The Angelic Light (Luke 1-2)

Billy Graham told an exciting story, in his great, truly enduring book on angels published over 30 years ago now, of a missionary named John Paton, whose life was threatened by hostile tribal people in the area they were working at the time. One night, a group of hostile natives surrounded his mission headquarters, intent on burning the Patons out and killing them. John Paton and his wife prayed all during that terror-filled night for God to deliver them. When daylight came, they were amazed to see their attackers leaving. They joyously thanked God for delivering them. A year later, the chief of that hostile tribe became a follower of Jesus Christ. Mr. Paton, remembering what had happened to them the previous year, asked the chief what had kept he and his men from burning down the house and killing them. The cannibal chief replied in obvious surprise, “Because of those men! Who were those men you had with you there?” The missionary answered, “There were no men there; just my wife and I.” The chief responded that they had seen many men standing guard – hundreds of terrifying big men in shining garments with drawn swords so that the natives were afraid to attack!

What do we think of that? Do we believe in angels? Really? I know we’re technically supposed to believe in them, but have we ever truly seen or experienced one personally?

As we prepare to close our shining Advent season Wednesday by quietly lighting the white, the center, the Christ candle and remembering the birth of our LORD, I wonder if we truly understand the role angels play in the whole thing. I wonder if we really understand the shining role angels play in the on-going community of Christ. Let’s look at the angels today…

In the first chapter of Luke, the priest Zechariah was taking his turn serving in the temple when something shocking happened. “…an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous--to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Zechariah asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years." The angel answered, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time.”

As we all know, the angelic involvement continues in verse 26, where Dr. Luke informs us that “in the sixth month [of Elizabeth’s pregnancy], God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.”

Then, in chapter 2, about nine months later outside Bethlehem, “there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

I see some glowing truths about angels in these verses. I’ll confess I usually don’t think much about the angels. Other parts of the story are much more thought-provoking. But that’s my mistake – God allowed the light of these shining angels for very good reasons.

First of all, angels give human beings a true glimpse of reality. We live in a material world in which it is often easy to forget the spiritual, supernatural world. Zechariah was just puttering around the Temple doing his every day work, Mary was just a simple girl looking forward to her wedding day and the shepherds were just trying to make sure wolves and thieves didn’t swipe their flocks. Abraham and Sarah were just an old couple waiting to die, Moses was a well-bred failure in the wilderness, Gideon was a kid sneaking around hiding grain from his enemies and the boring, superficial earthly contexts go on. All these biblical people were just minding their own business when, out of the clear blue sky, angels showed up and gave them a shining glimpse of reality. Angels entered their lives for a moment and reminded them there is ever so much more to this life than what we normally see on the surface.

How ironic that angels help people perceive reality! Angels pull back the curtain for just a moment and help us remember there is much more to this world than just the material.

A second angelic function is also a great blessing. Angels remind people Almighty God remembers and values them. When a special, angelic messenger shows up from Almighty God, there can be little doubt in our minds God notices and values us. When Hagar was cast aside by Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 16 and an angel from God came to care for and encourage her, do you know what she said about the whole experience? She said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” When an angel shows up, it reminds us God has noticed us! God sees us.

Thirdly, there is the annunciation role. Throughout Scripture, Gods’ angels are almost constantly running around announcing the plans and purposes of Almighty God. These guys are the supernatural bicycle messengers of God! And of course this is their primary function in the Christmas story. They made personal announcements to almost every player in the story; even some shepherds Almighty God decided ought to be players. And how cool is that?

But a fourth quality I dearly love about angels is the staggering, frequently terrifying power they bring to bear on any pitiful situation they enter. I believe this powerful quality is the most neglected in our truly angel blind culture today. Most folks today live their lives as if angels don’t exist or, if we grudgingly admit they do exist, we don’t see or understand them for the powerful beings they are. We see them as cute, cuddly, gorgeous or some other strange and superficial thing. But we almost never imagine them as terrifyingly powerful. Think about it; when was the last time you saw a powerfully frightening depiction of an angel? Can most of us even conceive of encountering a spiritual being so obviously powerful we are left quivering on the floor in abject terror? No teddy bear with wings is going to make me do that!

