Advent Week 4 – The Angels Candle of Peace: Gabriel

This week is an exegetical sermon looking at Luke 2:8-21 focusing on the character of Gabriel. The sermon is titled, “The First Preacher of the Gospel”and looks at the nature of angels and what they do, the gospel angels announce and rejoice in, and the worship and praise of God for Jesus’ birth. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on Christmas Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
December 20th, 2009

ADVENT | The Christmas Story Descends
Week 4 – The Angels Candle of Peace: Gabriel
“The First Preacher of the Gospel”
Luke 2:8-21

I. Angels & The One Named Gabriel
II. Gospel & The Message of Gabriel
III. Worship & The Praise from Gabriel

Introduction

This year for Advent we’ve been doing character studies for each week of Advent and looking at a particular individual from the Christmas story to see what we can learn from them and how they related to Jesus’ birth. So far we’ve looked at Zechariah, Mary, and Elizabeth. Now, this week, for the final Advent candle, the Angels Candle representing peace, we’re going to look at the angel Gabriel. So let’s jump right in and talk about “Angels & The One Named Gabriel.”

I. Angels & The One Named Gabriel

Now on one hand angels seem sort of fantastic. They’re present in all the Christmas decorations and songs but as far as thinking of them as real actual living beings…is a whole other story. So on one hand angels are sort of considered fictional things, like comic book characters. We all love batman and superman but no one considers them real.

That’s one way to look at angels, as fictional. The other way goes to the opposition extreme and goes kind of overboard with them. If you just google “angels” you’ll find they are actually quite popular figures in our culture and not only at Christmas time.

There are tons of movies with angels in them like “Angels in the Outfield” and “City of Angels.” There’s been all kinds of TV shows like “Touched by an Angel”, “Dark Angel”, and just plain, “Angel.” There’s bands like “Angels and Airwaves”, “Black Angel”, “Red Angel”, “White Angel” and “Jaded Angel.” There’s a ton of books like the “Angel Chronicles”, “Angels & Demons”, and in 1991 Tony Kushner won a Pulitzer Prize for his “Angels in America.”

We’ve got cities named after angels like “Los Angeles”, bike gangs named after angels, “Hells Angels”, baseball teams named after angels, the “Anaheim Angels”, pretty much a whole holiday credited to angels called “Valentines Day.”

A few years back Time magazine did an article titled “Angels Among Us” noting that all major religions and religious texts have angels in them and that many people claim to have had a genuine encounter with some sort of supernatural being they describe as an angel. In fact just recently, a 2007 poll showed that nearly 70% of all Americans believe in angels. Which is perhaps one of the reasons that they are one of the most common tattoos people get. People are into angels. Even Hilary Clinton has a gold pin of wings she wears on days she feels like she especially needs help and she calls them her “angel’s wings.”

So angels are extremely common in our cultural landscape. Even in the church, we commonly read about them or hear about them in songs or the stories of the Bible but rarely do we stop to pause and consider what we’re actually talking about.

With so many ideas out there about angels how are we supposed to know what to believe about angels? How do we separate truth from fiction? And is there anything really true about angels at all? Are we just supposed to rely on other people’s opinions and experiences? And even then, there’s not just the experiences themselves but the ways in which they are interpreted, so what are we to do?

It seems that truly we are lost on this subject…unless, unless there is actually a God and unless he has chosen to tell us about these creatures. If there is a God and if he really is the creator of everything…all the plants and animals and of human beings, then it is not too crazy or too far off to think that he may have other creations or creatures we are somewhat unfamiliar with.

One of my favorite things about the Chronicles of Narnia series from C.S. Lewis is a picture of a whole world of different beings who have different abilities and different purposes but are all made for the service and worship of the king of Narnia. Sometimes I think we get so humanoscentric, that we only really care about ourselves and our race…and we fail to see that though we are immensely more complex than a flower, that a flower is still a class of being in God’s creation that worships and does what it was created to do for God and his world.

