Devotional thought composed originally TSA Devotional Book, June 2015.
Read Luke 1:26-38
What
is an angel? This is a good question that does come up in the scriptures; one
such time is when Gabriel visits Mary to announce that she is going to have a
son. The Greek for ‘angel’ (ággelos) simply means ‘messenger’: ággelos is
used 176 times in the New Testament and only the context determines whether it
is a human or celestial messenger. We know from elsewhere in the scriptures
that there are times when people –like Gideon (Judges 6); Manoah and his wife,
Samson’s mother (Judges 13); possibly like Jacob at Jabbok (Gen. 32), and even
Abraham (Gen. 13) did not realize they were entertaining heavenly messengers.
They didn’t know they were dealing with angels. It is possible that Mary did
not recognise Gabriel as a heavenly messenger when he first arrived. After all
she was greatly troubled when he appeared (Lk 1:29).
Mind
you she could have been troubled because she did recognise Gabriel as an
angel. In our day and age we often think of angels as nice spirit-beings
(usually in the form of a woman with wings and a halo over her head) and just
about incapable of deviating from the perfect will of God. This is not how
people saw angels in Mary’s time. Angels were seen as free moral agents who
would just as likely do you harm, as do you good. The Apostle Paul, a later
contemporary of Mary, writes about angels a few times in his letters. None of
these accounts is necessarily flattering (Rom 8:38-39; Gal 3:19-20; Col
2:18-19). At best he portrays angels as free creatures who can either uphold or
oppose the work of God. There is also a story of Tobit with which Mary was
likely familiar. This is about an angel who shows up on a bride’s wedding night
and kills her husband. Angels were certainly not always seen as nice. Today
most of us are familiar with the idea of the ‘fallen angel’.
Now
Mary received the good news that she was about to have a child from Gabriel,
the same angel who told her cousin Elisabeth’s husband that she was going to
have a child. Elisabeth’s husband did not believe Gabriel and was struck mute
for a time.
Angels
are interesting. Angels are real. Angels are active in our world today. Angels
were not always immediately recognised in the Bible and they are not always
readily recognised today. I know that I have had positive encounters with them
on at least two occasions but those are stories for a different time.
What
is important today is not so much that angels can be spirit-beings but that
they are always messengers from God and we are all called to be messengers of
God’s Good News of Salvation.
The
question for us today: are you ready to give and/or receive the Good Message of
Salvation from the Lord?
[1] Based on the article by Captain Michael Ramsay, What is an
Angel? Nipawin Journal (04 March 2009) On-line: http://renewnetwork.blogspot.ca/2009_02_01_archive.html#6243250692371618090
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