The Angels of Christmas

            Since Childhood I’ve heard the wonderful stories of those angelic creatures that announced the birth of Jesus. What I saw pictured was usually a choir of them, all dressed in white, sometimes with halos, sometime without. The shepherds in the picture looked successful, yet seemed to be only guarding a few sheep. The looks on their faces was more of wonderment, but the Bible said they were terrified. This got me thinking…

            A Shepherd was a man of the night; He wasn’t fearful of its sounds or rustlings; he was as comfortable in the dark as you or I are in the light of day. But on that night of nights, terror struck the hearts of this rough bunch of guys.

            How could that be? The song we sing says, “Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’r the plain”. That doesn’t sound terrorizing; and the faces, those 30 to 35 angels look… well… Angelic; nothing to be in terror over. Maybe that isn’t the whole story. Maybe there’s something going on that isn’t in Luke 2…. There is, it’s in Revelation 12.

            It has the usual cast of characters, Mary is there pregnant and about to give birth, in God’s eyes she is clothed with the sun, and wears a crown of stars on her head. Satan is also there; his appearance is that of an enormous red multi-headed dragon; he is positioned in front of Mary waiting to devour the baby boy she is delivering. But the boy is snatched up to God, and a great war breaks out in the heavens over Bethlehem.

            Michael and his innumerable host of warring angels fight against Satan and his innumerable host. But Satan cannot stand against the forces of Michael and is thrown back to earth in defeat. Michael has secured the victory for his Commander-in-Chief God the Father, and for the people of planet Earth.

 

            From this point on I am speculating, but whenever an army defeats their enemy there is a victory celebration that shakes the countryside. Michael’s campaign against the forces of darkness was a cataclysmic encounter unlike the world had, or will ever see; and he wanted to tell somebody… “Father God who among Bethlehem can we tell of this great and glorious victory?”

            The Father looks at His valiant angelic host dressed in their powerfully frightful battle fatigues; faces griped with the chiseled features of war, all still holding their celestial stained swords in their massive hands. “Indeed, who can you tell? Shop keepers? Townspeople? Stonecutters? I’m afraid your appearance would frighten them to death”

 

            “But wait, those shepherds, not much frightens them, go and tell them; but ease them in gently, just one of you go first, explain why you’re there and pave the way for the rest….

            ….”and they were terrified.”  Luke 2:9

Blessing to you on the anniversary of this great invasion day! When God became man and dwelt among us!!

 

The Niemeyer’s