The Characters of Christmas: The Angels
Luke 1:26-38, Matthew 1:20-24a, Luke 2: 9-15
Let’s talk about angels. The prominence of angels in the Christmas story is obvious, from the Christmas card we send, to the decorations on our trees, to the adornment of our yards, we’re surrounded by angels. We even have an angel hanging in our front yard here at FUMC in the Nativity scene. Hollywood gets in on the angel action, too. No, I’m not talking about John Travolta as Michael the archangel, though Gabriel does figure prominently in the Christmas story. You might also be thinking of a coarse, street-wise angel named Cash as played by Don Cheadle in the 2000 film entitled The Family Man. Then, there’s Roma Downey and Della Reese who were the stars of the TV series Touched by an Angel. Of course, my favorite Christmas angel is Clarence Odbody from Frank Capra’s classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Clarence is the AS2 (that’s Angel 2nd Class) sent from heaven to save poor George Bailey. Nowhere, though, are angels more prominent at Christmas than in our music—the songs we sing. The UM Hymnal contains 19 songs that feature tales of angels in some fashion. From obscure songs we know little of like Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light, to songs we know by heart—Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.
So? What’s with all the angels? Why don’t we see angels anymore, especially since they figure so prominently in the Christmas story? Seriously, though, if we were to see an angel, our response would be much like the poor draw bridge operator in It’s a Wonderful Life when Clarence Odbody shows up to save George from jumping off the bridge. We’d literally fall out of our chair in stunned surprise. That’s exactly how all the people to whom the angels came reacted at first—with shock and fear. That shock and fear was soon transformed into hope and expectation, and it’s there I think we discover what we can learn from these characters of Christmas. It would probably take a series of sermons to address all the questions we have surrounding angels. I certainly can’t answer them in a single sermon, but a great clue concerning the important question of what we learn is found in a little phrase from the well-known song, O Little Town of Bethlehem. In the first verse, we find this phrase, “the hopes and fears of all the years, are met in Thee tonight.” I believe God sent the angels to dispel the fear of the events and announce the hope found lying in a manger in Bethlehem.
Angels are messengers. That’s what the word means, and angels are mentioned in 34 of the 66 books of the Bible. The angels in the Christmas story came to bring a message to others from God. Interestingly enough, the messages were all quite similar, and each contained the phrase, “Don’t be afraid.”
The first encounter with the angel Gabriel comes in Luke 1. There, Gabriel appears to Mary. We pick up the story in verse 26: “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.28 And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you’.” I like what the New Living Translation says about Mary next. In verse 29, it says: “Confused and disturbed (NO KIDDING!), Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.”
Mary is probably thinking, “Sure, the Lord is with me. I’m a good Jewish girl from a good Jewish home.” No, that’s probably not what she was thinking at all. She was probably thinking, “Who are you and why are you here?”
The angel Gabriel speaks to her again, and says, “Don’t be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
“Do not be afraid,” Gabriel said. Mary wasn’t afraid because the angel was there. Persons in the 1st century were much more open to sights of the supernatural than perhaps we are these days. No, the words were preparing Mary for what was to follow—the announcement that God was calling her to do something that was completely out of the ordinary, something that would de-rail her life, possibly create a scandal, and leave her homeless and destitute. There fear wasn’t the presence of the angel. The fear lay in the dreams of a life about to be shattered by the call of God.
Don’t be afraid when God calls you out of the ordinariness of your life. Don’t be afraid for God to choose to use you to do something great to impact the world. Don’t be afraid because where God calls, God provides—God provides grace. That’s what Gabriel told Mary. “You have found favor with God.” You have found favor…you’ve found grace. Mary became an instrument of grace. Mary couldn’t be an instrument of grace for others until she experienced God’s grace herself. The angel’s announcement was one of grace, and grace transforms fear into hope.
