Revd Helen Writes …

 

  Emma Heathcote-James, a theology student, was working for her degree when she became interested in angels. Did they exist? If they did, what kind of beings were they? She placed an advert in a newspaper inviting people to tell her any angel experiences they thought they’d had and she received so many replies that she has written four books on the subject. She has received hundreds of accounts from ordinary people from all walks of life, who all claim to have experienced an encounter with an angel. I asked the question of Google, phrasing it carefully to avoid all mention of pop lyrics, etc. I asked, “have you ever experienced an angel?” and 5,480,000 entries came up.

 

  Does this just mean that human beings have a great wish to believe in angels? Does it mean that angels exist? And, if they exist, what are they? What do they do? If I could ask each of you whether you had ever met or seen an angel, I wonder how you would reply. Would anyone say that they had? The word angel is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word for “messenger,” and it has come to mean any messenger, whether human or supernatural, conveying a message from a superior being, such as God. A messenger is of course someone who runs an errand for someone else and conveys a message on that person’s behalf. So an angel of the Lord could be someone who carries a message from the Lord and delivers it, completely indistinguishable from others except for the message they carry.

 

  So you could perhaps say that if you have ever seen a postman, a news vendor, or a preacher, you may have seen an angel if a message is passed on to you. Furthermore, if you have ever had some unlikely person communicate the grace of God to you – maybe a child who loves you unconditionally or a homeless beggar whose words or tears went straight to your heart – well, then you have met and seen an angel. So where did we get the strange notion that angels have wings and halos and robes? It may have developed not only from pagan philosophy and folklore, but also as a result of confusing angels with mythical creatures, the cherubim and seraphim of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, angels appear at those moments which we might call the “turning points” or the “crisis  points” of God’s entry into our world, when he sent his Son to be born of a human mother, to die upon the cross and to rise from the dead.

 

  An angel gave Mary the news at the Annunciation. At the Nativity there were a great many angels. In the wilderness angels ministered to Jesus. During his hours of agonizing in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus was strengthened, once again, by an angel. At the Resurrection one or more angels spoke to the women as they looked in vain for the body of Jesus. And at the Ascension, two angels appeared to the Apostles and told them to return to Jerusalem to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Right through the New Testament Peter, Paul, John were all ministered to by angels at their times of greatest need.

 

   It seems that they are messengers and comforters. It has been suggested that they work, for the most part, behind the scenes, unseen and unheard. They are there, but they are neither seen nor heard. So we could think of angels as God’s invisible host of stage managers, constantly at work behind the scenes. The very fact that angels might be meant to be our servants is in itself a humbling thought. That we, who so often behave like spoilt children in the house of our heavenly Father, should continue to be served, night and day, silently and unquestioningly by the hosts of God, should make us all the more determined to behave better and in a way which resembles more closely the benevolence of God and the joy of serving him in the creation of which he has so generously made us the heirs.

 

  And, if they are messengers then the fact that the word “angel” is right at the centre of the word “evangelism” (think about the spelling) gives us more than a hint about our mission as witnesses to the gospel. As Christians we have a message from God for all the world. Does that make us angels too, or at least capable of being angels – if only we would take the message? If this is so, then to be an angel does not require wings or halos. All it takes to be an angel is a message from God. And that we have. Our assignment is to take that message to those who are in physical or spiritual need, to those who have no hope or who live in fear, and to those who do not know or have not realized the magnitude of God’s love for all that he has made.

 

With love and prayers

Helen Kempster