A Sermon preached on December 25th (Christmas
Day) at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
Isaiah 9:2-7, Titus
2:11-14, Luke 2:1-20
Perhaps things have
improved, but for a while in the religious/spiritual section of bookstores there
seemed to be more books on angels than on Christianity! I’m not quite certain
why their rather complicated and esoteric theology, or angelology, which
includes lots of different orders of angels is or was so proved popular. Perhaps
because each person had one or more personal angels and people preferred having
a spiritual being all to themselves, rather than having to share as we do!
But angels are
biblical of course and in fact the main Gospel of this year’s lectionary, Luke,
contains more accounts of angelic revelation than any of the other Gospels:
angels reveal to Zechariah that John will be born, an angel tells Mary that
Jesus will be born, angels appear –as we just heard – to the shepherds to
reveal not only that Jesus has been born, but who this Jesus is. Angels,
described as two men in dazzling clothes, appear outside the empty tomb at the end
of the Gospel and this theme of angelic revelation continues into Luke’s second
book, the Acts of the Apostles, with angelic appearances to both Peter and
Paul.
These angels are
however, while spiritual beings, not sent to accompany and protect or enlighten
individuals. They are simply messengers from God. That is all the Greek word angelos means: messenger. And the word angelos is the Greek translation of the Hebrew
term, mal’ākh, which again just means "messenger." And so the Old Testament
prophet named Malachi, whose book is the last one in our version of the Old Testament,
is simply just that, the Messenger.
One of Luke’s
central themes is that of the importance of the messengers who point us to who
Jesus really is. These supernatural beings proclaim the message of God’s
intervention in the world and the coming of salvation for which the people have
longed. But it would be a mistake to assume that Luke believed that only angels
could be messengers of God. On the contrary each appearance points to the importance
of human messengers and in fact each time a human messenger is appointed
to pick up the baton and to carry the message on.
Zechariah – once he
gets his voice back – tells us in the Canticle that bears his name that his son
John will go before the Lord and to prepare his way and “to give his people
knowledge of salvation.”[1] In
the song we call the Magnificat, Mary
tells us that God “has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to
our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.”[2]
And as we heard this morning the shepherds took on the message of the angels, “glorifying
and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” (Luke
2:20)
So Luke’s stories
of angels are not intended to make us passive recipients of God’s supernatural message,
but active participants in its proclamation. The message is a message of
salvation: both spiritual and physical. Isaiah looks forward, as we heard, to a
kingdom of justice, righteousness and peace, a kingdom the child who will be
called – and I almost want to sing this - Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace – will establish. And we celebrate the
establishment of this kingdom every Christmas – even if not all aspects of it
are yet visible everywhere or in everyone. Paul tells Titus that the same child, who he
simply calls the grace of God, God’s gift to us, has already brought salvation
to all and will, if we let him, educate and train us “in the present age to
live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly.” Again – that’s still work
in progress, at least for me!
There’s a lovely German poem by Rudolf Otto Wiemer called „Es müssen
nicht Männer mit Flügeln sein, die Engel, “ that is “Angels don’t just have to
be men with wings” that we used last year at the Christmas Eve service at the
Teestube, the day centre for the homeless that we support as one of our outreach
projects.
One verse that I particularly like is:
Sie
haben kein Schwert, kein weißes Gewand, die Engel. Vielleicht ist einer, der
gibt dir die Hand, oder er wohnt neben dir, Wand an Wand, der Engel. Dem
Hungernden hat er das Brot gebracht, der Engel. Dem Kranken hat er das Bett
gemacht, und hört, wenn du ihn rufst, in der Nacht, der Engel.
They don’t have a
sword or white robes, the angels. Perhaps it’s someone who takes you by the hand,
or lives right next door to you. Who gives the hungry bread, who for the sick makes
their bed, and who hears you, when you call in the night, the angel.
I really and truly
believe in angels, but not the esoteric kind. You see, when I look out into
this church I see a whole room full of angels, you! I want you to be angels like
the ones we just heard about in the poem. I want you to be messengers of God. The
message you can bring, by word and by deed, is a message of salvation. We need
to be saved from our self-imposed alienation and isolation – both from one
another and from God. Christ came at Christmas to tell us that we are not
alone, that God came to be with us – that’s one of the names he is given, Emmanuel,
God with us. I want you all to be impassioned messengers of God and to bring this “good news of great joy to
all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is
the Messiah, the Lord.”
We share this one God and this one Saviour with everyone, just as we
share our one humanity with everyone. That is Good News that can change us and change
the world. Like the shepherds you have come and found Mary and Joseph, and the
child here today – and I don’t just mean in our wonderful crèche or nativity
scene. And so just like the shepherds I hope you will go out of this place, glorifying
and praising God for all you have heard and seen, as it has been told to you, and
that you will tell and show others about the love of God that is the Good News
of Christmas. Amen.
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