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December 24, 2006
Jesus and the Song of the Angels
Psalm 91 / Zechariah 4: 1-7
Hebrews 1: 1-4
December 24th, 2006
This morning the Sedeji family lit the last candle in our Advent wreathe. It reminds us of the angels that are part of the Christmas story. An angel announced to the shepherds the birth of Jesus, and then many other angels joined this one singing “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to people well pleasing [to God].”
In one of my favorite movies, a dour old curmudgeon who teaches at Bamfylde School says of them, “Angels--tosh, gibberish, and balderdash.” Make believe, that’s what they are. But why this make-believe about angels? Why was “Touched by an Angel” so popular for so many people for so long on American TV? Is it not an attempt to account for the strange serendipities that happen to so many people?
I did not choose to read this morning the familiar passage about angels that we will hear again this evening. In fact, I chose for our hearing passages from the Bible that we do not usually read at Christmas time--that mention angels. I could have chosen many other passages because in both the Old and New Testaments angels are mentioned very often. It is not my purpose this morning to tell all that the Bible says about angels.
Instead, I want to share with you some thoughts that have come to me as I’ve thought of angels and their role with us and with God. Where do I begin?
My impression is that when God created that part of the world that we think of as spiritual, He created it with three parts that would work together as His agents in fulfilling His will.
So we might say there is a three-tiered spiritual aspect of God’s creation. First, the uncreated Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who works directly in the world; second, created special agents of a kind we call angels, and third, human beings—created in the image of God. We plus angels—purpose to do God’s will.
We see in the first chapter of the prophet Zechariah these three-tiers. The Lord talks to the angel as the angel speaks with the prophet who speaks for God to people. In the Book of Judges we see an angel of the Lord appearing to Gideon, and then a different word is used to describe this Being a few verses later. It is the Lord. And we wonder what’s going on. Here we see an integration of the Lord, the angel, and Gideon. Did the Lord come to Gideon in the form of an angel?
The same thing seems to happen to Abraham in Genesis 18. Three men come to him as he is encamped in the shade of oak trees. One of them who speaks to him is referred to as “the Lord.” It is the name of God. The Lord disappears and the other two angels keep on after this moment with the Lord and Abraham. They next appear with Lot, with a mysterious power to defend themselves against the aggression of hot-blooded men in Sodom and then to punish the city with fiery destruction.
In the Old Testament the word for angel (mal’ak) sometimes refers to what we think of as angels, but very often the same word is used to mean simply “messenger.” When I read some instances where the word “angel” is used in our translation I can see that it may either refer to a human being that God sent for a particular purpose or to angel per se. In either case “angel” refers to God’s agent to do the will of God, whether it be a gracious act of deliverance or to implement God’s punishment.
From this I get the idea that God may sometimes accomplish His purposes directly, or by using an unseen “angel,” or God may choose to use—dare I say it--you and me as “angels,” that is, as “messengers” to do his good work. This was what I had in mind in speaking to the children this morning.
Bonnie and I remember two spooky instances. The first was when I was in seminary and we weren’t able to buy groceries. My income as pulpit supply pastor just scratched the surface of our need. An envelope appeared in our mailbox with two $100 bills in it at a time of dire need. We’d not told anybody. Was it a human being or an angel?
Then we remember a time when we sat in our car at the intersection of Yeager Road and Rt. 52. The light was red. When it turned green something kept me from accelerating as I usually do. We sat there long enough that the driver behind us beeped his horn. And then we saw a semi come barreling through the red light. We would have been crushed. We wondered immediately if God had sent an angel to protect us. It was spooky and comforting. “He will give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways.” The word for “way” also means path or road.
Sometimes, of course, we are not miraculously delivered. The Hockerman family was hit by a drunk driver and two of their children were killed. Did the angel of the Lord forsake them? We say, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me.” We cannot understand why God sometimes seems to intervene and at other times lets ill come to us. But this we know, no danger can threaten anything more than death of the body. On the other side of bodily life we trust that the Great Giver of life will keep us.
