A young woman pleads with the crowd around her as she is led to her execution. She is not begging for her life to be spared but for someone, anyone, to look after her 1-year-old son, Isaiah. Offering her significant wealth as a means to raise the boy, she desperately scans the sea of faces watching her turmoil. Finally, a man, the local baker, steps forward and volunteers to become Isaiah’s guardian. This woman is Anna Jansz and, with her son’s future now in another’s hands, she prepares herself to become a martyr.
Anna’s background and Anabaptists in 1530s
Anna Jansz was born to a wealthy family in Biel, Holland, in 1510. In her early 20s, she and her husband, Arent, became inspired to be baptized by an Anabaptist leader who subscribed to a radical and somewhat apocalyptic worldview.
Anabaptists within this radical group believed that, in order to prepare for Christ’s return, they must gain political control. This in turn created a movement of Anabaptists settling in the town of Münster, Germany, to establish the New Jerusalem. By the 1530s, Anabaptists gained majority control of the city council and set about abolishing private property and infant baptism. It became mandatory to be baptized as an adult in order to live in Münster.
At the height of the Münster revolution, the region’s prince-bishop ordered soldiers to gain back control of the city, causing physical violence to break out when the Anabaptists resisted. Because they did not live in Münster, it is unclear whether Anna and Arent supported this violent defiance or if they identified with a pacifist viewpoint. However, Anna penned a triumphant hymn titled “Trumpet Song,” which soon became a bittersweet anthem for the revolution, evoking imagery of the Lord’s heavy-handed judgment of earthly leaders and rescue of believers.
Anna became close friends with David Joris, an Anabaptist leader within the renewal movement. Joris’s teachings centered on pacifism and peace. If Anna had not previously identified as a pacifist, Joris’s influence prompted her to do so. This friendship served to strengthen Anna’s faith in Anabaptist beliefs to a greater degree.
Arrest and martyrdom
In 1538, Anna, her young son and a friend, Christina Barents, traveled together in the Netherlands. While traveling, the two women sang a song associated with Anabaptism. Local authorities caught wind of the Anabaptist singing and arrested Anna and Christina, sentencing them to be drowned in January 1539–a cruel irony considering their condemnation was due to their belief in adult baptism.
A legacy for her son
Isaiah Jansz seems to have lived a prosperous life under the care of the generous baker who accepted the child from his heartbroken mother. The boy went on to become the mayor of Rotterdam, Holland – the very city where his mother was killed for her faith.
When he was old enough, Isaiah received a letter that Anna had written to him before her death. In it, she assured him her death was not in vain, that she was now basking in heavenly glory and she encouraged Isaiah to pursue the Lord.
Anna’s letter ends with this powerful reminder for us all, centuries later: “Honor the Lord in the works of your hands, and let the light of the Gospel shine through you. Love your neighbor…O my son, let your life be conformed to the gospel, and the God of peace sanctify your soul and body, to his praise. Amen.”
Sources
- https://anabaptistworld.org/anna-jansz-of-rotterdam/
- https://martyrstories.org/anna-jansz/
- https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/pages-from-vol.-40-no.-1-winter-2022-2.pdf
Angela Vix has a bachelor of arts in history from Tabor College and a masters in Museum Studies from the University of Oklahoma. She has served as the archival assistant and assistant director at the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies in Hillsboro, Kansas. She attends Ebenfeld MB Church, Hillsboro, where she is a children’s Sunday School teacher.