It is not unimaginable that God has created another race of beings called angels who being to an even more complex than our own as human beings. The point of all created things is God, he is the central focal point of the universe…everything is meant to point back to him. All of space and existence and the world is by nature theocentric, God-centered.

So angels are not intellectually untenable if we conceive of a world with a true God. Then there is this. Angels are mentioned in the Bible about 265 times. In 1975 Billy Graham, the famous Evangelist of the last century, wrote a little book titled, “Angels: God’s Secret Messengers.” In it he makes an important point, which is simply this: because angels are mentioned so frequently in the Bible, you really cannot take the Bible seriously at all unless you deal with and accept the reality that angels exist.

I think he is right. I’ve never had any kind of encounter with an “angel” that I know of to give me reason to believe angels exist. However, this self-authenticating book, the Bible, has proven itself to me over and over and over again to be fully and truly be the divine word of God. If it says it I trust it and believe it.

So with that said, let me give you a brief overview of what we know about angels from the Bible and then we’ll look at some stuff about one of the three angels that are actually named in the Bible, the angel Gabriel.

The Nature of Angels

1. Angels are immortal spiritual moral being created by God. Psalm 148 calls the angels to praise the Lord because it says God commanded and they were created.

2. Angels have names, like Michael, Gabriel and the fallen angel Lucifer.

3. There are various kinds of angels. Some are always on fire, literally “burning ones” called Seraphs. Some have wings and some don’t (Is.6:2). Some have multiple faces (Ez 1:10). And some simply look human (Gen 18).

4. Angels are organized are frequently called an army or a host, and there are ranks within them. In Jude 9 we are told that Michael is an archangel. Guards are called “Cherubs.” Gabriel is called a “Prince.” Often we see angels with swords (Num 22:23; 1 Chron 21:16). Some of their swords are flaming (Gen 3:2), and they use their swords to execute God’s justice, protection, and to destroy evil angels and their dragon leader (Rev 12:7).

5. Angels have supra-physical bodies that are not normally visible to the human eye (2 Ki 6:17; Num 22:31). This is probably something akin to how we cannot see microscopic substances only angels are macroscopic. And in addition, according to Daniel 9:21 angels have bodies that can travel extremely fast without the aid of technology.

5. In Daniel 10 we learn that though angels have the ability to appear and disappear, they can only be in one place at a time (Dan 10:13-14).

6. Angels are great in number, great in power, and great in wisdom. There are thousands upon thousands (Deut 33:2; Ps 68:17). In 2 Kings 19, a single angel once wiped out 185,000 human soldiers (2 Ki 19:35). And in 2 Samuel 14:20 are said to know of all things of the earth, so they are extremely smart, multiple Ph.D’s.

7. According to Jesus in Matthew 22, angels do not marry or procreate (Mt 22:30).

8. And lastly, angels are unredeemable. Similar to how the human race fell, both Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 tell us that a large number of the angel race fell by following the leadership of a bad angel named Lucifer (Ez 28:11-19; Is 14:12-17). The difference is that unlike us, not all the angels fell…and for the ones that did fall God has not granted an opportunity for salvation or redemption like us (2 Pet 2:4). And for that reason, the good angels called the “elect” ones (1 Tim 5:21), though being of a higher class and race than humans, they marvel at what God has done and is doing with us (1 Pet 1:12; Eph 3:10; 1 Cor 4:9).

1 Peter 1:12 says angels enjoy looking in on what God is doing with us and Ephesians 3:10 and 1 Corinthians 4:9 tell us that God is showing off to the angels his wisdom and greatness by what he is doing with us. Angels will never know what is like to be in the redeemed love of God…which is simply mind boggling.

What Angels Do

1. Some angels continually worship God before his throne (Is. 6:1-3; Rev 7:9-17).

2. Some angels are sent by God to give humans messages, like in our Christmas texts.

3. Some angels God has to execute his hand of judgment on earth (Rev 15).

4. Some angels have the job of protecting God’s people from dying before their appointed time. Psalm 91:11 says God, “command(s) his angels… to guard (us) in all (our) ways.”

