Night and day worshiping God
Luke 2:36-38 NLT
Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had been married only seven years. Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.
Leo the Great
God’s compassion for us is all the more wonderful because Christ died not for the righteous or the holy but for the wicked and the sinful, and though the divine nature could not be touched by the sting of death, he took to himself, through his birth as one of us, something he could offer on our behalf.
Gregory of Nazianus
Christ is born: glorify him. Christ comes from heaven: go out to meet him. Christ descends to earth: let us be raised on high.
John the Monk
Heaven and earth are united today, for Christ is born! Today God has come on earth, and humankind gone up to heaven. Today, for the sake of humankind, the invisible one is seen in the flesh. Therefore, let us glorify him and cry aloud: glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace bestowed by your coming, Savior: glory to you!
Father in heaven,
My heart resonates with the prophetess Anna today. The thing for which she waited and longed – for you to rescue Jerusalem – came when she was very old.
What dedication! She never left the temple.
What devotion! She spent her life in worship with fasting and prayer.
What a response! Being given what her heart desired, in gratitude she “talked about the child with everyone waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.”
Can I have a heart like Anna’s, Lord?
Can I desire to see you more than anything else?
Can I spend my remaining days in loving worship?
Can I be a faithful messenger for my Savior?
Here in my latter years, Lord, I want to be like Anna. By your Spirit, would you do that work in me, that I might live to the praise of my Lord Jesus Christ?
Amen.
See Amid the Winter Snow
https://youtu.be/Mwm_Wst1SKM?si=ZEXkniVtRTQfAJbC
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Corinthians 4.15).
