In November Alison and I were able to realise one of our long-term dreams, when we visited Venice together. I don’t need to say just how wonderful that was. The British have always loved Venice, and most of us, when we’re there, spend the first few days pinching ourselves to make sure we’re not dreaming. Among many other impressions, we were struck by the prominent place of angels in the religious art and architecture: the Archangel Raphael even has a church dedicated to him.
This got me thinking about these mysterious messengers from God, created beings like ourselves, yet spiritual, otherworldly. According to one New Testament writer, they “long to look” into things which we experience and they never can; yet in most places they seem so powerful and uncanny that they elicit terror in us, rather than love. If you read any Bible story in which angels feature, you can be fairly certain that their first words to the people they appear to will be “Don’t be afraid.”
And the Christmas story in particular, is one in which the angels are working overtime. This is because, as the messengers of God, they are the ones who are charged with announcing and explaining what is going to be happening.
It is the Archangel Gabriel who does most of this running around. First he was sent to a young girl in Nazareth, called Mary, with the news that she was to bear a wonderful child. The angel told her that she would conceive a child - even though she was not yet married - by the Holy Spirit. Because of this the child would be the Son of the Most High, the Son of God. He would be a king who would reign over the kingdom of his ancestor David, not just for the span of a human lifetime, but forever. Already in this first ‘Annunciation’ there was the discovery that the baby who would be born to Mary would be both human and divine, and would be one who would rule, and command the obedience of, his people.
Then Gabriel brought a similar message to Joseph, the man betrothed to Mary. When he learned that she was pregnant, and knowing that he was not the father, he was minded to break off their proposed marriage. But the angel warned him not to, assuring him that Mary had not been unfaithful to him, but faithful to God. She had conceived by the Holy Spirit, and Joseph’s task would be to stand by her and be the human guardian of the child. He would have the responsibility of naming him, and was to name him Jesus, which means “the Lord saves”. From what? From sins. For what? For a life which really is life. And more than this, the child was to be called Immanuel, which means “God is with us”. Again there was the theme that Jesus was coming into the world to be the presence of God among human beings. When God wanted to do something about the mess the world was in, he didn’t send help: he came himself to take his place in his creation, and to put it right from within.
And then, when the baby was actually born in Bethlehem, it was the angel, together with a sky-full of the heavenly host, who announced the birth to a group of terrified and bewildered shepherds. Their message, similarly, was that the baby born that night was to be for them and for all people their Saviour, the Christ or Messiah, the Lord.
The message that was first brought by God’s angelic messengers is the same message that comes to us at Christmas, and demands that we pass it on. The rift between heaven and earth, between God and humankind, which came into being because of humanity’s failure to live within the relationship of harmony that God intended, is healed by God’s own action of crossing the gap, becoming part of his creation, so that the creation may be taken up into God.
One of the psalms appointed for Christmas Day is Psalm 85, which includes the verse: “Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” When God became man, he embodied not only perfect love and forgiveness, but also perfect righteousness. The apparently incompatible requirements of justice and mercy are fully reconciled in the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.
That really is something for us to celebrate as we remember that holy birth at Christmas time. May God bless you and your families this Christmas, and in the New Year.
Published in the Marston Times, December 2007