Creekside Church Sermon of December 22, 1996 "Touched by an Angel?" Luke 1:26-38	Rev. David Bibbee
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Do you believe in angels? If the current fascination with them is any indication, you do. "Touched by an Angel" is one of the most popular shows on television. For Christmas, the theaters are showing a new film, The Preacher's Wife, which is woven around an angel theme. It's a Wonderful Life will be broadcast again. My best friend bought a 5' X 8' tapestry of Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed and their wonderful life family which hangs over his fireplace at Christmas. We bought the video and will watch tonight as George discovers the preciousness of life through a bumbling angel trying to earn his wings.

Last December the cover stories of Time and Newsweek were about the angel phenomena, and this week the cover of People Magazine was about angelic encounters. Five years ago there were just five books dealing with angels. Today there are about two hundred. People tell stories of helpers appearing from nowhere with messages of healing and hope about a sick or dead loved one, or guiding them through ordeals, or saving their lives then disappearing. One example is the story John Berkebile told last year about his brother-in-law who was in a serious auto accident. The State Trooper told John's sister the passenger wasn't hurt. The perplexing thing was, her husband was traveling alone.

Because so many people are ready to believe in angels, angels are becoming a multi-million dollar industry. Angel art and angel consciousness are in. Belief in angels is biblical, but we can go overboard. Many popular books on angels say they are constantly watching over us, always trying to give us what we want, always bringing serenity and calm. The nineteen nineties angels can be what you want them to be. You don't even have to believe in God to believe in them. Someone studying the angel fad says that many of the books encourage the kind of human pride and self-centeredness from which Christianity tries to wean us.

Today we are going to look at angel attributes and why they are significant for us. I've not seen an angel, but if I do one day, I'm certain they won't be the curly haired, rosy cheeked, tubby cherubs that artists have depicted, nor will they have wings. The angels in Jacob's dream needed a ladder to climb between heaven and earth, and while our alter angel is a fine work of art, I doubt that angels look like a Victorian Betty Crocker. Angels in the Bible were usually mistaken for people, and therefore we are told we should be careful about entertaining angels unaware.

In the Christmas story, angels work overtime. They talk to Zechariah, John the Baptists' father, to Mary, to shepherds in the fields, to Joseph in his dreams. Let's look at Mary's meeting with Gabriel to learn about their purpose. First of all, angels convey awe about the otherness of God. To be in the presence of angels announcing a reality beyond imagining that all we consider crucial is of no value, is sobering.

So much of life today is one-dimensional. We go to school. We work. We fix meals, pay the bills, keep house. We plan for tomorrow, make sure we have enough insurance, put the kids through college, plan for retirement. We get so wrapped up in routine that we lose touch with the spiritual world. I don't know what Mary was doing when Gabriel called, but the fact that his first words were, "Fear not," indicates his presence would not create serenity. Mary was troubled. To be God's favored one and bear the Messiah meant everything would change. Each day would be filled with the awareness that God was in it and working his purposes through it.

It comes as no surprise that people are eager to believe in angels. When God and the spiritual side of life are eliminated, the hunger for it will be expressed in other ways. Why all the fascination about the paranormal, the psychic hot-line, extraterrestrials, and buzzer cults? People don't want to believe they're alone. They seek assurance that life is more than the chaos we see all around us. As C. S. Lewis said, "The fact that I hunger for something very deep and cannot fully appease it, no matter how hard I try, leads me to conclude that I was made for another world." Angels tell us that life can't be lived without God. Angels usher us into the awe of God and into the spiritual dimensions of life.

Secondly, angels create gratitude for the sustaining strength of God. We get in touch with our invisible means of support. In the Bible, angels follow their announcements with the promise of God's presence. Gabriel assured Mary that God would be with her. When Jesus was alone in the wilderness combating temptations, we read that angels ministered to him. Think of people you have known who met hardships and stresses you could scarcely imagine, and somehow found the strength to endure. Think about your own experience; the wilderness you had to walk through when you felt as though your reserves of strength and resolve and endurance had run out, and in some inexplicable way you were put back on your feet and given the courage to go on.

I'm reading a moving book called, "A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss and Pain." In one terrible moment, the author's wife, mother, and four year old daughter were killed by a drunken driver. Gerry Sittser describes what it was like to live through this anguish of unimaginable loss, and how he experienced the ways God gave him grace to go on. God has given us amazing capacities to cope, but not so much that we can go it alone when we run into a wall. Emerging on the other side you are asked, "How did you make it?" And the most truthful thing you can say is, "It's beyond me." Frederick Buechner says this about the matter:

Angels are powerful spirits whom God sends into the world to wish us well. Since we don't expect to see them, we don't. An angel spreads his glittering wings over us and we say things like "It was one of those days that made you feel good just to be alive" or "I had a hunch everything was going to work out all right" or "I don't know where I ever found the courage."

We don't know how, but we keep going as if leaning on some invisible shoulder. Maybe these experiences are an indication of an angel at work.

Angels are agents of the awe of God and strength of God, but they are also couriers of the intentions of God. When something big was about to happen, God sent an angel to make it known. Angel literally means "a messenger of God." Their principle task is not to be your bodyguard or personal genie, rather to make known what God wants to do. "Don't be afraid, Mary. You will bear a son. He will be the son of the most high. " "And how am I going to do that?" "The Holy Spirit will take care of that. With God, nothing is impossible."

