Jay’s Blog – Angels Among Us
The Christmas story is littered with angels. When you read it, angelic beings are everywhere: the angel who appeared before Zechariah in the temple, telling him his decades-long prayers for a child have been answered, and that he will be blessed with a prophet for a son. The angel Gabriel who appears to Mary, telling her that she is among women most blessed because she will carry the Messiah. The holy messenger who appears only a short time later to Joseph, telling him not to divorce his now-mysteriously pregnant betrothed because she is, in fact, pregnant with God’s son. And of course, the heavenly host of angels, so many they are not numbered, who rejoice and give praise at Jesus’ birth.
This explosion of angelic beings does not even include those who warn off the wise men from returning to Herod after seeing the Christ child, or the angel who appears yet again to Joseph, warning him to escape with his family to Egypt to avoid Herod’s wrath. When you think about it, angels are the most prominent recurring figures in the Nativity story, more than shepherds, wise men, kings, prophets, or sheep.
If we’re not careful, our modern minds will tend to gloss over the existence of these heavenly protectors or messengers, maybe acknowledging their role in the story, yet immediately discounting them. Our minds subconsciously push them to the back of the Christmas story, thinking, at best, they are beings who appeared back then, but perhaps not now. At worst, our minds simply explain them away, assigning some alternative explanation, like a dream, or the imagination, or even a God-given vision. But, angelic beings? Invisible creatures, messengers of God who sometimes take on earthy form, whether human or other, to manifest themselves to humans? Do we really believe that?
Our ancestors, prior to the 18th century or so, had no problem with this notion. As philosopher Charles Taylor says, they lived in an “enchanted” world, not in the sense of make-believe, but in the sense that their imagination of the cosmos around them allowed for not only the natural world– that which can be seen, felt, tasted, smelled, and heard–but also an invisible world of spirits, both good and evil, existing in a realm that is in the process of constantly interacting with the natural world. This is the Scriptural worldview, with angels, demons, and heavenly beings pervasive throughout the Old and New Testaments, continuously interacting in the affairs of humans.
Enter the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason. This was an amazing era, predominately in Western culture, birthed by minds such as Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Newton, and many others. This intellectual and cultural movement, rooted in the life of the mind, science, and reason, was one of the driving forces in normalizing the scientific method as a common field of inquiry, driving home notions of absolute truth, and laying the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution. It was an extraordinary era that formed all of us as modern thinkers.
One of the unintended effects of the Enlightenment (among other notions, concepts, and movements) on Westerners is that it “disenchanted” us. It rewired our worldview to the point that our default is to read or hear about the heavenly, angelic realm, of angels and demons, and tend to either explain them away, or for our eyes to gloss over mention of them in Scripture altogether.
I discovered this to be painfully true in my life years ago when I first read “The Unseen Realm,” by the late Michael Heiser. Heiser was challenged by this phenomenon of Westerners to ignore mentions of the supernatural in Scripture, and so he walked through the entire Bible with an eye toward every mention of the angelic realm engaged with ours. Heiser’s work opened my eyes to what I had subconsciously ignored for so long: that God created things visible and invisible, and they are constantly at work interacting within and around each other. My eyes were opened, and I could no longer unsee their existence in God’s word.
At the same time, multiple trips to East Africa to work with ministries there showed me still more. The residents of those lands are not Westerners, and are less influenced by the Enlightenment. For them, they still live very much enchanted lives. I saw and heard things there, visions and healings and appearances and posssessions, that I did not see on this side of the ocean, where we often don’t have eyes to see. These are realities I couldn’t ignore.
As I’ve lived longer, I’ve realized that just because we live in the West doesn’t mean angels and demons don’t walk among us. I’ve even witnessed such events in my Western, modern life. As I’ve written about recently, I have been summoned by the Spirit in the past to pray against demonic presences in our house at night, and my wife was led to my young child’s room late one night years ago, where a dark presence hovered over her, one that my wife prayed away in the name of Jesus and by his power.
