She is the ultimate grandmother, the grandmother of God. Most of us know our time will pass, but she became lost in the glare of history the moment she held a baby girl and named her “Mary.” Anne is the model for all of us who have a small role in making a place for greater people.
The Bible doesn’t tell us much about her, but we can infer that she was amazing from the Scriptural facts and church tradition agrees with our guess. Anne raised a child that turned out to be, well, one who said the deepest “yes” to God and this beats “my daughter the doctor” or “my daughter the lawyer” hands down.
Church tradition tells us that Anne was yet another in the long line of Biblical women who prayed for a baby and received one by a miracle. God chose well, because the resourceful Anne got her daughter out of Nazareth and sent her to Elizabeth when things got too hot on the home front.
What does Anne teach us this Advent?
If you are a parent, the time comes when you realize that your kids story is no longer just part of your own. They begin to have ideas and experiences that do not center in home. If you are very lucky, as Hope and I have been in our older children, they surpass you and the day comes when people speak to you as “his father” or “her mother”
You have become a supporting player in a bigger tale. What parent isn’t thrilled with that event?
Anne must have been. Her daughter was Mary and her grandson was Jesus. Her son-in-law was only sort of Joseph, but was really God. God is not the sort to tolerate in-law problems so there was no chance Anne would fail to find her place.
Anne knew her place and managed to make history possible by not making history. She did not crush her daughter’s spirit and Anne faded from view as her grandson began his ministry. Making the space for someone else will never get headlines, but it is vital.
When I think of my own grandmothers, I think of Anne. One grandmother, my Nana, labored for years making Christmas pageants that were not embarrassing and that actually said something to the people who watched. Probably few outside the family remember her this Christmas, but anybody who has been positively helped by my Mom and Dad or any of the second generation are receiving a piece of her life and ministry.
My other grandmother was also a pillar of her church giving her life to resources to keep it going in difficult times. Most vitally, she created a home that for my entire childhood was the safe haven, the last homely home,where order, security, and love could be found. She was civilized without stuffiness and with her Martha spirit she made a place for fun even when she did not get to experience it. When I am tired, I often imagine I am back at her house having a diet Coke, or sliding down the banister, or listening to my grandfather tell stories while she cooked a pot rost.
A piece of her is in any bit of peace I know. Both my grandmothers were so much more than mothers and grandmothers . . . so interesting and alive, but I can only remember them as I knew them so I can only pass them on to you with those memories.
They served, they were holy, they loved us well.
These two women were like Anne in that for most of their lives they were the mothers of their children and their children were able to be more “successful” because of this service. If you ask anyone about Saint Anne, and if they have a clue who you mean, they will know only that she was the “mother of Mary.” Her daughter’s reputation for holiness and her grandson’s divinity threaten to swallow her up.
Moderns might complain, but Anne was satisfied. She knew that her whole person would not be swallowed up, because her service as grandmother had actually been to God and God would not forget her or reduce her to a role.
It is her willingness to become “less”to the rest of us that made Anne great. I cannot aspire to being as humble and as wise as Mary, the Mother of God. To be like the Christ is every Christian’s goal, but it is as unattainable in this life as the Holy Grail. What I can hope is that I serve the saints and become less so that Jesus can become great.
I can fade away into the background so that people can hear His Word. Like Anne I can make a home to raise the child or grandchild that will do great things for God.
Nobody may remember my name except in the light of that small service as everything else is forgotten, but if I have served Jesus, God in the flesh, then it is enough.
God in the flesh loves His grandmother. If He alone remembered her name or the charming things she did, it would be enough. If she picked Him up after He fell, then she was comforting the Creator. If she cooked Him a meal, she was foreshadowing the great Feast to come. If she washed Him, she prepared Him for His baptism. Every service she did to Him was mythic and every deed she did for Him will live forever in His mind.
We, of course, are not the parents of Mary or the grandparents of Jesus in the same way as Anne, but if our children are believers in a sense we are like she was. Christ is within them and our service is ultimately to God when we serve them. This is true of any human being if we do not make them an idol or an end to themselves. Every service to every man or woman created in His image is service to Him. Every act would do to a soul created in God’s likeness is a service we do to Him.
He will not forget it or us and He is generous in His rewards. We will not, thank God, get what we deserve, but He will make much of our small virtues and has redeemed our sins by His own blood.
It is good to serve God following the example of Holy Anne, grandmother of God.
December 10th, 2009 | 8:09 am | #1
thank you for writing about these women
December 10th, 2009 | 9:19 am | #2
“The Bible doesn’t tell us much about her”
What exactly does the Bible tell us about her. I confess that, aside from Catholic traditions, I see no record or information about her at all.