The second appearance of an angel appears in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 1. An unnamed angel appears to Joseph in a dream. Joseph has already gotten the news of Mary’s pregnancy, and he’s considering all the options. He has several, but I’m not going to talk about them here because I’m preaching about Joseph next week. As Joseph sleeps, the angel comes and says, “Do not be afraid to go ahead with your marriage to Mary.” Don’t be afraid. I can imagine as Joseph pondered the situation that things just appeared hopeless, but the angel’s announcement was a reminder that there was no reason for hopelessness. The angel reminded Joseph that what was happening was simply a fulfillment of God’s Word as found in the prophet Isaiah: Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and he will be called Immanuel (meaning God is with us). It was the angel’s way of saying, “You’re right where God wants you to be. You may not like it, but this is a God thing.” The angel shared a message of encouragement.
I am reminded that there is no such thing as a hopeless situation, there are only hopeless people. God can redeem any situation that life throws at us, and life can be pretty mean and unfair. Guess what? Life is not fair. Because of sin, there are some things in life that are unjust. That doesn’t mean we don’t work to correct the injustice of life, but some things are just beyond our control. When life seems to be out of control, we need encouragement. We need to hear that we’re not alone, that we’re not forgotten, that God cares.
One day two people were out distributing loaves of bread in a low-income housing complex. They came to an apartment where they heard arguing through the door, but they decided to knock anyway. A man opened the door and asked what they wanted. One of the visitors said, "We don't want anything. We just wondered if you know anyone who could use some loaves of bread?"
"Why are you doing that?" the man asked.
"Just to let people know that God loves them."
"What did you just say?" the man asked, rather anxiously.
"We're just handing out loaves of bread to let people know that God loves them."
The man stared and said, "I can't believe this. We just buried our three-week-old son yesterday, and now here you are at our door."
The visitors offered to pray with them, and the couple accepted their offer. As they were leaving, and the door was being closed, they heard the husband say to his wife, "See, honey? I told you God cares. We thought he wasn't paying attention to us, but he sent those people here to make sure we knew." (From a sermon by Michael Luke, The Demonstration Factor, 5/5/2011) The encouragement of God’s presence can transform our fear into hope.
The final encounter comes with the bunch of shepherds we discovered last week in Luke 2:8-20. You remember the scene, “Shepherds in the fields abiding,” when suddenly a great light appears, and one more unnamed angel shares these words: “Don’t be afraid! I bring you good news.” The angel brought “good news,” and having made his announcement, he was joined by a vast host proclaiming, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors.” What happened when they heard the good news? They investigated the claims of the angel, found them to be true and worshiped the new born king.
The shepherds were probably more startled than afraid. As I said earlier, 1st century folks were more open to the possibility of creatures from another realm than we are, but it was the middle of the night. You know how it is when the phone rings at 3 a.m., and you’re sound asleep. How your heart jumps into your chest? How your heart beat quickens? How your blood pressure rises? Or, when you go to sleep and forget that you left your shirt hanging on the back of chair across the room, and the light coming through the window catches it just right as you’re half-asleep and you mistake it for someone or something in your room. That’s probably how it was with the shepherds that night. But, hearing the announcement, their fear was quickly transformed to joy as they experienced Christ for the first time.
That’s what the good news of God’s salvation does for us—it transforms fear into joy.
Grace, encouragement, and salvation. Those were the announcements of the angels on that first Christmas. We wonder why we don’t see angels anymore? Who says we don’t? We just don’t know they’re there. But, what if we’re the angels? What if we’re the instruments that God has chosen to share grace, encouragement and salvation?
We know we live in a world filled with fear. We live in a world where people are afraid of death. I do find it strange that a greater fear for most people than death is public speaking, but go figure. In a world of plenty, there are people who fear not having enough. People fear rejection, loneliness, intimacy, failure and commitment. We’ve been to the manger people. We’ve seen Jesus. We’ve experienced his grace, heard his encouragement and know his salvation. Our fear has been turned to joy. We must share with others that in Jesus Christ they don’t have to live in fear.
This Advent season, let Christ be born in us in new ways. Let Christ be born through us as we sing of God’s salvation, offer God’s encouragement and extend God’s grace to all who live bound by the fears of this life. I kind of think that’s what is meant when we sing the fourth verse of one of our Christmas favorites. Listen to the words:
For lo! The days are hastening on,
By prophet seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
If we don’t sing the song of the angels, no one else will. I really don’t see myself as an angel, and I’m sure not many other people do, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have a song to sing, and it is the angels song.