My wife tells the story of running with her sister one night in college in Dallas, inadvertently ending up in a pretty scary neighborhood, and praying for God’s protection. As they prayed, two large, intimidating dogs silently approached and ran beside them, allowing them to finish their run. Rather than feeling afraid, they felt protected. As they finished, the dogs just as quietly ran off. They never saw the dogs again in the neighborhood.
I’ve written about this before, but I was flying back from Prague through London Heathrow in November 2017. My flight was late coming out of Prague, and my connection through Heathrow was ridiculously tight, so much so that I knew I wasn’t going to make it. Nevertheless, I prayed that God would help me, because I needed to get home for a special gathering of my family.
As we landed in London, I ran off the plane and started sprinting down the labyrinthine corridors of Heathrow, heading to the other terminal where my connecting flight to Dallas was located. I sprinted past a man in a yellow “One World Alliance” vest, holding a sign. Something made me stop and back up. As I walked back to him and looked at the sign, it read “J. Ferguson.” I told him that was me, and he simply said, “Follow me.” This man in the yellow vest walked me through three security checkpoints, taking me to the front of the line of each, and leading me through shortcuts I never would have found on my own. He led me to my gate, just as they were closing the door for my flight. He saved me literally 45 minutes. There’s no way I would have made it without him.
As I got on the plane, I called the lady who booked my ticket and asked her if she sent the guy to me. She said she didn’t even know my flight was late, and that the airline doesn’t send people like that, especially for people like me who were traveling in coach. She had no idea where the guy came from, and had never heard of such a thing. But, I knew. My Father had sent a messenger to guide me, not because this was some kind of earth-shattering event, but to show me his love and care for me in that moment.
When the seventh grader passed away at our school last month, his dad told me the story of his passing, that they were all gathered together in the hospital room, piled up on his bed together. In that moment, they felt beautiful, perfect peace, and the presence of God. A radiant light shone in that room, amazingly bright, one his dad captured in a photo. I know this precious family were visited that day, that God pierced the seen and unseen realms, and gave their family the gift of glimpsing the home their precious son was now going, and where they would one day be.
Angels are only messengers, servants of the Most High God, like us. They’re always clear in Scripture that they are not to be worshipped, simply recognized and heeded. But they are sent by God to show us that he is constantly at work around us. What if we all lived life with enchanted eyes, those that aren’t tainted or limited by the culture around us, but truly open to where and how God is working around us, no matter how or through whom, visible or invisible, he works? Maybe you have your own angel story?
Wherever angels appear in the Christmas story, or in any of the modern stories I’ve mentioned here, or in your own story, God seems to work through them to show us several things. First, God sees us. He sees us in our obscurity, in our pain. He has heard our prayers, no matter how long we’ve been praying them. No matter how long we’ve been working for him, thinking he doesn’t notice, that he may not even care, he absolutely does. God sees.
Through angelic work, God also shows us that he knows us. He knows what we’re feeling. He knows our hearts, our thoughts, our fears, our deepest desires. He knows things about us we don’t even know, or things we may know but we’re afraid to admit. He knows, and he loves.
Finally, angels almost always bring news that God is healing and restoring. Healing and restoring through the long awaited pregnancy. The calling we thought we’d never hear. Our friend who we thought would never turn to Christ after all these years of prayer. The Messiah who would come to save us from our sins and restore us to God. The returning King who will wash away all pain and make all things new.
I don’t always live as if I believe that angels fill the earth. But, as author A.J. Sherrill says, “To believe the Bible is to believe in angels…They are like ladders from God that connect heaven and earth, and we should live with the possiblility of their presence in mind and not forget to show hospitality to all.”
The angel tells Mary that her child’s name will be Emanuel, which means “God with us.” The angel delivered the promise of Christmas. His presence, through his Spirit, and through his agents, both natural and supernatural, seals that promise in and around us.
Jay Ferguson, Ph.D., Head of School at Grace Community School, writes regularly on his blog, JaysBlog.org.