5. Then at our appointed time of death an angel escorts us either to heaven or hell (Lk 22:19-31).

6. One of angels main job is to particularly minister to Jesus. They are all over Jesus birth, they’re there again two years later when Herod tries to kill two-year-old Jesus. They’re with Jesus in the wilderness during his temptation. There at the cross ready to respond to Jesus command to stop everything if he calls on them. They’re the ones who roll away the stone after Jesus rises from the dead. They’re there when Jesus when ascends back into heaven on a cloud. And Jesus says that when he returns to earth next time, he will come with all his angels in a big display of power, glory and might.

7. And lastly, because angels are so into Jesus, they are also really into the gospel. They are announcing the good news of the gospel at Jesus birth and helping the events along. And then again in the book of Acts we see angels helping the church out, performing miracles like prison busts and giving the apostles directions of where to go and what to do (Acts 5:19; 12:7; 12:23; 8:26; 10:1-8).

Okay, well that’s a ton about angels. I just gave you a whole course on biblical angelology crammed into five minutes. If you check out my manuscript online you’ll find all the Scripture references that support each point I made.

Now that we know a little about angels let’s go back to our Christmas story and look at some things. In our text for today in Luke 2:8-21, initially just one angel shows himself. It doesn’t say it’s Gabriel but because in all the other passages in Luke that talk about Jesus’ birth, when an angel shows up, it is Gabriel…it’s likely that this was him and he just didn’t give his name this time.

So initially, Gabriel shows up and right away he says the same thing he said both to Zechariah and to Mary when he appeared (Lk 1:13,30), “Do not be afraid” or “Fear not.” So first we learn from Gabriel that when you see him, there is initially a sense of fear that overcomes people. But then we also learn that Gabriel is sensitive to that. He recognizes when others are apprehensive and afraid and does not try to use that or manipulate people to perform for him.

Instead, he directs things back to God. In our passage for today he is sent to bring news. In the earlier accounts he is more specific about this. Listen to what he says in Luke 1:19 ” “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.”

So rather than prey on fear, Gabriel is satisfied with merely being a messenger, a servant of God sent to direct attention back on to God, on to who God is and what God is doing. He makes God the reason and the source of motivation. Consistently, throughout the Bible, we never see angels accepting worship or attention on to themselves…

In fact in at the end of the book of Revelation, John says this, “I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God (Rev 22:8-9).”

I think there is an important lesson here for us to learn from the angel Gabriel. Even as great and awesome as angels are, they are merely servants of God and everything is about God and his glory. We learn here that Gabriel has a humble character who is satisfied in redirecting all praise and all motivation back to God.

So often we want people to do things because it’s what we want them to do. Or we are motivated by a desire for people to think that we are great. Sometimes the desire for people to like us or love us is so strong that we will do anything to get it. Cut corners. Slight God. Work overtime. Or project ourselves in a certain light so that others will think just right about us. And all of it really boils down to a form of self-idolatry…where we are seeking other people’s praise toward us.

Gabriel is a good example of a humble servant of God. Like him we need to be satisfied with just being sent. With just being used. With just having the joy of having access to God and being in his presence and doing whatever he asks us to do. Gabriel is a great example of that for us.

II. Gospel & The Message of Gabriel

Well let’s move on and look at some of the particular things that Gabriel says and talk about “Gospel & The Message of Gabriel.” Let’s go back to our main text and re-read what he says, Luke 2:10-12 “And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

First off, check out that little phrase, “good news of great joy.” Those two words, “good news” is the word “gospel” in Greek, “euangelion.” So Gabriel says, I bring you gospel of great joy. Now, yes the prophets, kings and judges preached the gospel in the Old Testament…looking forward to Jesus. But in the Christmas story accounts, Gabriel gets the unique privilege of being the first one to announce the gospel to human beings both right before Jesus birth and if this is him in our text for today, right after his birth. What a privilege, to be the first preacher of the gospel!

