Psalms 138,148
OT Reading: Daniel 10.4-end
NT Reading: Revelation 5
Dominating the east entrance to Coventry Cathedral there stands an enormous winged figure of St Michael by Jacob Epstein. He is treading down a devil at his feet, symbolising the triumph of good over evil, but the warrior angel’s face, modelled on that of the economist and musician Wyn Godley, who was Epstein’s son-in-law, shines with compassion rather than triumph. Since time immemorial the rafters and windows of our churches have been adorned with angels as a perpetual reminder of the angelic hosts with which such visionaries as Daniel and John have filled the courts of heaven. We like the thought that angels may bring us messages, and we particularly like the thought that St Michael, warrior and protector, commanding perhaps a great cohort of guardian angels, might be charged with our protection.
What do you believe about angels? What do I believe? Is it helpful to believe in angels, or is their shadowy existence a potential distraction from facing up to our own responsibilities? I do hope some of you will feel able to share your own experiences with me afterwards. Meanwhile I’m happy to share my thoughts with you, and to offer at least a framework of faith for those of us who are not sure whether we really believe in angels at all.
Let’s start with what we can learn from the Bible? Of the seven archangels named in the apocryphal book of Enoch, Gabriel is the most familiar both in word and in works of art, because of his association with the Annunciation. He also appears to the prophet Daniel, where he is sent as a messenger from God – angelos is of course the Greek word for a messenger – to help him understand the difficult apocalyptic visions which he has received. As we have already heard this evening, the archangel Michael also appears in the book of Daniel, where he is identified as one who fights for the people of Israel against their enemies, first the Persians and then the Greeks. There are further references to him as a warrior angel in the apocalyptic visions of Revelation and in the little letter of Jude. None of the other archangels features at all in the canonical books of the Bible, though there are dozens of references to unnamed angels – perhaps hundreds even. We think of the angels who visited Abraham and Sarah, or those who passed to and fro on the ladder in the dream which reassured Jacob as he fled his home and family. In Biblical times – indeed, until Reason and Science taught us to question anything we cannot touch and see – the existence of angels was pretty much taken for granted, which explains why their occasional appearance in the Biblical narrative calls for no particular comment, even if you and I might wonder nowadays how real they are or were.
Brought up as I was in a household of faith which took the Bible seriously, it was many years before it occurred to me to question the existence of angels. I can even point to a couple of moments in my life where I may have been helped by an angel. As a boy of about ten or eleven I had the bright idea of wanting to see how straight I could ride a bicycle with my eyes shut. Unfortunately I chose to try this interesting experiment on a busy main road. I can still see the shocked face of the lorry driver who just managed to stop as I wobbled into his path for no reason he could possibly have anticipated. Was my guardian angel sitting beside him in the cab? On another occasion I might have done something very foolish if I hadn’t glimpsed out of the corner of my eye a fiery angel with a whirling sword, whose unspoken message, thankfully, I heeded.
As Rosalind Brown commented in this week’s Church Times, it is certainly not a mark of deep piety to see an angel – even Balaam’s ass did that. In any case I’m perfectly prepared to concede any angels I may have glimpsed could just as well have been figments – albeit helpfully inspired figments of my own religiously conditioned imagination. The same could of course be true of many of the references to angels in the Bible. But something or someone helped that lorry driver to react very quickly and stamp very hard on his brakes, and in the latter case something or someone gave me an unexpectedly vivid warning. In the first case – if I wasn’t just incredibly lucky – I was physically protected. In the second case I received a clear message. If there are angels, that is what they do. They protect us, so far as possible, and they bring us messages. I can choose either to accept a rational explanation of what happened to me, or to acknowledge with gratitude the intervention of an angel. I cannot know for certain where the truth lies until, like Gerontius in his dream, I emerge into that new life beyond the grave, where all shall at last be revealed. If then I get to meet my guardian angel, I shall want to thank her for all that she has done, as the servant of our loving heavenly Father, to keep me safe, to play her part in delivering me from evil, as we are taught to pray. And perhaps I shall have the chance to thank that alert lorry driver too.
One of the difficulties with any belief in guardian angels is of course the fact that for every case where a child is shielded from harm, as perhaps I was, there is another child who gets killed running out into the road. Such a tragedy did in fact happen in a branch of my family in the 1930s, with devastating consequences for everyone concerned. What was his guardian angel doing that day? But this takes us back into the familiar problem of all pain and suffering. If God loves us, and has the power to protect us, why doesn’t he use it all the time, or at least more often? We do not know, and this is not the moment to unpack that issue more fully. In our grief and confusion, we can only cling to the knowledge that He loves us dearly, and sense His love reaching out to us through our experience of joy and sorrow alike.
The creeds do not require us to believe in angels as such. But we do believe that God has things to say to us, to warn or guide, to comfort or encourage, and that he finds ways to get these messages through to us with or without the intervention of angels, for example through the words of others or the promptings of our own conscience. If you are uncomfortable about relying on a pre-scientific belief in angels, you may prefer to think of the Holy Spirit shielding us from physical and moral harm, for example by strengthening our own resolve or by working through others who may be in a position to keep us safe. There is a strong presumption in the Bible that angels do in fact act in these ways, and sometimes more directly, but we cannot expect to know for certain whether they do, until we pass beyond death, and find ourselves in that realm where God rules supreme.
What matters then is not whether angels do or do not exist. That we cannot know. If we believe, as I think we must, that the Holy Spirit finds ways to act both as messenger and as guardian, then we should be alert and open to the ways in which He might do so, be it through the agency of other people, or through the intervention of an angel whom we may or may not recognise as such. Either way, the important thing is to be both receptive and thankful. Moreover, if we are attentive to the promptings of the Spirit here on earth, whether or not such promptings are mediated to us by an angel, we are more likely to feel at home if one day, as St John pictures it for us, we find ourselves surrounded by a joyful company of the angelic host in heaven, singing with full voice the praises of one who is worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing. Wouldn’t you love to sing your heart out with that great chorus?