Here is where it gets difficult...when the task is great, the resources slim, and the outcome in question. George Mueller stood by the door as seventy children waited at their tables for breakfast. In response to a call from God, he began the orphanage fifteen years earlier in Bristol, England, all on faith. He didn't know how to fund it. Didn't know how to pay the help. When confronted with another child without a home, he brought them in without an idea how to provide for another mouth, another bed, another wardrobe, another education. But today his back was to the wall.

The pantries were empty. No breakfast. Maybe this was the end. But then he remembered the conviction he felt when he began the ministry. He remembered Jesus' words, "Bring the little ones to me." The pantries were bare, but there was fire in his belly again. He walked into the dining room of expectant children and said, "Let's pray. Lord, you have promised to meet our every need. Even so, we thank you for the food you are about to provide. Amen." The room was silent as the children waited for the kitchen doors to open. Then the doorbell rang. George opened it and saw a baker's wagon standing in the street. "Mr. Mueller," the baker said. "I woke up at two this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to bake bread for the children. Can I bring it in?" Minutes later, the bell rang again. This time it was the milkman. "Mr. Mueller. My wagon just broke down and I've got to get rid of twenty cans of milk so I can get back to the depot. Can you use them?" And George Mueller sat down with a sigh and a smile, and his ministry would go on another forty-five years, making a mark on the lives of over ten thousand children.

Wherever God's will is at work, God gives what is needed to make it happen. Who is to say that we are not visited by emissaries who work to keep God's call clear? Angels can be seen as all the ways we are helped to stay committed to the course God has prepared, even as Mary and Joseph were faithful to their roles.

This leads to the fourth task of angels. In doing their work, they give us ours. The end result of angel visits is not a tingling, luminous sensation. More often than not they say, "On your feet--there's work to do." Mary didn't mumble about her guardian Gabriel who would shield her from hurt and shower her with continuous tidings of comfort and joy. She responded to Gabriel's announcement by saying, "I am the Lord's servant. Let it happen to me as you have said." The message of angels are designed to get us to do something, change something, be something to help God bless the world.

A common theme in many of the modern angel encounters is that afterward, the recipients lives are changed. Those who grieve the loss of loved ones reach out to encourage others who grieve. They walk into new depths of devotion and service. Mary and Joseph by raising the hope of the world. The shepherds ran back to the fields glorifying and praising God. The wisemen returned another way. It doesn't matter whether you've seen an angel. What matters is that you get the message and do your part to bear Christ to others. You don't need to see an angel to believe in them. Sometimes all it takes is the brush of something like a wing--a fresh breeze of conviction, a breath of desire that leads you like Mary to say, "I am the Lord's servant. Let it be to me as you have said." And off you go to some mission field in a hospital or nursing home, or maybe some homeless shelter or wherever someone needs to know they don't have to fend for themselves, but have been visited by God.

The most convincing evidence that angels exist is that you have a message and are sharing it. At this season when earth and heaven seem to meet, we find ourselves touched by the awe of God, lifted by the strength of God, more aware of the will of God, and called to be the messengers of God. It's the work of angels, all for the purpose of bringing us home to Him. And with that, here's a story I offer as a present.

Harriet was seven. Henry eighty-seven. Harriet lived in Racine, WI. Henry in Wilkes-Barre, PA. They had not met. Harriet's grandfather who meant the world to her, died from a sudden heart attack. Since no one knew it was coming, Harriet couldn't say how much she loved his stories, his homemade ice cream, or how much he would be missed. One October afternoon, Harriet came home from a birthday party with a blue helium balloon. She went to her room and began a letter:

Dear Grandpa: I hope you are happy with God. Since you've been gone, I've thought about you every day. I miss you. Second grade is fun. Polly had a birthday party and that's where I got this balloon. Take care of yourself and write me a note. Lots of love, Harriet.

P. S. If God doesn't like homemade ice cream, put it in the freezer. I'll be up there someday myself.

She put it in an envelope addressed, "Grandpa Barnett, Heaven Up High," tied it to the balloon and walked out the door announcing to her mother, "Mom, I'm sending Grandpa a letter." Mom watched through teary eyes as the vulnerable balloon began its uncertain journey.

Over one thousand miles away during the second week of December, Henry was hauling hay to his cattle in the back pasture when he saw something blue on a fence post. The letter was still attached. Five years ago Henry's wife died and his life had withered ever since. He was a Penn State grad. Most well read farmer around, but knowledge couldn't beat the depression that had him. A skeptic about religion, he quit going to church when his wife died. He let himself go. Didn't shave. Went days between showers. Wore the same clothes for weeks at a time...until the balloon.

On December 20th Harriet came home from school and found a letter addressed to her. It said:

Dear Harriet: Your Grandpa got your letter and he is doing fine. Since they don't need material things, an angel passed it down and asked me to write.

It was a nice thing. You see, I used to think God didn't care very much about us people. I figured it was our job to make life good as we could and that was that. But your letter made me realize how important it is to trust in what we can't touch or see...like you did when you sent your Grandpa that letter.

I just got home from church where our pastor said we adults are never as smart as we think we are. He shared a Bible verse that says, "And a little child shall lead them." I wanted you to know that your letter helped me back to God.

Now some bad news and good news. First the bad news. God loves homemade ice cream. Now the good. It doesn't matter because you can have as much as you want as long as you want it.

Sincerely, Henry Stewart (also a Grandpa)

[Thank you to Barry Johnson for the stories of George Mueller and Harriet and Heary.]

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