ANGELS—We Believe!

Luke 2:1-15

Ken Whitt          December 24, 2006

I love having my children with me at church. Lauren and Micah are here today, plus my son-in-law, Jeff. However, over the past few days they have given me a bit of flack as I prepared for this sermon. They think I overdid the “We Believe,” “Angels,” thing. After all, I gave these refrigerator magnets with the picture of an angel to all the children. The magnets say, “We believe.” When you came in this morning you saw a sign, a big poster announcing “We Believe. It has a big multi-colored beautiful angel. Then there’s all those little posters all around the church. Have I overdone it?

Jason, stand up please. Would you be willing to turn around like you’re in a fashion show? Jason has a “We Believe” tee shirt and Jeff has one on, and Ben has one on, Kathy has one on, but she’s off working with the kids. At least I don’t have one. That’s just because I did not put mine on yet. Here it is. Today my angel shirt is my clergy vestment.

Maybe I have overdone it. On the other hand, when you go home today and you’re asked, “What did the preacher preach on?” you’ll certainly remember, “Angels,” and, “We believe.” Whether or not you will remember the message of today’s sermon, I don’t know. That’s still to be determined, both by how well I share the message and how well you listen. We’ll see how it goes.

We begin with the Christmas story as told by Luke:

(Lk. 2.1-15)

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus. (This is a great angel story.) 1A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. 2This was the first enrollment when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3And everyone went to be enrolled each to his own city. 4And Joseph went up from Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the city of David, because he was of the house and linage of David, 5to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6While they were there her time came to be delivered. 7And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him tightly in strips of white cloth, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. 8Now there were in that region shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night. 9And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown all around them and they were scared out of their minds. 10But the angel said, “Do not be afraid for behold I bring you good news of great joy which is for all the people. 11For behold there is born to you today in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord”. 12And this will be a sign to you, you shall find that baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. 13And suddenly with that one solitary angel there was a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and singing, 14Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace and good will to men. 15And the angels departed.

Are they coming back? Are they going to return? Will God ever have another message to deliver? Will God ever need a messenger again? Do we believe God has a message and a messenger? Do we believe God has a plan? Do you believe God has a plan for your life? Do we believe collectively? Do we believe God has a plan for our church, and do we believe God has a messenger who can deliver the message? Do we believe?

I believe. I mean, really. I believe.

Wednesday night before my mom died we were all gathered in the living room and the kitchen of her house and she was lying in the hospital bed in the living room and family was scattered throughout the house and sometimes one person, then another, would go in and spend time sitting with mom. Time passed; it was about 7:30, and Daven, my nephew Stephen’s child, needed to go up to bed, but his mother, Rebecca, was busy about things with the family, and so Monica, my sister-in-law, took Daven up to the other house.

And about a half hour later, Monica called down to mom’s house and said that Daven was having problems, needed his mother, so out the front door went Rebecca, on to the deck, and down the steps to head up to my brother Terry’s house. She came back in almost immediately, white as a ghost, and saying through her tears, “There’s a angel under the deck.” Rebecca was overwhelmed with fear and trembling. In the Bible Angels often say, “Do not be afraid”. They really don’t need to say that because everybody’s afraid in the presence of what we sometimes call the numinous, the awesome. People are afraid. Rebecca just kept saying through her tears, “There’s an angel under the deck. There’s an angel under the deck”.

I believe. Not only is Rebecca a reliable witness, a steady person, but she’s also not really a believer and was highly unlikely to go around making something like that up. But her testimony, the way it sounded, the way it felt to be in her presence gave compelling evidence that she had seen an angel. The angel looked like light, but inside the light there was form. The form had arms uplifted, as if it was standing guard.

Rebecca saw an angel and I believe.

Last Thursday, a week ago Thursday, I called a friend in Columbus, Jean. Jean is eighty-one. She was here at my installation service. She was here for Lauren’s wedding. Jean took care of my kids when I got divorced. She came over early in the mornings to get the kids dressed, breakfasted, and off to the school. I called her to wish her a Merry Christmas, to talk a bit about family, and to tell her I would be in Columbus on Friday and hoped to stop by. She told me that she had a story she needed to tell me, and would I be able to stay for lunch and listen to her story?

I drove over to Columbus and we sat and talked for awhile. Then we had lunch together and as she was finishing her lunch, she pulled her chair back from the table and she said, “I’m ready to tell you my story”. And so I pulled my chair back, grabbed a glass of water, and sat there saying, “I’m ready to listen”.

So Jean began her story. She wanted me to remember first of all that at age twenty-eight she was not a Christian. In her family they had seldom gone to church or Sunday-School or anything else. Anything that they were involved in in church was fragmentary.

But she was married now and she had a little boy named Billy. Her father died, and that was sad, but right after that her mother got really sick and she moved in with Jean. And, she got sicker and sicker, heart disease and then pneumonia. The doctor said she was dying. He came regularly to visit at the home.

Jean’s mom was dying and Jean was desperate because every time she went in to sit with her mom, her mom would grab onto her and wouldn’t let go, and would tell her how frightened she was of dying, and she would weep and moan and grieve. She held on so tightly that sometimes Jean couldn’t get out of the room. It was all so painful. Her mother was frightened of death. Jean called her mother’s sister, who lived in the same town. Her name was Mary. Mary was a Christian, she was a believer, and Jean asked Mary to come over and sit with her sister. But she wouldn’t come. She did not want to be anywhere’s near her sister’s fear and panic. She never saw her sister alive again.

