What do the following pictures have in common?
The answer is that all these images featured in Tony’s quiz at the family service and had to do with angels, the theme for the evening. (The first is the ‘Angel of the North’ sculpture, the second ‘Charlie’s Angels’ and the third a popular image of the devil, who was, of course, a fallen angel.)
Dave then spoke on the subject of angels, a very apt topic for this Advent season! He spoke mainly from Luke 2:8-20, but also looked at the role of angels:
(1) to magnify God (Neh 9:6/ Rev 5:11-14)
(2) to bring God’s message to people
(3) to minister to people (Heb 1:14/ Heb 13:2)
People’s reactions to angels generally involve terror. They were terrified by the messenger, and often tottered at the message brought! More often than not, angels reassured people by telling them ‘Do not fear’:
(1) Don’t be afraid of God’s purposes (Mary)
(2) Don’t be afraid when things seem to go wrong (Joseph)
(3) Don’t be afraid of the good news (the shepherds)
Our response needs to be to surrender to Christ’s leadership and to become messengers of this good news ourselves!