Christmas has come and gone but I am still pondering the angels in the Christmas story. Last week’s post was about Gabriel and his call to faith. This week is about the heavenly host of angels and their call to praise.
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God. Luke 2:13
This passage of Scripture reveals not just one angel acting as a messenger, but what the Bible calls a great company. Perhaps the entire angelic regiment of heaven turned out for this momentous visitation to a gang of unsuspecting shepherds. How fun to join together and crowd in on a quiet pasture where it wouldn’t take much to make a smashing sensation. The brilliance, the power, and the attraction of the glory surrounding them would have been unlike anything these common shepherds had ever seen. Not even Herod’s palace and finery could hold a candle to the pure elegance of heaven.
The lyrics of our Christmas carols have led me to assume angels sing. Perhaps they do and this is a pleasure we must wait to experience until our arrival in heaven. From what I have studied, angels spoke. They were messengers. They deliver God’s word. Gabriel spoke to Zechariah and to Mary. An unnamed angel spoke to Joseph. In Revelation 4, the seraphim say “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God almighty” around the throne.
If this is true, then the fact that the angel of the Lord, joined by a great company, spoke to the shepherds gives the event even more weight. These angels weren’t entertainers. They were on a mission to deliver a world-changing piece of news. And they delivered it to shepherds, men who lived outside. Shepherds lived outside the ceremonial laws for religion and cleanliness. They lived outside social acceptance. They even lived in the hills, their job requiring them to live in the physical outdoors.
God appears to them. The despised and outcast are the first to hear the good news. This might have been the first hopeful message these men had ever been given. The religious authorities offered no hope to them. Neither did the social or economical structures. But God did.
No wonder they hurried off, as Luke records in Luke 2:16. They didn’t scoff at the angels’ announcement or question in disbelief. These men may have felt too down on their luck for that sort of response. All the more reason for them to “go to Bethlehem and see this thing the Lord told them about” (Luke 2:15).
Here was a new order, created and proclaimed by God himself. It restored to men like the shepherds a measure of dignity. Verse 17 says, “When they had seen the baby, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child.”
For the first time ever, the shepherds had influence. Concerning the event of Jesus’ birth, cultural frameworks shifted. Now the shepherds were the ones with the authoritative message. God had appeared to them. They had seen with their own eyes the Christ child the angels proclaimed to be the Messiah.
The angels set a beautiful example for the shepherds when they praised God and declared glory to him. After spreading the word of what had been told them, the shepherds returned and did just as the angels taught them, praising and glorifying God.
The appearance of the angels in Luke 2 is a scene filled with grace. God was gracious to the shepherds by sending the angels. The angels were gracious to God in praising him. The shepherds even knew how to be gracious in believing what they heard, paying Jesus a visit, and spreading the news.
This is how praise works. It ascribes honor and worth to the one who is the subject of the praise. The angels extended the initial call to praise, and the shepherds accepted. As a result, their lives changed. Believing in the angels’ message sent them on the discovery of Jesus. Following their example of offering praise to God gave them a place in his new order. They didn’t know it yet, but these shepherds stepped into the kingdom. In this Kingdom of Heaven, they had value. God’s favor rested on them. Their praises of God brought heaven and its peace a little closer to their dark, outside world.
