THROUGH THE CLOVEN SKIES
Genesis 32:22-32
Luke 1:26-38
Hebrews 13:1-2
Rev. Gary Paterson
December 6, 2009
‘Tis the season for angels… on a midnight clear, through the cloven skies they come; angels we have heard on high; O hark the herald angels sing. I love the idea of angels. They float through the Scriptures, sometimes landing when you least expect them… as with Abraham, when he entertained three ordinary visitors, offering them rich hospitality, only to discover he was really encountering angels, who announced that his wife Sarah, so post-menopausal, was going to have a child. And Sarah laughed at the very idea… imagine, laughing at angels. And then there’s Jacob, with his midnight wrestle at the River Jabbok, not knowing who he was struggling with. And what about Isaiah’s vision of the holy throne of God, with seraphim and cherubim sailing around with their six wings and luminous glory. But perhaps the most famous angel story for Christianity is the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel comes to a young maid in Nazareth and announces to Mary that she will conceive and bear a son. Though it might be better to understand the angel’s words as an invitation to participate in God’s dream, to understand her life in partnership with Holiness. You see, Mary could have said no; she could have turned away; there was a choice. As St. Augustine said long ago, “Without God, we cannot; without us, God will not.”
It’s easy to imagine the scene; a thousand and one artists have tried their hand at it, from Russian masters with their icons, to Michelangelo to El Greco to Salvador Dali. Mary is at the village well, in the garden, occasionally busy in the kitchen, more frequently, in pensive quietness in her bedroom. It’s easy to imagine Mary; it’s harder to picture Gabriel, and I find myself sliding into the tradition… tall, strong, handsome, with the rustling of a feathers. But really, how do you portray angels? How do you talk about them?
Only two are named in the New Testament – Gabriel and Michael, although if you throw in some of the non-apocryphal writings -- the material that was special but didn’t make into our Bible (got into the Roman Catholic Bible though)…. you can include Raphael, and Uriel. I’ll bet you hadn’t heard of Uriel, had you? Probably wouldn’t be first choice for your son’s name. As an aside, did you know that originally artists portrayed angels without wings; can you believe that? It wasn’t until the mid 4th century that the wings arrived. The theologians said that wings were a fine symbol of the ethereal otherness of angels; and the artists thought it was a dream come true… the detail, the possibilities.
Then the Church Fathers got into the act, and developed seven categories of angels, with those cherubim and seraphim on top, down through dominions and archangels, until you got to the everyday ordinary kind of angel; and each category had its own special mission and task. And although angels were supposed to be asexual and genderless, there was always some speculation at the edges. You might take a glance at Book 9 of “Paradise Lost,” when Adam goes on and on about how delighted he is with Eve, and then asked if perhaps the angels experienced the same joy, only better. Milton says something like, “ A rosy blush appeared upon the angel’s cheek”…thou shouldsn’t not ask, but since thou hast… and then muttered a few words about melting. Check it out. But you can see where this is taking us… it’s not long until you actually are talking about how many angels dance on the head of a pin. Which takes you a long, long way from Scripture.
If you in fact do turn back to the Bible, you discover something much more simple, more subtle. We get our word “angel” from the Greek “angelos” which means “messenger.” And the Hebrew term for angel, “malakh,” means exactly the same thing -- angels are messengers. Messengers of God; a way of connecting the vastness of divinity with the everyday stuff of this world; the go-betweens, the conduits of holy energy, connectors with God. I think sometimes that angels are just another way of talking about the work of the Holy Spirit, just giving it a shape, a name.
So the angels are bringing God’s messages. There are always a couple of key elements that seem part of nearly every angel annunciation: “Behold” is one of them. It’s like a wake-up call – Behold I bring you good news. Open your eyes; take a look around; really take a look, a deep, loving, open, full-of-attention look. Behold – discover what’s right in front of you.
And then, usually there’s a “Be not afraid.” Of the angel itself, yes; but deeper than that. Don’t be overcome by fear, despite what may be happening all around you. Yes, you will walk through the dark valleys; but when it feels as if you’re never going to come out of shadow of death, the angel wants to remind you… don’t be afraid; don’t be afraid because God is still with you; nothing separates anyone from God.
It’s interesting to look at where angels appear in the Gospels. There are two “behold” moments – the birth of Jesus, where there are three angelic manifestations – to Mary, of course, but before her to Zechariah; and then after, a whole host greeting a field of shepherds. And then there’s a second behold moment, at the end, at the empty tomb, where angels declare, “Do not look for the living among the dead,” as they announce resurrection, a second birth..
Then are two “be not afraid” moments. The first, when Jesus staggers out of the wilderness, having finished his forty day struggle with temptation, discerning his call, his life’s work; a couple of the gospels say that the angels came to care for him; I wonder if you can sense in the brush of their wings the comfort that can lift a heart. Then, the same thing when Jesus finds himself weeping in the Garden of Gethsemane… seeing the inevitable cross looming, and praying “may this cup pass.” That’s when Luke says that an angel came to care for him -- “Be not afraid” -- even in the worst moment, God is present.
If I were an artist, a painter… which I’m not, but when has that ever stopped me… I would love to paint the Annunciation, or rather a midrashic interpretation of the event. I would draw upon the Jacob tradition, where God’s messenger arrives in the middle of the night. Jacob has been tossing and turning, fearful about what the morrow will bring, wondering whether he’s made the right decision, wondering about his life. Something springs upon him… man, demon, angel, God… and he wrestles for his life. And there, out of the darkness comes a blessing, a new name, a new person; what also comes is a limp… wrestling with the Spirit is risky business – maybe that’s why so many of us choose not to hear the angels’ invitations.
