I’ve seen a lot of angel dust around here lately.  Angels have been swooping down all over the place and believe you me, these angels are not like the ones you’ve seen on the front of all those Christmas cards.  These angels, they’ll take your breath away.  When you are in their presence you can tell they are like something you have never seen, something radiant, something shimmering with the spirit of God.  You may wish all your life to meet an angel, but it’s true what they say — be careful what you wish for.  Because if you are one of the people God sends an angel to visit, your life will never be the same.  Not that that’s a bad thing, but believe you me, your life will be turned every which way but loose.  I mean that literally — once God gets hold of you, God will never turn you loose!

The first thing an angel will say to you is, “you need not fear.”  That’s what they say but it’s not really true, because they’re about to ask you to be a part of something truly frightening.  Even so, somehow you know that they’re not here to hurt you but to hurl you into the thrilling drama that is God.

If you are one of those nobodies who turns out to be one of those somebodies that God sends one of those angels to visit, well, it will leave you speechless.  And I do mean that literally — take the case of that old couple Elizabeth and Zechariah.  An angel told Elizabeth that even though she was old as dirt, she was finally going to have a baby.  Just like the angel promised, God had taken away the disgrace that she had endured her entire married life.

Her husband Zechariah was a preacher and you know what that means – a big talker.  So when the angel came to him, he asked impertinent questions and took issue with what the angel said – how brazen is that?  Because Zachariah didn’t believe the unbelievably good news, the angel struck him speechless, and I do mean that literally — he didn’t speak from that day until the baby was born. That must have been the second miracle God sent to Elizabeth that day!

That same angel visited Mary and told her not to fear. How could she not be scared to death about the prospect of being stoned to death?  The angel also told Mary that she had found favor with the Lord.  She must have been frightened, I know I would have been.  But in the end, she said, here I am, let it be.

So many angels, so much angel dust . . . what are these angels up to?

The angels aren’t through, you know, they are still doing God’s bidding.  They are messengers and some of them look just like us.  Angels bring the good news that God is taking away that which brings us disgrace among our own people.  The angels clasp their hands over our mouths so that we will stop talking and listen until we find our own true voice and recognize the true voice of God.  The angels bid us to do God’s work, to birth God’s new world into being, to embody God’s spirit, to protect God’s precious ones.

Sometimes we are the nobodies who turn out to be the somebodies who God sends angels to visit.  And sometimes, sometimes, we are the angels, the messengers, the ones sent to the nobodies who really are somebodies who need to hear a good word from God.

-Rev. Angie