Pastor Christa von Zychlin

Our Savior’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

Hartland, WI. 53029

Christmas Eve 2003  Luke 2:1-21

And Suddenly, Angels

Four archangels are named in Jewish & Christian tradition:

Michael, whose name is a challenge: Michael, Mee-cha-el,  WHO IS LIKE GOD?

URIEL, whose name means “God is light” and by this we are quite certain is meant not a little candle flame but a great blinding light, the light of lightening, the light of thunder, the light of the heavens ripped wide open.

GABRIEL means strong man of God, and so he is, God’s messenger who wrestles with the likes of Jacob in the field; with Zechariah in the valley of his soul.

RAPHAEL means “God heals” 

They are not gentle, these Biblical angels, they are not sugar sweet and dimpled; not whimsical, not pastel, not soft.

One of them, a winged creature, still guards the entrance to the Garden of Eden, and he stands there not simply sternly, but with a sword, flashing and brilliant with a burning flame, so that not one of us mere mortals might enter and make our way towards the tree of life which grows there.

Several  angels appeared to the prophet Isaiah in the temple times of the Old Testament.  Again, they were flaming creatures, and fearsome, with six wings apiece, and not singing, but shouting, so that Isaiah cried out and the temple shook and was filled with their smoke.

You may think you’d like to see an angel, but you actually wouldn’t.

Ezekiel saw angelic creatures and they had four fierce faces and four strong wings and hands like a human’s, and burning coals of fire spitting out lightening from the center of their beings.

The angel Michael is best known for being the leader of the heavenly army, and defeating the great red dragon of the book of Revelation, just before 7 lower angels are commanded to go & pour out the 7 bowls of the wrath of God, bowls of blood and bowls of earthquakes & fire.

No, no you should not want to meet an angel; they are too bright, too fierce, too wild for men & women to stand.  And what’s more, their bodies glow with the reflected light of God, a light hot like the sun, too hot for ordinary mortals.  Much too dangerous for the likes of you & me.

But, if you were a shepherd, living in the fields around Bethlehem, working the night shift, a little cold this night, a little wild looking yourself, your hair uncut, your beard rough, your nails stained with Jerusalem dirt, your sheep huddled around you for warmth.  You’ve been sleeping, as those on call do, with ears open in case a lion or a bear or a human thief should be on the prowl,  in which case you’d be up in a flash, feeling for the knife in your cloak, ready to defend your lambs and your flock, with your life.

If you were a shepherd that night near Bethlehem, you would not have been asked if you wanted to see an angel, because just suddenly

One appeared.

We don’t really know which one it was: Michael, the challenger, Uriel: God is light, Gabriel: the strong man of God or Raphael: God only heals.  But the angel, suddenly, stood before the shepherds, and you can know they were wide awake in a flash, every muscle tensed, the hair on their neck on end!

The funny thing is, The angel  might actually have been there all the time.  It could be, it could be that we are surrounded by angels much more than we’d really care, maybe,  to know about.  This one suddenly appears, standing, on sturdy legs, and shining with the brightness that is part of those who spend much of their time in the actual presence of God.  And the shepherds were not delighted to see them.  No, the Word of God says clearly, they were terrified.  The protective curtain between heaven and earth had been lifted.  No, actually, it had been ripped in two, and these guys, these mind your own business, a little bit grungy, regular kind of shepherd people were shocked to their deepest core. Because now they knew:   Heaven exists.  God is.  It’s all true.  The safety of my little managing ways, my enterprise… my little establishment, my little fenced off field of sheep, is broken, like an eggshell, like a seedpod, like the sudden gush of amniotic waters,  Life will never be the same.

When an angel appears, you see, it is nearly always to lead you somewhere you would never, ever, on your own, have thought to go.  The angel appears to Moses and he is called to go to Egypt, that country where he is a wanted man.  The angel appears to Isaiah and he is sent to tell the people  of Ephraim that they will be shattered.  The angel appears to Mary and now she will be known as the Mother of God, a shocking and dangerous title to bear.

And so when the angel suddenly appears to the shepherds, the first words out of the angels mouth has to be “Don’t be afraid.” For otherwise these shepherds might keel over, they might not be able to stand.   Their fast beating hearts might just give out.  So quickly the angel continues.  And maybe it is Raphael after all, that archangel whose name means “God alone heals”  because his words are a soothing comfort to the Shepherds shock & fright: 

You and I know these words:  (shall we read them together again tonight?) “But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

This, my brothers & sisters, is also the Angel’s word to us this night.  For it wasn’t just for shepherds that God was born in human flesh, it was for innkeepers and motel maids, for kings and empresses, for wise men, for councilwomen, for prisoners and parents, and school kids and strangers who work the night shift, who we don’t even know.

Tonight, we are the shepherds, and for us, on this night of Jesus’ birth,  the whole sky lights up.  Suddenly, it’s no longer just one archangel, it is the whole heavenly army of God.   And they are  brimming with the news and singing with a song like the roar of the oceans, like the sound of many bells, like the screaming of eagles:  “Glory to God, glory to God in the highest” and here at last, in this Child, we humans beings will find peace between ourselves and with God.

And so it is that the birth of Jesus was announced by angels at Christmas time.  May your life too, and mine, be changed & rearranged by this sky shattering news.  May we trust in this hope.  May we live lives which risk reflecting the terrible beauty of this glory:  That God was born a Baby – fragile flesh of our flesh & fragile bone of our bones, to bring the salvation announced by angels from Heaven, now made known upon all the Earth.   Amen.

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