Isaiah 63:7-9

William F. Schnell

April 27, 2008

A flood came and a man had to climb onto the roof of his house.  As the waters rose a neighbor in a rowboat appeared and told him to get in.  "No," replied the man on the roof, "the Lord will save me."  Then a firefighter appeared in a speedboat.  "Climb in!" shouted the firefighter.  "No," replied the man on the roof, "The Lord will save me."  A helicopter appeared and the pilot shouted that he would lower a rope to the man on the roof.  "No," replied the man on the roof, "the Lord will save me."  Eventually the man drowned and went to heaven, where he asked God why He hadn't helped him.  "I sent a neighbor, a firefighter and helicopter," said God.  "What more do you want?"

God has a history of coming to us through the agency of others.  God is so big, and we are so small in relation to him, that we are not equipped to comprehend him in whole.  Therefore he enables us to comprehend him in part through his chosen instruments.  For example, to show us what he would look like in human form, he sent us his Son, Jesus.  As the author of Hebrews puts it, The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being (Hebrews 1:3).

God spoke his Word through his prophets.  The word prophet is made up of the prefix pro, meaning “for.”  If you are pro something, you are for something.  The suffix is from the Greek root phono, from which we get words like phonograph or telephone—things which transmit the spoken word.  A prophet is one who speaks for God.  Sometimes God uses nonverbal communication, as when he led Israel in the form of a pillar of cloud in the daytime sky and a pillar of fire in the nighttime sky.  Other times he uses both verbal and visual cues as when he spoke to Moses through a burning bush.

In many, many places throughout both the Old and New Testaments, God appears to his people in the form of angels.  Interestingly enough, although the Old Testament is over three times as long as the New, the New Testament makes 165 references to angels to the Old Testament’s 108 references.  Some angels had names, like Gabriel and Michael, some came undercover looking like normal people, and others were radiant or had other amazing features.  Angels were messengers sent from God.  The Greek word for angel, angelos, literally means “messenger.”

Our text for this morning refers to “the angel of his presence,” and it is from this verse that we get the title of our message for this morning: “Angles of His Presence.”  In our text a spokesperson for God—a prophet named Isaiah—is speaking to God’s people while they are in bondage in Babylon (also known as the Exile).  God’s prophets had tried to warn his people that their sins were going to land them in trouble.  But once that trouble came in the form of the Exile, the prophetic message changed from one of judgment and wrath to one of comfort and hope.   Why?

If our children disobey us, we sometimes have to punish them for their own good.  But we do not punish them forever.  Once they recognize the error of their ways, are remorseful and determined not to repeat their mistakes, we forgive them do we not?  Of course, because we love them.  God loves his children too and, once they repented of their sins while exiled from the Promised Land, God forgave them and promised to restore them to their homeland.

To give his people hope, the prophet Isaiah reminds them of how God had previously saved them when they were in bondage to the Egyptians (also known as the Exodus).  As it is written in the book of Exodus: The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.  God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.  So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them (Exodus 2:21-25).

In our text Isaiah brings to remembrance this compassionate God who suffered with his people when they were in distress—when they were in bondage in Egypt.  In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them (Verse 9).  God saved his people from their bondage in Egypt through the angel of his presence.  Who was that?  All we know about this angel is what God says about him to the Israelites just before they set out on the Exodus: "See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.  Pay attention to him and listen to what he says (Exodus 23:20-21).

After that we hear very little more about this angel, unless it is a reference to Moses whom God used to deliver his people from their bondage in Egypt and lead them to the threshold of the Promised Land, in which case we hear a lot more about this “angel” sent from God to save his people.  Regardless of whether or not this reference is to Moses as an angel of God’s presence, it is clear from the biblical witness that God does use human instruments as his messengers.

Indeed, the Good News we are called to proclaim is called euangelion in the Greek: eu, meaning “good,” and angelion meaning “message”--Good Message, Good News.  When we proclaim the Good News we are God’s messengers—God’s angels.  Likewise, when God uses us to save the lost or help the weak or encourage the hopeless, we are God’s messengers—God’s angels.  As Isaiah reminds the exiles in our text, In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old (Verse 9). 

Sometimes God uses us to redeem the difficult times others go through.  Sometimes he uses us to lift others up.  Sometimes he uses us to carry them when they are too weighed down with burdens to walk on their own.  Sometimes he calls us to be angels of his presence.  This very day God is calling some of us to be angels of his presence.  We know these angels as Stephen Ministers.  As they answer the call, may we be inspired by their example to become angels of God’s presence.

God’s children are in the hospital longing for a familiar face among the sterile surroundings.  They are grieving the loss of a loved one alone, after all have departed the memorial service.  They are feeling forgotten in their advancing years.  They are feeling social alienated after becoming single again.  They are strangers in a strange land after relocating from home far away.  They are struggling with depression and other mental illnesses.

For these and other reasons they are alone and in need of the power of your presence—and not of your presence, but that of the spirit of God which is in you.  Be an angel, be with them and God will be with you.  May God be with those angels of his presence who answer the call to become Stephen Ministers this day.