As with Jacob, I would paint Mary in the dark, a 2 am in the morning moment, tossing and turning in her bed. She can’t sleep for worry. She’s already pregnant, and has no idea what to do. Pregnant… maybe a crazy moment with a young lad she had fallen for; maybe Joseph himself in a hasty moment; maybe, as some scholars suggest, a rape. She wonders what her mother will say; her father; and Joseph… what will he do? The neighbours; worse yet, the religious authorities, who could have her shamed, shunned and stoned; it was the law. And maybe that’s when she heard it… a voice from somewhere, calling to her; or maybe a whisper from inside her heart, a still small voice; maybe a vision of light, glowing, with warmth and words. Be not afraid; all shall be well. You will bear this child… and behold… like every child he will be loved and blessed by God. He is a gift, a son of God, an embodiment of holiness. The angel’s luminous invitation to Mary is to see this event differently, and thus herself differently. She is invited to be channel of God’s love, to let God’s holy energy move in her, to bring about birth through her. In the birth of this little boy she will bring love into the world, through and in hallowed human flesh, bone and blood.
I wonder if Mary heard a yet deeper invitation, that she was being asked to give birth to God. The 17th century poet Donne tried to paint this in words when he said with tortured logic,
That’s the line that catches it for me… “immensity cloistered” in Mary’s very core. Without God, we cannot; without us, God will not.Yea thou art nowThy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother.[such a strange turn around, no? the Maker’s maker]Thou has light in dark; and shut’st in little room,Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.
Mary is every human being invited by the angels, by the Spirit, to give birth to God, into the world; to give birth to compassion, justice, joy, love; choosing life rather than death in every day, every moment. Mary chooses to be open to Spirit, not knowing how it will all turn out, suspecting no doubt that there will be cost and pain in this journey. As Simeon will tell her later, “and a sword shall pierce your heart also.” But she chooses to give Spirit root room, birth room. She knows it will take time; often it’s a slow journey, a life-long journey perhaps; gestation, labour; and then endless years of loving kindness as baby grows to child to young man to rabbi to crucifixion… until there are, finally, once again, angels saying, “Be not afraid… Behold.”
‘Tis the season for angels… not only in the Bible, but also in our own lives. Angels float over our days and nights, and occasionally land, offering an invitation to let that which is of God be born in and through us… yes… you; and the people sitting around you. There are so many moments of holy invitation, where you are asked to understand and embrace your life as a channel of love. Often we’re too busy to hear it, too blind and deaf, too unmindful, too heart-less. But that doesn’t mean the invitations aren’t being offered.
The angels can be hidden in the ordinary, everyday… moments which can suddenly be filled with light, with angelic presence. As the poet Sylvia Plath has said,
The angels flare at our elbows; a blue heron arranging and re-arranging its feathers in the rain can so seize our senses so as to haul our eyelids up…. Behold, say these everyday angels; wake up.A certain minor light may stillleap incandescent – out of kitchen table or chairas if a celestial burning tookpossession of the most obtuse objectsnow and then—thus hallowing an intervalotherwise inconsequent.
They come softly; their visit is surrounded by the ordinary, the light hidden within permeable flesh. As the writer of Hebrews says, in reflecting on those angels that long ago visited Abraham and Sarah… “Do not neglect to offer hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” You’d be surprised at how angels turn up. The poet George Garrett says, (did you read the Gleanings this week?)…
Years and scars laterI finally realizeall angelstravel under assumed names.
I met an angel in the sand dunes of Cape Cod; that would be thirty-six years ago, just when I had finished a year of exploratory theological studies and had decided that I could never be a minister. Well, this angel came disguised as a Greek Orthodox ministry student, with dorky glasses, a wooly beard, shorts, hiking boots, out to get a sense of the desert before departing for a year of prayer in St. Catherine’s monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai. By the time this angel had finished delivering his message, I had done a complete turn around, somewhat reluctantly, and found myself saying, “Well, shoot, I guess I am going to be a minister.” You’ve got to be very careful with angels; they can upset your life’s game plan.
Maybe that’s why we sometimes turn away from the angels, not wanting the disruption, the risk, the holy adventure. Another poet, Denise Levertov, in her poem, “Annunciation,” describes it so poignantly:
Annunciations happen….More oftenthose momentswhen roads of light and stormopen in the darkness in a man or womanare turned away fromin dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair,and with relief.Ordinary lives continue.God does not smite them.But the gates close, the pathway vanishes
I have talked to people who have had a near death experience. Often they talk about an experience of light… at the end of a tunnel; on a roadway, a path. Warm light, welcoming, reassuring… be not afraid. This light… this angel… directs them back to the world of the living; this is not their moment of ending. If they remember that encounter, and let it spark something new within them, then life is never the same.
Angels in this Christmas season… the light shines, there is the brush of wings, the faint melody of song. All in disguise. I’ve been told that sometimes angels are found in the bread and wine of communion. In children. In a midnight sky when the stars themselves seem to be flying through the air. In the person you might encounter when you walk through the door of this church and out onto the city sidewalks. In the person sitting next to you in the pew. In this Advent season, walk carefully, expectantly, faithfully, with open eyes and ears; with an open heart.