What the gladsome tidings be: Angels as messengers

Here's my magazine article for December, which is also the first of my Advent reflections:

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 messengers.

It wouldn't be Christmas without angels. Whether they're sung about in carols, depicted on Christmas cards, or played enthusiastically by children in Nativity plays, they seem to be everywhere. And that's quite appropriate because angels are all around us, and not just at Christmas!

Angels have become increasingly popular with New-Age spirituality as being a bit like fairy-godmothers – quasi-divine spirits that can grant wishes, or as guardian angels, which act a bit like your own personal deity. These beliefs have grown out of the biblical record about angels, but have been severed from the biblical worldview so they can be made to fit into any and all spiritualities and faiths. So what does the Bible tell us about angels?

Firstly, we do not become angels after death. The Bible tells us that we were made a little lower in status than the angels (Psalm 8:5) , but unlike angels we can be saved and we will ultimately rule over the angels (Hebrews 1:14 and 1 Corinthians 6:3). Angels are one of a number of spiritual beings mentioned in the Bible (including cherubim and seraphim), and although we tend to class them all as angels, it is probably more correct to see these names as being different job titles for these spiritual beings. For example seraphim have a particular rôle in the worship in heaven (Isaiah 6).

This leads us on to what angels look like. Our image of angels probably owes more to pagan gods or fairy folklore than the Bible. Cherubim are often shown, e.g. in the Renaissance, as chubby little children with wings, but this is more like the Roman god Cupid than the biblical description in Ezekiel 1. Indeed nowhere in the Bible are angels, unlike cherubim and seraphim, described as having wings – there appearance is more like humans which is why they often get mistaken for humans, which would be unlikely if they had wings!!

However, more important than what the look like is what they do. The word 'angel' means 'messenger' and in the Christmas story this is their important task. Gabriel (one of only two named angels in the Bible) brought the message of the coming birth of Jesus to Mary (Luke1:26-38) and, we assume, to Joseph (Matthew 1:20-21) and the shepherds (Luke 2:8-12). Then after the single angel had announced the Saviour's birth to the shepherds, a great company (or army) of angels appeared praising God and saying ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests’ (Luke 2:13-14).

This is the great message that the angels bring, that God should be praised because there is now the possibility of peace 'to those on whom his favour rests'. We often see on Christmas cards the words 'Peace on Earth' taken from the angels' words, but the angels were not expressing a vague wish that things would get better on earth, but announcing that peace had already come because of the birth of Jesus. And this peace is not the absence of war but a peace, a reconciliation, with God. We are separated from God because we have rebelled against his rule in our lives, but the good news of Christmas is that God himself came to earth in Jesus, so that through his death the punishment for our rebellion would be taken, and therefore we can be reconciled to God. Will you hear the angels' message this year?