Title: The Woman Who Met Jesus
Today is the third Sunday of Advent.
Advent means waiting for the coming of the Lord and preparing to meet him.
Today, I am going to think about the woman who waited for the Lord and met him at birth.
Thousands of people went while waiting for the Messiah to come, but only Simeon and Anna went to see the Messiah.
What kind of person was this? I can't help but think about it.
Therefore, we should try to find some lessons through the faith of God who is an example for us today.
1. While waiting for the Messiah in the long run, he met Jesus in person.
Originally, 'Anna' is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word 'Hannah', meaning 'grace'.
As it appears in the Bible, is the daughter of Vanuel of the tribe of Asher, and is said to be a prophetess. He was a man who lived from the end of the 1st century B.C. to the beginning of the 1st century A.D., when the people of Israel were looking forward to the Messiah. For about 300 years after the prophet Malachi, the history of Israel was silent without any prophetic activity. Then John the Baptist appeared and heard a cry in the wilderness, and many people thought he was the Messiah and went out to the Jordan River to be baptized. At this time, when no one knew about it, Anna knew the birth of the Lord through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and met him in person at the temple.
How could Anna have met Jesus like that?
He cannot be seen to have led a happy life in the general world.
According to the record of the text, she lost her husband after 7 years of marriage and lived while praying in the temple and serving God for 84 years.
Just by looking at this one thing, you can imagine how difficult he must have lived.
Not only that, but he lived alone for 84 years by fasting and praying, so you can imagine how virtuous and faithful she was.
Can there really be such a person as Anna in today's world? I can't help but think about it.
All his life, he lived only in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah. And finally, he saw the long-awaited Lord with his own eyes before he died, so it can be said that he is the most blessed person among those who have prepared the way for the Lord.
Most of them died while waiting for the Messiah prophesied by the prophets while meditating, but he met the Messiah he had been waiting for in his life before he died, so you can see how happy he was.
How happy we would be if we could meet the Lord in person like this!
2. waited for the coming of the Messiah with more confidence than anyone else.
Waiting for someone is usually not difficult. The wait was very unbearable when the person who was supposed to appear didn't show up.
When waiting for news from a loved one, that waiting is painful.
Even now, TV programs to find separated families are aired on TV every Wednesday, and if you listen to the words of those who have spent 30 or 40 years in tears while watching the meeting, you can see how hard the waiting was.
In that respect, waiting has two meanings.
First, waiting means living in reality with hope for the future,
The other is that waiting is about making life worthwhile and worthwhile to live in the midst of adversity.
Because if there is no waiting, there will be no hope, and life without hope is meaningless.
However, there is a religious lesson to be learned from the fact that the waiting is not a vague waiting, but a waiting with confidence.
In essence, people are meant to live waiting for something.
Whether it be people, material things, honor or success, people live by waiting. However, in many cases the wait can be a vague wait.
So I often give up halfway through.
A vague waiting makes people tired. However, a confident waiting makes it possible to endure any real adversity.
Husbands who went abroad in the midst of a boom in our country's economic growth, that is, in the 70's and 80's
There were many housewives who lived while waiting. As a miner in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, or Germany, I went wherever I could make money. At that time, all wives waiting for their husbands were able to overcome the hardships of reality in their hopes.
It was because she had the certainty of hope waiting for her husband to return when the deadline was over.
Because of that conviction, I was able to overcome the harsh life of reality with joy,
I was able to live while waiting in hope without seeing suffering as hardship.
Likewise, today we too should have the hope of conviction waiting for the same Lord as Anna.
Waiting for the coming Messiah was different from ordinary people.
waited with certainty. That is why I was able to wait for his coming with meditation, fasting, and prayer in the temple for 84 years without missing a single day.
In this respect, today's modern Christians' faith should be checked at least once.
The members of the early church overcame the difficulties of reality by waiting for the Lord of the Second Coming amidst the difficult persecution and adversity. Our suffering today is not suffering from the conviction of waiting for the Lord, but rather suffering from real problems, such as eating, dressing, and living.
If we live with at least one tenth of the faith of waiting for the Lord of the Second Coming, our life today will be different. No, our people and society will definitely change. Waiting for the Lord! Waiting with confidence for the coming of the Lord!
Retrieving it would be the significance of keeping the Day of Advent.
Therefore, tension in the life of faith is absolutely necessary.
Faith without certainty of the Second Coming is bound to become like the Sadducees and the Herodians. The Sadducees did not believe in the Second Coming and the Resurrection.
The Herodians fought for the independence of Israel by overthrowing the real Roman regime rather than the kingdom of the Messiah that would appear in the future. Therefore, they all easily became one in the crucifixion of Jesus.
Today it is the same.
There are many Christians who believe without the assurance of Adventism.
Such a belief makes it easy to become a realistic, selfish, and self-centered faith.
So there is no future. It does not acknowledge future glory.
They are not afraid of future judgments. There is only reality.
I want to do well in this world, enjoy all the glory in this world, and achieve everything in this world.
Like Anna, we should prepare to meet the Lord of the Second Coming by waiting with confidence.
3. While waiting for the coming of the Lord, he did not forget his office.
In today's text, it is said that he did not leave the temple.
From this one word we can see how faithful he was to his office. He did not even remarry in order to fulfill the position he had been given as a man of God. How could there be no human temptation during 84 years?
Since he was also a human being with a body, why couldn't there be no human suffering?
However, he did not leave the temple to fulfill his mission and office.
There is a great lesson for us to learn here too.
We often leave the temple even after a little ordeal.
Moreover, it is easy to forget the precious position we have received from God.
Thinking of his position as if he had received it from people,
I am easily shaken by what people say.
And when people dislike them, they easily abandon their positions.
The office you receive from God is not something you can do only in peace.
If you look at the characters in the Bible, they were all called with thorns, and in the midst of suffering, they were thankful for their office.
Moses was also called from among the thorn bushes.
After 40 years of living in the wilderness without any hope, one day I called him out from the burning flames in the bush. When Moses saw that the thorns were not burning, Moses thought it strange, and as he went there he heard the voice of God.
Don't forget that God calls His servants with thorns when He calls them.
The Apostle Paul asked three times to remove the stinging thorns from the flesh.
Just by looking at this, our loyalty to our office becomes more evident in the midst of adversity.
So, the Lord also praised the position, saying, "Good and faithful servant! Since you have been faithful over a few things, enter into the joy of your master."
This is because loyalty is a word that has to do with position.
Even now, in order to properly carry out our duties, we sometimes have to endure it in the midst of hardships for 84 years like Anna. We must keep in mind that it is a job that cannot be done only with praise in taking on the precious position that we have received from the Lord.
Is there not a case among us who has held a position and then left it on his own?
We must imitate the faith of
This is because the suffering of reality during the long-awaited Messiah could be overcome with it.
Because of that, I was able to see and close my eyes to the long-awaited Lord, who had never been given to anyone.
This was the greatest blessing for him.
How happy we would be if we could live and go without free time like Anna!
It is the greatest blessing to be able to see firsthand the fulfillment of one's prayers while alive.
We hope that these blessings will come to us as well. ??