Advent Angels 3

Day 3: Worshipping Angels

Read: Genesis28:10-22

We don’t actually see the angels worshipping specifically in this reading, but we do get a glimpse into the courts of heaven. Jacob has been sent away from his home, for his own safety, because he had cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright (Genesis 27)

Jacob stops for the night in what seems like the middle of nowhere, far from his home and, he thinks, beyond the territory of the God of his father and family – Gods were thought to be territorial, like earthly rulers, limited to their own patch. But in his dream he sees the angels of God going to and fro between earth and heaven, up and down a ladder. When he wakes he says that “Surely the Lord is in this place- and I did not know it… This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.”

This revelation, that God is present everywhere, is a very important, and very distinctive, insight of Jewish faith at the time.  Wherever we are can be heaven, populated by angels going about their business, bringing God’s word to us and making real the glory and the rejoicing of heaven in our daily lives.

• Think about the day that has gone – in hindsight, where did you see the angels of God – God’s presence - at work in it?

Think about the day that is coming – open yourself to the possibility that you might see God’s angels in your midst, and sense his presence with you. Here is a prayer you might like to use.

I awake this morning in the presence of the holy angels of God.

May heaven open wide around me and before me, that I may see Christ and his sunlit company in all the things of earth this day. Amen.

(Phillip Newell)