Forthwith appeared a shining throng: angels as worshippers

Our Advent Evening Prayers will be looking at different features in the Christmas story, and our news sheets will have a more in-depth look at another feature: angels. This week we're looking at angels as worshippers.

Although the main rôle of angels is to be messengers for God, they are perhaps most associated with praise and worship. So we get the popular image of angels with harps and occasionally trumpets. Both of these images come from the Bible (Revelation 5:8 and 8:6), although, as we learned last week, it would be wrong to think that this is what angels spend most of their time doing. There is a debate about whether angels sing, as there are few references to angelic singing: they are more often described as 'saying' or 'crying' and their sound is likened to trumpets (Revelation 1:10). But what they sound like is less important than what they are saying.

Praise and worship of God is the specific task of the cherubim and seraphim (Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1), and their ministry is carried out solely in the presence of God in heaven. Angels, on the other hand, are go-betweens for the heavenly realm and the earthly realm, so they join in with the heavenly worship when they are there, and encourage worship on earth when they are here. In some ways they are part of the answer to the prayer that Jesus taught us to say: they help us to see how the Father's name is hallowed in heaven, so that we may hallow it in the same way on earth.

This is why the most famous heavenly worship 'song' is "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come" (Revelation 4:8). Their worship focuses on the holy character of God and his actions past, present and future. This reminds us that God's primary characteristic is holiness. We often think of 'love' being the defining characteristic of God, and it's true that God is love (1 John 4:8), but his love is only able to be exercised because of his holiness. As God is holy, nothing impure can ever enter his presence, and as he is self-sufficient, he needs nothing else outside of himself. Therefore, everything in heaven and on earth only exists because God wills it. He could choose to be in splendid isolation from creation, but instead he wants to be intimately involved with his creation and in particular with humanity. But because our sin makes us impure and deserving of punishment, it is only because God is loving that he makes us a way by which we can be saved: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). However, if God were not holy we would not need to be forgiven to enter his presence. Only a holy God can be self-sufficient, just and all-loving.

Angels proclaim God's holiness in heaven and so they lead the world in glorifying God, hence the famous Christmas song of praise: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests’ (Luke 2:13-14). The angels acknowledge God's greatness, giving him the credit for the wonderful gift of Jesus; with the phrase 'in the highest' having the double meaning of encouraging the praise of God 'to the greatest extent' as well as 'in heaven'. As we looked at last week, God is to be praised for redeeming humanity from its sin.  Angels know how wonderful it is to be in God's presence, and so they rejoice that now humanity can also enter God's presence. As Jesus said “the angels of God rejoice over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10 Good News Translation).

The worship given by the angels reminds us that we too should praise God for who he is and what he has done for us,  and when we do so we join in with the heavenly worship with the angels, and archangels and all the company of heaven. The shepherds, after seeing the baby Jesus, went back to work joining with the angels glorifying and praising God (Luke 2:20). Will you join the angels in worshipping too?