God.
Here we have the story of the day when Jesus discovered who he was. And mark this – the discovery did not make him proud. It did not make him look down on his humble parents, the gentle Mary and the hardworking Joseph. He went home and he was obedient to them. The fact that he was God’s Son made him the perfect son of his human parents. Truly godly people do not despise earthly ties; rather because they belong to God they discharge human duties with supreme fidelity.
THE COURIER OF THE KING
Luke 3:1–6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea, and when Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and the district of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, when he was in the desert. So he came into the territory around Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance whereby sins might be forgiven – as it stands written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet. ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Get ready the road of the Lord, make his paths straight; every ravine shall be filled up; every mountain and hill will be made low; the twisted places will be made into straight roads and the rough places into smooth; and all flesh shall see God’s instrument of salvation.” ’
TO Luke the emergence of John the Baptist was one of the hinges on which history turned. So much so is that the case that he dates it in no fewer than six different ways.
(1) Tiberius was the successor of Augustus and therefore the second of the Roman emperors. As early as AD 11 or 12 Augustus had made him his colleague in the imperial power but he did not become sole emperor until AD 14. The fifteenth year of his reign would therefore be AD 28–9. Luke begins by setting the emergence of John against a world background, the background of the Roman Empire.
(2) The next three dates Luke gives are connected with the political organization of Palestine. The title tetrarch literally means governor of a fourth part. In such provinces as Thessaly and Galatia, which were divided into four sections or areas, the governor of each part was known as a tetrarch; but later the word widened its meaning and came to mean the governor of any part. Herod the Great died in 4 BC after a reign of about forty years. He divided his kingdom between three of his sons and in the first instance the Romans approved the decision.
(a) To Herod Antipas were left Galilee and Peraea. He reigned from 4 BC to AD 39 and therefore Jesus’ life was lived in Herod’s reign and very largely in Herod’s dominions in Galilee.
(b)