So Jean was left with few choices. She asked her husband, Bill, who was a Christian, a believer. He knew the bible inside and out. He was quite a scholar. He wouldn’t sit with Jean’s mother either because he was afraid of dying.

Every time Jean would go in to deliver her a food tray or anything, the mother would break out into this fear and trembling about dying. It was so scary and Jean didn’t know what to do, so in desperation she figured she’d start praying. She prayed for a couple of weeks. It was totally useless. She got absolutely nowhere. She was aware enough to know prayer was not working for her. Then in desperation, she tried something else. She got her Bible out and she began to read the bible and she started to learn some things about prayer.

And she learned that first of all, you have to let God’s will be done in your prayers. Second, you have to pray in the name of Jesus, and third, you have to believe that God will keep God’s promises, particularly the promise, “I will be with you”.

So Jean began to pray again, and she prayed for about a week. She always prayed that her mother would find peace, that God would be with her and she would not be afraid. Her mother started calming down and then she began getting better. And then she was really better, and the doctor came over and said it’s a miracle, “I can’t believe she’s better, but she could live for a long time to come”. And Jean was so excited and her mother was so excited that they just got up and they went about the house and they cooked a meal and they ate together, and they planned a birthday party for a young nephew, and they just had a wonderful day, and they watched some TV, and Jean’s mom got tired and she decided to go up to go to bed.

And Jean normally would have watched TV downstairs with her husband, Bill. But Bill was fixing the TV that night, so she went upstairs to listen to the radio with her mother, and there was this show on—I have never heard of it—“Will Rogers and Wiley Post.” And then “Lux Theater” was on the radio, and this night Lux Theater was devoted to a one-hour program on the life of Peter Marshall, a great Christian leader.

And at the end of the hour, Peter Marshall in his own voice read from the Gospel of John. “In my father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you there, for where I am, there you may be also”. And with those words, Jean’s mom went to sleep, peacefully, in answer to Jean’s prayers that her mother would find peace, because that was God’s promise.

2:15 A.M. Billy wakes up his mother. Jean walks over to Billy’s room and finds out that he needs a drink of water. She heads down the hall past her mom’s room and looking in sees that Mom is peacefully sleeping. Soft breathing, everything’s fine. Jean just says another prayer of thanksgiving and she delivers the water and goes back to sleep.

2:30 A.M. Fifteen minutes later. Billy wakes her up again. He wants another drink of water. She walks by Jean’s room. This time a bright light is shining from a crack in the door. Jean peeks in and she sees her mom, dressed now in a bathrobe and slippers, draped across the bed, like she had gotten up to leave the room and fallen over the end of the bed.

And from each of the four corners of the room this bright dazzling light is emanating and in the light there is form, but the most prominent thing about the light is that within the light there is activity. Jean said “furious activity,” constant activity, movement, that something was going on within the light and it is all focused on Jean’s mom. Jean doesn’t know how much time passed, but she just stood there like you would stand in stunned amazement. She just stood there and stood and stood there, and then the lights began to fade, and she shook her head and went over to see her Mom and she was, you know, she had died in this time.

And Jean was just overwhelmed with this feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving to God that God had kept God’s promise and that her mother had died in peace. She was overwhelmed with thanksgiving.

Please note, the one who saw the angel was the one who had suffered with her mother and who in desperation had turned to God and learned how to pray. One of God’s answers to Jean’s prayers was to show Jean that she also did not need to be afraid. What would our lives be like if God could somehow communicate convincingly to each of us that we do not need to be afraid? That, of course, is the message of this sermon. We do not need to be afraid.

As our conversation drew to its conclusion, Jean began to interpret her story a little bit. She said, “Once you see and believe, you never stop seeing. Once you see the connection, you never stop knowing you’re connected to God. Once you have begun the journey, you never stop the journey.”

We talked a few more minutes about her encounter with Angels. For us, the story brings us back to that proclamation, “We believe”. You know you could put an exclamation mark at the end of “We believe!” Or you could put a question mark, “We believe?” “Do we believe?” I do, I do believe. I believe in angels. I believe God sends messengers. I believe God has a plan. I believe God has a message and I believe God has messengers and all kinds of ways of delivering the message. I believe that. The question is what do we believe collectively because whatever we believe together is what is possible for us together. As one people in Christ, does the First Baptist Church of Springfield believe God can deliver God’s Word to us?

Everybody doesn’t have to think the same thing. We’re Baptists for heavens sakes. And there can be large diversity in our midst and some could be more extreme one way and others more extreme another way. But overall the question is what do we believe? Do we believe God has a plan? Do we believe God has a message? Do we believe God has a messenger?

We have worshipped on Christmas morning. Many will gather this evening for our Christmas Eve Service. You will be with your family and you will hear carols sung one more time. You will hear many stories including The Christmas Story. As you listen one more time I pray that you will believe and that right now you will hear an angel’s song.

(Jeff sings softly from his seat…)

It came upon a midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold;
“Peace on the earth, good will to men,
From heavens all gracious King”.
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

We listen to the Angel’s song and we proclaim the Angel’s message for all to hear. “Fear not.”

So be it. Amen