2015-12-24

Dear Angel:

It is the time of year when our praises and poems include recollection of your role in proclaiming what happened this evening not so many years ago. We yearn sometimes for proof that you exist, and ponder whether your good grace has been demonstrated by someone's timely good fortune. And we wonder if -- we wish it to be true that -- you walk among us.

There was someone (somewhere some when during the year) who surmised that angels become human "...so that they can know what chocolate tastes like." Well, maybe. I suppose that trying to explain what chocolate tastes like is a bit like trying to quantify how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

But it seems short-sighted or selfish or both, as though your existence was based on whether one would want to ask (or have an answer to) the question "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" (or the variant "Is the effort worth the sauce?"): more "instant gratification" rather than long-term benefit for all (or, at least, for others). An addiction to chocolate sauce and lemon chicken notwithstanding, there is something to look forward to after the sauce. God's plan was likely for more than The First Day, and His first objective was probably for more than that First Day of Rest six days later.

If it is true that angels become human, perhaps the reason is more than to experience one or all of the five senses. Perhaps it allows the Angel to experience even a fraction of what Creation might have been like: to give light to those who despair that the universe is dark; to give a firmament to those who have no hope; to bring forth life when there are those who do not choose life; to aid another to behold everything and to see that it is very good.

The hymns for you this evening are deserved all through the year: our contemplations about you allow our faith to be explored... and cause our contemplations to be more joyful. We mortals may never know whether your true purpose is to experience a chocolate-sugar cascade or to create a universe within the Universe... but we should always be thankful that, on this evening, you pointed out to us the Life in our world and the Joy to the World.