In the Bible, angels appear at God’s will and have a remarkably consistent message: “Don’t be afraid and God is about to do something,” says the Rev. Canon William Cliff. Photo: Neale Cousland
This article first appeared in the September issue of the Anglican Journal as one of two reflections on the gift of angels.
In one of my parishes a number of years ago, I was visiting with a very aged war veteran. Tired of carrying on while all his friends and family had died or faded from his life, he asked me: “Why am I still here? Has God forgotten me?” He wasn’t angry; he was confused about what was taking God so long to come and get him.
“Remember,” I said, “that the all the host of heaven are arranged into armies, with the archangels as their captains. Perhaps, like in any army, there has been a mix up and the clerk angel in charge of your call home has lost your file. When he finds it, God will call you up.”
The veteran smiled and said, “Now, that makes sense—it would be just like the army to lose my record.” I told the story again when I presided at his funeral a little over a year later. The only people there were the Legion honour guard, the
funeral director and me. and the angels.
When angels from the Bible show up, they make an entrance. God wants angels to get our attention because God wants us to hear what has to be said. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, wants to be known—and wants you to know him. If there is an important message that God seeks to be delivered, then you can count on some form of angelic help. Angels appear at God’s will and have a remarkably consistent message: “Don’t be afraid and God is about to do something.” Angels are charged with delivering these messages from God.
This is far different from most of the artistic and dramatic portrayals of angels in popular culture. Pop culture angels show up with therapeutic affirming messages or simply float past as tubby babies with harps and wings. Other pop culture angels look like Hollywood stars and go on rampages of violence—more of a reflection of human rather than angelic reality.
Real angels live and still deliver messages from God. The message is the same: “Don’t be afraid and God is doing a new thing.” Sometimes they wear flesh and look like your neighbour, and other times they make an entrance, as the prayer book says, as angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. Either way, true angels always point in one direction and have a similar message. They make an entrance—and remind us that there is nothing to fear and that God is doing a new thing. Trust in that message makes all the difference because it comes from the God who
loves us and has revealed that love in Jesus. God wants to be known by us and sends us the message all the time, using whatever angel happens to be at hand.
THE REV. CANON WILLIAM CLIFF is the chaplain of Huron University College at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.