Your post is a great story about Grandmothers in general, but how it relates to actual history is beyond me.
December 10th, 2009 | 10:35 am | #3
Daryl,
You are right that only her bare existence (Mary had a mother) is acknowledged. As for the traditions, when did they become “Catholic?” If the Church was “Catholic” as early as some of these traditions, then the Church became “Catholic” really quickly. This would give many of us pause. Fortunately Church history is not the story of “Protestant” ideas and “Catholic” ideas warring . . .
John Mark
December 10th, 2009 | 11:13 am | #4
John Mark,
Point well taken about the Catholicness of Anne.
But still, your quote here troubles me:
Moderns might complain, but Anne was satisfied. She knew that her whole person would not be swallowed up, because her service as grandmother had actually been to God and God would not forget her or reduce her to a role.
It is her willingness to become “less”to the rest of us that made Anne great. ”
Considering that until 150 AD, no one mentioned Anne at all, how can anyone assume she was great, let alone an example?
Mary’s mother, was, if nothing else, human. Perhaps she was as you describe, perhaps she was a hateful bitter woman who was forever angry with Mary for apparently shacking up with Joseph in an adulterous affair.
I’m not saying she was that, but only that we don’t know.
Any such veneration of someone not even mentioned in Scripture (or even those in Scripture, for that matter) is beyond the pale.
Yes, you could say that she was, in a sense, the grandmother of God. But really, so what? Like Israel, like all of us, like Mary herself, no one has been called because of their specialness. We’ve been called because God wanted it that way.
In fact, the typical Biolical pattern is to call people in spite of themselves.
I like this series, but why not keep it about those mentioned in the Bible, about whom we actually know something concrete?
December 10th, 2009 | 11:14 am | #5
Sorry, I missed the first quotation at “Moderns might…
December 10th, 2009 | 11:28 am | #6
The story of Anne has no substance or authority.
Scripture is silent on Mary’s mother because she is unimportant in the account of the birth and life of Christ.
This is a “saint” made up out of whole cloth”.
Your “story” is pure fiction. She is never mentioned in the bible, she may have died in childbirth, she may have disowned her daughter that was pregnant out of wedlock, she may have been a prostitute.
What we do know is she played no role in the life of Christ that the Holy Spirit felt was noteworthy.
December 10th, 2009 | 11:51 am | #7
I’m not saying she’s totally irrelevant. Grandmas never are.
But…I still find it a huge stretch to make her someone we should admire, let alone call her “Holy” or a Saint.
She may have not even believed. It took Jesus’ resurrection for his brothers to believe.
We just don’t know.
December 10th, 2009 | 2:21 pm | #8
I have a theory about where the name of Anne as Mary’s mother might have come from. I’ll post on this in a few days.
December 11th, 2009 | 1:00 am | #9
Terry,
Julius Caesar is not mentioned in Sacred Scripture. Did he exist? Can we write about him? Does his influence on Augustus enter into Biblical history?
Just because something is not in Scripture does not make it “false” or suspect. Much of ancient history is based on sources not as close in time to the events they describe as our stories about Anne. We also know that someone got the very young Mary to Elizabeth.
But your mileage may vary,
John Mark
December 11th, 2009 | 1:02 am | #10
I started with Lucy, a person connected to Advent not in the Bible since she lived after Bible times. Not every person worthy of honor lived in Bible times or if he or she lived in Bible times is mentioned in the Bible.
John Mark
December 11th, 2009 | 8:58 am | #11
[...] the Gospel, and Repentance (42)Chris Roberts: “As soon as I read John Schroeder’s… The Women of Advent and Christmas IV: Holy Anne, Grandmother of God (10)John Mark Reynolds: I started with Lucy, a… The Women of Advent and Christmas IV: Holy Anne, [...]
December 11th, 2009 | 10:55 am | #12
John Mark,
The problem isn’t so much honouring non-Biblical characters, but in attaching undeserved labels like “Holy Anne” or “Saint Lucy”, as if they were any different from any other faithful ordinary unknown believer in Christ.
They aren’t more holy or deserving of the title “Saint” than the regular believers Paul called saints.
They’re people, like you and I, failing more often than not, yet, as far as we know, trusting in Christ alone for their salvation.
That’s the issue I think.
December 11th, 2009 | 11:07 am | #13
Daryl,
O.K.
Let’s think about this for a minute.
