I always wanted to be an angel in the nativity play. I wasn’t bothered about Mary and the pretty blue dress, I was all about the wings and tinsel halo. Sadly, my dream was never realised, mainly because at my school you only got to be part of the the nativity in the first two years. I was a shepherd in one (yes, with a tea-towel and everything), and in the other I was a “child visiting the manger”, which I’m fairly sure doesn’t even actually feature in the traditional bible story.

But, hey, a few years ago I was a youthworker and my fab young people and I were put in charge of the Christmas Eve service, so I made sure I had a set of wings and some tinsel in my hair for that. In fact, I kind of planned the entire service around the angels’ part in the Christmas story so that all of us could get sparkled up. I remember that around midnight on the 23rd December I was still up spray-painting the wings...

A lot of people are fascinated by angels, understandably so, but maybe sometimes they are made a bit too big a deal of. Let’s be clear, for us as Christians, angels are important, but they are in no way equal to God. Hebrews 1 v 4-8, Colossians 1 v 16, Psalm 148 v 2-5 are all very clear on that. Angels are created by God and are not omniscient like He is (Matthew 24 v 36), they serve Him and minister for Him. What they are possibly most famous for, especially in the Christmas story, is for being God’s messengers.

Firstly, an angel visits Zechariah to tell him that his wife Elizabeth will have a baby – who will be John the Baptist – then the same angel visits Mary to give her the exciting news about Jesus (which is a whole other story that Rachel wrote about back in October). Then it is an angel that reassures Joseph in a dream that he can still marry Mary, and finally, an entire host of angels visit the shepherds on the hill. They must have quite an intensity about them, a really powerful presence, because their first line to almost everyone was “Don’t be afraid”!

In every situation the angel’s job is to communicate God’s message, share God’s heart and help the person understand how God is speaking to them, quite a responsibility really. But actually, as Christians, we’re called to a similar responsibility. We have the privilege of being in contact with the great God of the universe, we can communicate with Him and He speaks to us. We can begin to understand His heart and His calling to His people. So what do we do with that?

Keep it for ourselves?
Maybe tell one or two others?
Ignore it?
Hide?

I think we probably all know what we should be doing, but it’s hard isn’t it? It’s hard to love people like God does, it’s hard to have the confidence to share what we know of God, and even harder to share a specific message for someone if we think there is one. So let’s take a little bit of encouragement from the angels, and see what we can learn from them...

Angels are all about God. If you read Luke 1 and 2, where most of the Christmas story happens, whenever an angel is there, all they are concerned about is God’s message, God’s love and God’s peace. We should be the same. If we know God, trust God and believe in His love and power, then everything we do should come from that.

Angels say things clearly. And they don’t go on and on either. They know what they want to say and they say it, they answer questions when they’re asked but they don’t use the opportunity to launch into a big speech about something completely different.

Angels shine with God’s glory. They literally radiate His light and brilliance, and we can too. It might not be quite like the fairy lights on your Christmas tree but just by giving our hearts to God we are filled with His Spirit and that will glow through us. And the closer we get to God, the more we spend time in His presence, the better we know Him, the more we will shine. And then people will probably realise that there’s something different about you and your chance to share with them begins there.

Angels appear in different ways to different people. Sharing God isn’t a one size fits all model. We need to consider and pray about how best we should do it with each person. Obviously a starting point with everyone is loving them unconditionally as Jesus does but from there, there are lots of options. We could invite people to events, chat with them one-to-one, write things down... the possibilities are endless.

We can learn a lot from the angels, but let’s never forget that above them all, and above us all, sits the one that we’re all here for. And just like the angels exist to lead the way to Him, so should we.

Amy leads G:em and gets awfully excited about Christmas. Particularly fairy lights and tinsel. And angel wings.