Advent Week 3: Angels We Have Heard

 

In days of old, a man entertained strangers often.  Doors were opened and the stranger was welcomed within.  No decent man would turn away a stranger who appeared.  In Biblical times, hospitality was not simply inviting someone to stay to supper.  It was a spiritual obligation as much as a personal one to offer one's home and comforts to a weary traveler.  It was more than entertainment.  Hospitality was something deeper.  It was a reverence for the person, stranger though they might be.  Hospitality was an offering of refuge, refreshment, rest, and restoration.  It was the essence of 'Love thy neighbor'.

The plan of the day might have been to shear sheep or wash the carpets, but these plans were set aside.  The original supper menu might have been planned as curds of camel's milk and stale bread with the last of the open jar of honey but for the stranger this would not do.  A fatted calf was killed.  Breads were baked.  New jars of honey were opened, and raisin cakes were baked.   The host offered food and drink and water and washed the feet of the traveler.  

It was not a short visit, as you can imagine.  The preparations for the meal would have taken time, cooking would have taken longer still.  All of this was done without complaint.  It was one man's way of saying to another that their comfort, their wellbeing was far more important than anything else. 

Conversation ensued.  Stories were told.  Lineages shared.  Songs were taught from one to another, news was carried from camp to camp, a craft might have been learned as the visitors looked on.   And when the stranger left a camp, he took with him fresh bread, dried fruits, wine and water; sustenance for the journey ahead of him. 

Hebrews 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

The Bible tells us that Abram and Lot both offered hospitality to angels.  Not winged beings with halos about their heads.  No.  Men who looked like Abram and Lot, yet who possessed presence and strength and who spoke prophecy over them.   Lot offered protection to the men who came to him as part of his hospitality, though they were sent to protect him.  Angels spoke with many of the prophets.  John saw angels in his revelatory visions.

Later encounters with angels, especially those in the New Testament accounts were strange and unusual events.   It had been many years since anyone had heard from God.  The New Testament tells of descriptions of angelic encounters over the period of a year or so that heralded in the Christ child.  One appeared to Zechariah in the temple as he entered with the censer to perform his priestly duty.  Mary spoke with an angel who told her she would carry the child of God.  Joseph heard from an angel through a dream that Mary was not to be set aside.  The shepherds in the field saw a 'host of angels' who proclaimed the birth of Christ.  

Angels we have heard... 

In the waiting season we went through, we found ourselves isolated but there were things which happened to us that none can explain.   A man with a ragged guitar sang to us one summer morning at a gas station in town, with no one else anywhere near us not even on the usually busy highway that runs past the place, after our 8th grandchild was born.   I've never seen this man in town before and have never seen him again but that morning we heard a rather beautiful rendition of "A Simple Man" that left us both in tears.  I recall that man quite clearly. He stands out. Were there others during that time?  We met many people we've never seen more than once, yet there they were with a word in due season, encouraging us to go through this place in our lives.  

Let us open our hearts and spirits to the season we are entering.  We've been through some hard seasons of late, in which we isolated ourselves from friends and strangers alike.  May we all encounter angels in this week.   And please God, may we entertain them, as well.