Now, sometimes the Bible translates “euangelion” as “gospel” and sometimes as “good news.” And I get that, I wrote a whole chapter on it in my master’s thesis. But what I do like about the times when English translations translate it as “good news” it is brings out the fact that the gospel is always news. It is always an announcement in words that God has done something for us in Jesus that is relevant for us here and now.

Sometimes we talk about trying to make the gospel relevant. And that’s good and can be helpful but when it comes down to it you can’t make the gospel relevant, it merely is in its nature because it is an announcement. It is not religion. Not something that you do or something you earn. It’s announcement of what God has already done. That he has done something in history for us that is the answer to our lives. Whatever it is that you are going through the message of the gospel, the message of Christmas is that God has acted for you in Jesus and he is what we need to bring us the joy we long for. And that is relevant. The gospel is the most relevant thing of all…it only becomes irrelevant when Jesus gets taken out of the picture.

Look at the next thing Gabriel says about the gospel…it is a gospel of great joy. Like the announcement of the birth of a child or the ending of a war…the message is by nature a joyful one. But for it to be joyful for you there has got to be the frustration or the lack of joy that precedes it right. The reason it is joyful is because there is a need for joy that is not being experienced. This isn’t just added joy on top of an already joyful existence.

So for the gospel to be one of great joy, you have to already be emotionally engaged. For the shepherds…they were outcasts, outside, working a crap job taking care of sheep and they are told by angels that God has done something for them to bring them joy. Not necessarily a new job…shepherding would still be shepherding, but no longer would it be a sign or a reason for any kind of sense of exclusion from God…because of Jesus birth God enables new a new heart and life of joy. Jesus changes the affection and intention of the heart from one of stone and duty and religion and judgment to one of joy and peace and love.

And this joy is not just a temporal joy. It is a permanent, eternal kind of joy. The word here for great, is literally in the Greek, “megalane.” Where we get the word “mega.” Gabriel says, “I bring you gospel of mega joy.” This is mega. I mean Gabriel is literally thousands of years old. He’s an angel and he says this act is mega, on par with and greater than even when God first created the world.

Then look at the second part where Gabriel describes the way this gospel joy works…he says, here is the sign of it…where you find gospel joy is where you find Jesus as a baby in a manger. What is that about?

On the mere outer layer you could just take this “sign” as being practical instructions…like google maps or something, here’s how you’ll find him and you’ll know which baby it is. I’m sure that information helped the shepherds find baby Jesus. But that’s not what the word “sign” means. The words “sign” is a technical theological word…a sign is when a physical thing is meant to teach a spiritual thing. So in this case the physical occurrence of God being born as a baby in a manger is meant to say something spiritually about who he is and what he came to do.

Now calling him savior, Christ and Lord already said a ton about who he was… Savior, he came to deal with sin and save us from it and it’s consequences. Christ, he is the prophesied and promised messiah king who was to come. And Lord, he is God and ruler over all. That’s already saying a ton. But the sign adds something else.

The sign is not a positive sign but a negative one. John Calvin calls it a “sign of mockery”…that the king savior would be born in a “mean and despicable manger.” It’s crude and degrading and humiliating. It’s upside down. You don’t put the king of the universe, the savior, Christ Lord in a dog dish on the floor next to animal feces.

So what’s the sign? The sign is the great extent God was willing to go to save. That he would utterly humble himself. Taking not only the low form of human but the lowest of humans. From his birth born in despicable and dejected circumstances and lifestyle.

This would be the tenor of Jesus life for the entirety of his time on earth. He would be poor and homeless. He would gather a following and every single follower would turn away and abandon him. And then he would die a despicable death on a cross.