Tell me something. How many angels did it take to kill 185,000 of evil Sennacharib’s Assyrians in one night during the reign of King Hezekiah? One! How many angels did it take to break the seal and roll away the heavy stone on Jesus’ tomb? One! And how many angels will it take to snatch our enemy Satan up like a bug, bind him in chains and store him away in a pit somewhere for a thousand years? One! Just one powerful angel! When the Apostle Paul was encouraging oppressed friends talking about the Day of the LORD in 2 Thessalonians, he said justice will be done “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.” And the word used to describe those angels is the same word from which we today derive the word “dynamite.” These angels are the explosive, powerful dynamite of God!

As children of God, we are not in a fair fight! Angels are not cute teddy bears with wings; they’re powerful beings wielding the staggering, awesome, sometimes even terrifying power of God Himself and, sooner or later, in one way or another, the entire world is going to see that power on display. Sooner or later, in one way or another, we will all get to see them.

But I don’t understand angels much right now. They are wildly mysterious beings.

And perhaps the single, biggest reason angels will almost always remain mysterious relates to the important issue of our proper spiritual focus.

I don’t mean to be a Christmas downer or discouragement here, but chances are very good you’re never going to see an angel in your lifetime, at least in any sort of dramatic or obvious way you’ll recognize. And do you know why that is? We’re probably not going to see them because usually we’re not supposed to see them. And we’re not supposed to be wasting time looking for them. While God will sometimes allow us to see angels for very special reasons at very special times, most of the time we’re not going to see them because we’re not supposed to be seeing them. Angels aren’t the point of the story! The angels weren’t ever supposed to be the focus of the Christmas Eve story. Angels simply provide the punctuation marks in the story – it is The WORD in every sentence that matters. The Word made flesh is our focus.

The single most important role angels serve in this world is to help us all focus ourselves on what and WHO truly matters. Angels quietly do all they do with eternity’s values and focus in view. They are interested in keeping us closer to and focused on God and nothing else!

Even though I absolutely and excitedly believe in angels, even though I absolutely do believe a lot of the angel stories you and I get to hear, even though I know I probably have been and am now personally blessed by angelic ministry, even though I do profoundly believe there are angels joyously filling this room at this very moment, it is not the angels we’re looking for today. It is not the angel candle we’re preparing ourselves to light on Wednesday night.

If I can share just one more of Billy Graham’s wonderful angel stories this morning, as a veteran, I particularly enjoy an old story from one of Billy’s visits to some American troops during the Korean War. A small group of American Marines from the First Division found themselves trapped behind enemy lines in the north. With the temperature at twenty below zero, they were coming close to freezing to death. And they had nothing to eat for six days. Surrendering to the Chinese seemed to be their only option. But one of the Christians in the group read some Scriptures and encouraged the men to praise God anyway. Following this they heard a crashing noise, and turned to see a wild boar rushing toward them. As they tried to jump out of his way, the boar suddenly stopped in his tracks. One of the soldiers raised a rifle to shoot it, but before he could fire, the boar inexplicably toppled over dead. That night they feasted on meat, and began to regain their strength. The next morning, just as the sun was rising, they heard another noise. Their fear that a Chinese patrol had finally discovered them vanished as they found themselves face to face with a South Korean who could speak English. He said, “I’ll show you the way out.” He led them through the forest and mountains to safety behind their own lines again. When they looked up to thank him, he was gone!

I don’t know what to do with a story like that. I wasn’t there. I didn’t see any of it. We hear angel stories like that all the time, many of which turn out to be nothing. Anybody with an e-mail address these days knows stories like this are a dime a dozen. All I can tell you, of a certainty this morning, is that I don’t believe in angels because I’m naïve and love talking about weirdness. I believe in angels because angels shine all over the Christmas story and all over the Bible leading up to it. Though I will never pretend to understand them, I believe in angels because the Bible believes in angels. And the Bible says angels help show me the way out…

And so I’m going to let my angel friends point me toward the white candle again this Christmas. I’m going to remember what they told those humble shepherds all those years ago and I’m going to run to Bethlehem to see and celebrate the Baby. I’m going to join the lovely angel songs coming out of the old stable. And I’m going to pray that the lovely, powerful light of the angels will help each one of us run ever faster toward our Savior!

AMEN.