Are some people in fact more holy than others? In one way, of course, the answer is “no.” It is Christ’s righteousness that saves us. However, not all of us who are believers as consistently say “yes” to our Lord Jesus. Some Christians will sit on thrones in heaven and most of us will not. Some of us make Hebrews 11 and some of us are encouraged to read their examples and then look to the God they served from that example.
My wife, it seems to me, is more holy than I am in that way. Isn’t that at least possible? I have never been to a church (and I speak in all kinds) which does not recognize super-service to the community. Isn’t it possible that though we are all “saints” (in some ways) that others of us are “heroes of the faith.” After all, not everyone gets listed in Hebrews 11.
If it makes you happy call Anne a “Hebrews 11″ Christian . . . then do so.
John Mark
December 11th, 2009 | 11:25 am | #14
John Mark,
I suppose that highlights our differences, doesn’t it.
While I see that, in one area or another, people are “more holy” than someone else, really, none of us are holy, in any sense, apart from the righteousness of Christ.
I think the distinction you’re making, as far as holiness goes, is like saying one ant is bigger than another, when the real standard is a mountain.
So yes, I am a more faithful Christian, perhaps, than I was 5 years ago. But I’m still faithless when compared to God himself.
And he’s the standard.
December 11th, 2009 | 11:32 am | #15
I don’t disagree with anything you are saying, but since the Bible allows us to celebrate the ant and his growth (see Hebrews 11), I hope you have not become holier than the Bible.
Jesus is the standard, but He is a gracious Lord and allows us to rejoice in what He has done in some of His servants. The Lord Jesus Himself said of the noble act of one woman that it would be told of her (in a positive sense) where ever His words were heard.
I refuse on general principles to be more pious toward the Lord about the acts of His saints than the Lord was.
John Mark
December 11th, 2009 | 11:52 am | #16
“I refuse on general principles to be more pious toward the Lord about the acts of His saints than the Lord was. ”
I agree, which is why I think commending people for things they have done, is good and appropriate, but calling someone “Holy Anne” or “Saint So and So” goes far beyond that I think.
December 11th, 2009 | 12:22 pm | #17
O.K.
We have a verbal distinction then not a theological one.
December 11th, 2009 | 12:30 pm | #18
Daryl,
Why can’t someone be called holy or “Saint so and so”? Doesn’t James say the prayer of a righteous man availeth much? That has no meaning if some are not righteous. In fact, he connects that statement with Elijah. The Bible talks about “holy ones” and saints. Why can’t we? Who says Jesus is the standard? Anyway, the standard of what? If you are using reformational theology, then I suppose you believe the justified are positionally righteous in Christ. If that’s the case, and if you believe “Christ is the standard”, then it stands to reason that you believe Christians are righteous and meet the standard. That makes them holy.
December 11th, 2009 | 12:32 pm | #19
I understood that in the Roman and EO church “Saint” was a title of some significance beyond it’s common use in the NT.
Am I wrong? Can a Catholic officially call their Dad ‘Holy Father’ without getting in objection from the church?
December 11th, 2009 | 12:36 pm | #20
Orthodoxdj,
What the Bible doesn’t do is call people “holy” or “saints” in distinction from all other believers.
It is true, the way the NT uses the word, we can correctly and rightly talk about Saint Orthodoxdj, Saint Turk, Saint Daryl, Saint John Mark, if we are believers. There’s no other condition.
Otherwise when Paul wrote “To the saints in Ephesus” we have to conclude that he wasn’t writing to the church as a whole, but to a select few of the really really holy ones.
Which is handy, because then it’s only they who need to love their wives…
I know you’re not saying that last bit, I’m just extending the argument that there are believers and then there are the holy saints.
December 11th, 2009 | 12:48 pm | #21
I don’t disagree that all Christians are saints. However, why does James single out Elijah? No one can really know someone’s heart, but simply because a concept is ontologically vague does not mean it isn’t real. the fact that some are closer to Christ than others ought to be a comfort and hope to us. I hope I haven’t arrived. I hope to get closer to Christ for as long as I live.
December 11th, 2009 | 12:56 pm | #22
Well I would say that he singles him out precisely because he was just another guy.
“Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.”
The whole point was that Elijah was like us, and God answered his prayers. So pray!
Anyway, I love your last 2 sentences. I’m right there with you on that.
December 11th, 2009 | 1:17 pm | #23
Thank you, Daryl. I understand where you are coming from. I wrestled with this issue for a long time before I came to the conclusion I hold to. I understand your point about James’s words concerning Elijah. The bigger point I think he’s making is that we can be like Elijah. We can grow in our faith to be a man like him. That’s exciting. That doesn’t happen overnight.
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