The sign Gabriel points the shepherds to here is the same sign that Jesus offers when the people ask him for a sign and he told them of Jonah and that he would die on a cross. It’s the sign of utter humility to embrace a life no human would knowingly pursue. It’s the sign of God, that he would go to such great lengths in order to save a people for himself.

Theologian J.I. Packer has this to say about the sign, “At Christmas, the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of Christian revelation lie…(that) the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie, and stare, and wiggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child…the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the incarnation.”

The message of Gabriel and of the angels is the gospel. That God is born and born to save. That’s the sign. That God would be humiliated and mistreated and ultimately die in order to save people.

The beauty of this for us is that it doesn’t matter who we are, what we have done, where we are at in life, or what is currently going on with us. In Jesus birth God broke into time so that he might save people from among all times and all peoples.

Outcasts like shepherds. Outcasts like Gentiles. Outcasts like 21 century pagans. Outcasts like us might be included into being the people of God.

That’s the message of Gabriel…good news for us. Do you believe the good news? Does the message of Christmas reach you? Or is it just a fairy tale in your mind? If so, have you really considered your life and the things you are hoping for and the longing of your heart?

Angels don’t have the opportunity nor know what it is like to be saved and redeemed. We do and have that opportunity today. When it comes down to it, we all know that we are fallen and are imperfect and are in fact truly a mess. We need a savior. And God has become one for us. Unlike the angels we can embrace Jesus and receive great joy. No gift, no celebration, no nothing can compare to the joy that comes in giving our lives to Jesus and embracing him as our savior.

III. Worship & The Praise from Gabriel

Well, let’s move on and look at our last point for this morning. “Worship & The Praise from Gabriel.” After Gabriel announces this message, verse 13 in our passage says, “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God.”

Look at that word, “suddenly.” It’s almost as if after hearing Gabriel speak those words heaven could not hold back praise any longer and just erupted. Thousands upon thousands of angels appear, calling out over and over again, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

You have to imagine this from an angel’s perspective. Jesus created them. He is their maker. Colossians 1:16 says that it was by Jesus that the angels were created. It’s not like they are just now getting used to him. They know who Jesus is. And not only that but angels know the future. Not all of it exhaustively like God…but repeatedly we see angels telling men of the Bible what God has planned ahead of time before it happens.

So angels knew that Jesus would one day come into the world. Angels heard from God what he planned to do in the saving of human beings. And now at last the day has come. It’s one thing to hear something. It is entirely another to stare it in the face.

Jesus. Probably the first person they ever saw after he created them…now stared at them in the form of a little baby. No wonder the angels marvel and astoundingly look in on what God has done for human beings.

Several times God had sent angels with messages to give human beings. But this was the greatest message ever to leave the court of heaven. Jesus is born! And they erupt in praise and worship.

Verse 13 says, “Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God.” So Gabriel starts singing and then all the angels join in with him.

It teaches us an important theological principle here. And that is that our praise and our worship is a response. We worship because of who God is and what he has done. Worship is worth-ship. We worship God because he is worthy of worship. The birth of the Son of God is meant to invoke worship!

Are you invoked? If this story does not cause something in your gut that moves you to want to worship and praise our God there is something wrong with you. I don’t mean that in a mean way…I’ve got the same problem at times. But when we are unmoved there is a hardness and coldness and staleness that comes from Lucifer himself who did not want to worship. And it’s wrong. We were made for worship just like the angels and as John Calvin says it is “brutal stupidity” for us not to join their chorus.

Conclusion

So Sean’s going to come up here now and lead us in song. We take communion every week here and you can take it in whatever way you need to this morning. If it’s in joy and thanks and celebration then great…if it’s in repentance and humility and forgiveness then great. Do what you need to do with the Lord.

But most of all this morning, let’s respond to God’s Word today by singing. Christmas carols were meant to be sung! Not just played in the background to create a nice setting in the stores or in our homes. They are meant for worship! So let’s worship and praise our great God and savior along with the angels.

Let’s pray.