And We Go Forth in the Company of Angels
By The Rev. Paul D. Wheatley, Instructor of New Testament at Nashotah House
Genesis 28:10-17 | Psalm 103 | Revelation 12:7-12 | John 1:47-51
“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!” (Genesis 28:16)
One night sitting around the table the question turned to our six-year-old daughter concerning which aspects of stories are real. Real or not real is an important distinction to a young mind, and a bellwether of the development of the life of faith.
We were talking about Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Hook and the like, and she asked, “Are pirates real?” Immediately my mind went to the Somali coast, Tom Hanks as Captain Phillips. “Yes there are pirates today, but most of them do not have hooks for hands or patches over their eyes.” “Are fairies real?” she asked next. Parenting pro-tip: don’t get caught in a long stream of questions . . . You’ll quickly find yourself in Santa Claus territory. I flipped the script: “What do you think? Are fairies real?” “No, fairies aren’t real.” I was shocked. She loves fairies almost as much as unicorns.
“What about unicorns?” “They’re half-real. Horses could have horns, and other two-horned animals sometimes grow only one horn. But they can’t fly or dance on rainbows. I just like to pretend they do.” Fair enough.
“What about angels?” my wife asked. I winced and paused, waiting to hear how much home catechesis we needed to do. “Angels are real.” “Half-real?” “No, totally real. Who else told Mary about having Jesus in her belly? Who else told the women at the tomb about Jesus?” I breathed a sigh of relief. Angels: Totally real.
For a seminary with a bell named after St. Michael the Archangel, whose students pray a prayer that begins with the mention of an angel announcing to the Virgin Mary, who join our voices “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” to praise our holy God each day, I assume that you, like my daughter, are on the side of the angels, so to speak.
The origin of the term angel is simply a transliteration of ἄγγελος which in Greek means messenger, like the Hebrew term malak (מלאך). They show up throughout the Bible, appearing to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as Hagar and Balaam, Moses, Joshua, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Elijah, and Daniel, not to mention in the New Testament Zechariah, Mary, the shepherds, the women at the tomb, as well as Peter, Stephen, Philip, Cornelius the centurion, and Paul.
Jesus speaks of coming in the glory of his Father with his angels in judgment, receives ministry of the angels in the wilderness, and his incarnation, birth, flight from Egypt, and resurrection are all announced by angels in the Gospels. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John the seer alike see visions of angels populating the heavenly temple and throne room of God, ministering to God and worshipping, and dispensing God’s mercy, purification, and judgment on the earth.
In these scenes, as in our reading from Genesis 28, there is a sense in which the appearance of an angel testifies that the situation at hand goes beyond what can be observed in the physical world. They testify that whatever it is that someone may think is going on, there is something far more profound at play, an earthly situation with which the operations of heaven are intimately involved. They often mark an element of the apocalyptic, the veil between heaven and earth is pulled back, and the work of heaven, the malakah (מלאכה), a word that connotes both liturgical and mundane work (cf. Ex. 36:1–3), etymologically related to the word angels malakim (מלאכים), is revealed.
Jacob, in particular, receives this disclosure twice, on his way out, and then back into the land promised to Abraham and Isaac before him. Jacob, unlike his patriarchal father and grandfather, seems to be especially privy to, or especially in need of, knowing the abiding presence of God with him.
In our Old Testament reading, Jacob is headed out of the land, to Laban, to work, to marry. His labor of seven years for Rachel, doubled to fourteen after Laban’s deceit with Leah, is a test of patience and a test of God’s providence for the future God promised to Abraham and Isaac before him.
Even more it is a test of faith, of a belief that the God who had appeared to his forefathers and to him could bring him back to the land and give his blessing to Jacob and his seed after him. The promise is a place, a locality in which the ministrations of heaven, the malakah of the malakim, the liturgy and work of the angels would make God present in this place to which Jacob must return.
We have all come here from somewhere else. You have left somewhere and find yourself temporarily sojourning here. Where and when you shall return may or may not be clear.
What we celebrate today is that your labor here is not in vain. There are many mundane tasks that are the warp and woof of seminary life: The work crew responsibilities, the Hebrew and Greek vocab flashcards, the pages read, the papers and projects done, the candles lighted and dishes washed. They are no more exciting than a stone on which a wandering man might lay his head for a bit of rest.
Yet, what we see in the Biblical witness to these ministering spirits who announce, proclaim, warn, refresh, restrain, protect, fight, and ascend and descend between earth and heaven is this: There is much more going on in the places where we sojourn than we can see. The places where we would presume to accomplish nothing more heavenly than a nap or a checked box on a list of tasks are filled with the action of God and filled with the ministries, intercessions, protections, and battles of heavenly messengers and defenders, who gather our prayers in bowls like incense to offer before the throne of God. “Truly the Lord is in this place and I did not know it!”
I remember in my seminary years, I was scheduled to serve at a Tuesday morning mass in the dog days of summer. As I dragged my tired self around setting up missal and credence and lighting candles, the priest was delayed, along with all possible attendees. As the minutes ticked down to starting, I wanted, like Jacob, simply to return to my bed and sleep. “There’s no point in doing this for no one,” I said under my breath.
Just then the priest stepped into the sacristy, and I delivered the bad news: “No one is here today. What do you want me to do?”
He answered quickly, “I guess it’s just you and me, and ‘the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven’ today.”
He, like my daughter, understood what is so hard for me to perceive: Angels totally real.
And so we go forth from here joining our voices with that glad company, loading the bowls of incense that ascend to the Father, and trusting that their praise on heaven is joined to ours on earth in the very substance of God the Son, made very real for us in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
And we pray, St. Michael, defend us in battle; St. Gabriel, bring God’s power into our humble estate; St. Raphael, heal our blindness of heart.
Above all we ask that we may perceive the One upon whom heaven opened, the Spirit descended, and for whose death the curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom, upon whom angels ascend and descend as more than “the house of God and the gate of heaven”, but the lamb of God, the Son of God, whose blood has conquered the evil one, and by whom “the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God” have come into the humility of our mundane malakah; that is, our earthly work, service, and worship.
“Truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” (John 1:51)
The preceding was originally preached by Fr. Wheatley on the Feast of St. Michael and All The Angels at Nashotah House, September 29, 2020.