Revelation 14:6-7

Have you ever had a complete stranger come up to you in the mall or at the supermarket, look at your baby daughter or son, and say something like, “Oooh, isn’t he or she an angel?”

What do you suppose they mean when they say that? In what ways was your baby like an angel? Perhaps people have the notion that angels are pretty and cute, and that’s the impression that one gets when they see an angel picture in a Christian book store. So in that sense, a baby might remind them of an angel. Of course we might also refer to someone as an angel who is unusually kind to other people (“they are such an angel!”). But I doubt we have ever had someone come up to our baby and say, “Wow, what a…a…messenger!” And yet that’s what both the Hebrew and Greek words for “angel” really mean: a messenger.

The Book of Revelation, from where our first reading is taken, is the only book of prophecy in the New Testament. And in his vision of forthcoming events, John sees an angel coming in the future. Some have supposed that this angel is a prophecy of Martin Luther. In fact, when Luther died in 1546, his pastor used this very text to base his funeral sermon on – because Luther was an angel. He was a messenger of God.

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