You and I don’t know when we are functioning as God’s angels, that is, messengers. When God’s Spirit prompts us to do something—that is, we feel a strong urge that we should do something out of the ordinary—we should do it. It may very well be God nudging us to serve as His messenger—as His angel.
Often we will do God’s bidding anonymously—so that the person we help thinks not of us but of God’s supply when the good comes to her. Jesus taught us, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.” Did Jesus give us “angelic” guidance here? Let them see your good work—not you. And when they see the good work, they glorify God!
Angels play another role, we might say, not as agents of blessing but in order to see if we act as God’s ministering servants. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we are told: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” It is at the end of this passage of exortations that we find the benediction with which I close every worship service. “Now the God of peace make you perfect in every good work to do His will.” We are God’s agents. We are to do “every good work” because this is God’s will for us.
Let me conclude with impressions from the angels word to the shepherds in the well-known passage in Luke 2. After the single angel announced to the shepherds the birth of Jesus, it was joined by many other angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among well-pleasing people.” I wonder why the angels did not break out into the Doxology that we sing. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow . . . praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Instead the angels ascribe glory to God and then bless with peace people who are well-pleasing to God. Why did not the angels praise the new-born Christ-child?
They had things straight. They praised God because they remain in awe of God, like the six-winged angels described by the prophet Isaiah. “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.” This is the first order of business, on their part, freely to acknowledge the awesome glory of God.
But then they join with God’s purpose in sending His Son. Remember God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. So, as Jesus was born for the sake of us people, so the angels declare this purpose—to bring peace to us when we are well-pleasing in God’s sight. The angels did not lose sight of the purpose of the Incarnation. Nor did Jesus ever forget this.
Never in the Gospels do we see Jesus waiting for applause when He demonstrates His love and power. Unlike many sports heroes who wait for us to stand in awe of them, to praise them and pay them immense sums of money, Jesus did not expect more than to be despised and rejected of men. He did not love us in return for our anticipated gratitude. He loved us because this was His nature to love us. He did not say, “Praise me all creatures here below.” We sing this if we are right minded, but He never demanded that we do.
Here Jesus as Master-Servant provided us the example of how we are to serve in His name. If nobody notices, that’s beside the point. If nobody says, “Thanks,” we’re closer to Jesus than ever. It is the task of God’s angels, of all God’s messengers simply to do what is pleasing in His sight.
I proposed earlier that there is this three-tiered spiritual aspect in God’s creation. God, the uncreated One pours out His blessing, sometimes directly. But God also employs created beings we call angels to do His bidding. Sometimes, in fact, there is such an integration between God Himself and His special messengers, as in the situation of Gideon I mentioned earlier, that it seems God appears in the guise of a person. Gideon thought it was a man, then that it was an angel, and then realized it was God—so that he had to prostrate himself in adoration.
We read, “Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord, and Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! . . . Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord.”
As Christians, as followers of Jesus, we have a very high purpose in life. It is your calling and mine to be continuously available to be an angel, so to speak. We are different from angels in that we live in bodies; we can marry and have children. Angels that we think of as angels cannot do that. Sometimes we can see them as they masquerade in human form. Most often we cannot see them. But you and I can always be seen. And that instinct in us that makes us think in terms of God is not to be enjoyed as a mystical tendency, but as a faculty God has put in us to make us useful.
Every Sunday morning you and I leave this place as messengers of God, to be ready on an instant’s notice, to do His will. At this time of the year we think of the Incarnation of the Son of God. What does that mean? It means that the uncreated, formless God took on Himself our form in order to personally do a work of grace. This Incarnate God said of those who believe in Him, “Greater things than these they will do because I go to the Father.” How so? Because, as the angels serve at God’s sending, so do we—if we see ourselves aright. Belief is not clinging to right ideas about Jesus alone. Belief is submission to the high purpose for which Jesus was born. We who believe are all over the world as agents of God’s purpose, angels, we might say.
I pray it may be so of you and of me. Let us pray: grant, O God, that as you care for us we may be your messengers to care for others according to your purposes. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at December 24, 2006 09:30 AM