The Messenger: Gabriel Gives Wisdom

December 7, 2014 - Second Sunday of Advent

Daniel 9:17-27

17 Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his supplication, and for your own sake, Lord, let your face shine upon your desolated sanctuary. 18 Incline your ear, O my God, and hear. Open your eyes and look at our desolation and the city that bears your name. We do not present our supplication before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies. 19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay! For your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people bear your name!”

20 While I was speaking, and was praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God on behalf of the holy mountain of my God— 21 while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen before in a vision, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. 22 He came and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come out to give you wisdom and understanding. 23 At the beginning of your supplications a word went out, and I have come to declare it, for you are greatly beloved. So consider the word and understand the vision:

24 “Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city: to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand: from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed prince, there shall be seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with streets and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. 27 He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall make sacrifice and offering cease; and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator.”

SERMON: “Gabriel Gives Wisdom”

People have a lot of funny ideas about angels.  They think we spend all of our time singing.  Well, take it from me, Gabriel, eternity is an awful long time.  And, though I do like to carry a tune, that’s more singing than Celine Dion. 

People often expect me to have a fluffy halo, or to be gentle and sweet all the time.  I’m not a puppy.  I’m Gabriel, the Messenger of God, and my messages are rarely warm and fuzzy.  They usually shake the foundations of heaven and earth for the hearer.

Oh, and I don’t have long, golden curly hair, either.  In fact, it’s best that you don’t try to limit me by thinking I look like you.  If I do appear like a man, that’s only to make the person I visit a little more comfortable because, like I said, my message is not always all that comforting.

Take my message to Daniel, for instance.  I tried to present him with God’s vision of earthly kingdoms being toppled and God’s kingdom being established forever but, like we talked about last week, it proved too much for wise old Dan.  So, I gave him a little time for things to sink in, and in the way that it usually does, time brought Dan a lot of perspective.  He began to understand this vision.

And when he realized that it wasn’t a particularly pretty picture, he cried out for help.

“Let your face shine, O Lord, upon this desolated sanctuary!” he cried.

“O Lord, hear!  O Lord, forgive!  O Lord, listen and act and do not delay!”

He might have said, “I can’t breathe.”

You see, everything was crumbling around him.  He saw that things were not getting better at all, but in fact, it all seemed to be getting worse.  King Darius the Mede was as unjust as the others – and sin flourished.  They’re the same sins you struggle with today: greed and materialism, injustice and systemic racism, idolatry and selfishness.  And wise Dan began to see that all of these collective sins were bringing about the sort of destruction and conflict that led only to widespread devastation.

He felt powerless to do anything about it.  He couldn’t breathe.

And so he did the best thing anyone can do in such a place of despair and sadness: he prayed. 

And God did the best thing God does in such a place of despair and sadness: God answered.  I was sent back to Daniel, and this time, I did my job.  I gave him wisdom.

That wisdom began with reminding Daniel who he was, something you human beings must do again and again and again in this troubled world:  “Daniel, you are greatly beloved.” I said.

Do you know the power of those words?  Do you know that even the greatest of injustice and devastation can be overcome if people remember to tell and show each other that they are loved?  A person can withstand a great many things if they know they are loved.  A society can survive even the greatest of conflicts and divisions if they find a way to return to that wisdom of loving one another.

So, I told Dan how loved he was by his Creator, and by me.  His eyes welled up with tears, as relief mingled with heavy sorrow reflected back at me through those watery eyes. 

Then I explained, as gently as I could, that it was going to get worse for Dan’s people before it got better.  It was going to look even more hopeless, the powerful were going to use their power in even more violent ways, and all the peace that was built would be destroyed again.  Dan began to shake.  I knew he hadn’t eaten for days.  His sorrow consumed him completely.  But still, I had to let him know what was coming.  I couldn’t give this desperate man false comfort.  Because if angels are anything, we are honest, even brutally so.

“So, yes, Dan, it’s going to get worse.  Much worse.  But then, there will be an end.  And the one who desolated so many will be overcome by God.  Good will prevail.”

That was the wisdom I gave to Dan that day: he was beloved.  Conflict and devastation were real, and they were getting worst.  He couldn’t ignore that.  But, no matter how bad it seemed, no matter how unending cycles of hatred and retaliation seemed, God would win in the end.  And God’s reign is not one of hatred or fear.  God’s reign is one of peace and light.

I began speaking with you today about misconceptions you human beings have about angels.  I have one more for you: people often assume that we angels spend all day lollygagging on fluffy white clouds playing golden harps in heaven.  Please!  Don’t you know God is intimately connected with events on this earth?  Don’t you know God sends us messengers right into those places of desolation and fear?

We don’t have time to sit on clouds playing harps.

Because we’ve heard people crying out:

“Let your face shine, O Lord, upon this desolated sanctuary!”

“O Lord, hear!  O Lord, forgive!  O Lord, listen and act and do not delay!”

We’ve heard people crying out, “I can’t breathe.”

And we are answering even now, us angels.

Above all of the us-and-them games you people play, above all of the pointing of fingers and drawing of battle lines, we are answering.

Can you hear us?

We are sharing that wisdom I told Dan that day, and we will share that wisdom until it is a reality for everyone:

You – all of you – of every race and nationality, of every size and shape, are beloved by your Creator, who wants you to love each other, too.

Don’t ignore the reality of conflict in this world: it is real.  And it might get worse before it gets better.  But it will get better, because God is still at work in this world – and in this season of Advent, Christ is coming in new and startling ways, sending us angels to prepare the way. 

That is wisdom.  And like I later told Daniel, when all of his wearying work was done, “Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.”

You don’t need an angel like me to tell you there is a lot of darkness around these days.  But you just might need this angel to tell you the importance of shining with the wisdom God gives you, now more than ever.  The stars are only seen in the darkness, you know.  So, shine, beloved children of God, shine the light of God’s love on all.

Like that great messenger Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” 

Like John said, whose birth I announced to Elizabeth (you’ll hear about that next week), “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it.”  Amen.