O HEAR THE ANGEL VOICES

Every December we receive a few Christmas letters from some of our clergy colleagues. This week I received a few of these letters that were tucked inside Christmas cards. Two featured Renaissance paintings of the Annunciation in which Mary and the Angel Gabriel are face-to-face as if in a conversation. Another card featured a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner – the first African-American artist to attain international fame— that was quite different. Mary is sitting on the edge of her bed with a pillar of golden light on the opposite side of the room. She is clearly not in a face-to-face conversation with Gabriel.

The differences in these paintings prodded me to re-read the story of the Annunciation. I was surprised to notice that most translations never say that Mary and Gabriel are face-to-face in a direct conversation. The verses only say, “And [the angel] came to her and said, ‘Greetings…’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” (Luke 1:26-29). I then read the Greek text in Luke, which also never mentions that Mary “sees” Gabriel. We are free to imagine that she did. But we are equally free to assume that she did not.

Why does all this matter? When we think of angels and how we might encounter them. Mostly we imagine them as human figures with wings. I don’t know about you, but I have never met a winged person who wanted to engage me in a conversation. So it’s easy to conclude that God may speak with some spiritual elites, but not with ordinary people like me.

But what if encountering an angelic messenger is more a matter of “pondering” rather than “seeing? “Our text says Mary “pondered” Gabriel’s message. The Greek word Luke uses is dialogizomai. In New Testament Greek it almost always means in inner dialogue: more like reflecting, turning over an idea or experience in our minds, or reasoning about something. Mary has had some special experience and slowly its meaning has dawned on her as she “ponders” it.

Scottish writer Edwin Muir perhaps captures this kind of moment in his poem “Annunciation.”
But through the endless afternoon
These neither speak nor movement make.
But stare into their deepening trance
As if their grace would never break.

We all know what such experiences are like. They are the trance-like “a-ha” moments when out of nowhere an answer to a perplexing situation or decision that we’ve been pondering comes suddenly into focus. Scientists often talk about their discoveries in this way. So do writers and musicians. Newton was napping underneath a tree when an apple fell on him. Darwin’s insight about evolution came to him when he was out on a walk.

All of us are habitually visited by angels, although we don’t realize it. We may not have “seen” them face- to-face; but we have undoubtedly “heard” their voices. Which is, of course, how God’s messengers obviously work in our lives. They deliver their messages without drawing attention to themselves. Gabriel’s encounter with Mary invites us to listen for where God’s messengers may be delivering their messages sight unseen but clearly heard.

Blessings, Pastor Thomas

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