IX. ASCENDING AND DESCENDING ANGELS. JOHN i. 51: "The angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." THAT is, the angels come from below the Son of man, as well as from above him; yet they are the angels of God, from whatever quarter they come. And as in space the heavens are all about us, not above only, but below; so in the soul the heavens enfold the son of man every way, and below him, as above him, open to his angels. The term 66 son of man," in the broad sense, has no mystical meaning. It reaches clean through the scale of life, from the son of man a reptile in the Book of Job, and the son of man as grass in the Book of Isaiah, to the Son of man Lord of the sabbath, the Son of man, with power on earth to forgive sins, and the Son of man glorified of the Gospels. So it is at once the general title for any child of humanity, and the one name Jesus Christ always claims for himself. "The Son of man," therefore, is not only the loftiest, but the lowest man. From the reptile to the Redeemer, it embraces every one. But, broad as this term is, it is not broader than this of the angels that come from the open heavens everywhere into his life; meaning, in the simplest sense, that which is actively at work; and, in the sacred sense, that which is doing God's will. For there is no trace anywhere of an indolent angel. You follow the term carefully as it is used by these Bible men, and find that it is by no means confined to what we understand by "angels" commonly; but they seem to believe, with one of their own rabbins, that "all divine operations, whether natural or spiritual, are done by angels. Jacob's ladder is everywhere stretching from earth to heaven, and every grass-blade has its own angel to attend it." And so you will find, that, excepting the angel is never feminine, there is almost infinite diversity of angelhood. They are gods, and sons of God, and men; the spirit of the thunder and wind and fire; the spirit of nations, kings, statesmen, and pastors. Time would fail me to tell of their almost endless diversity,—from the angel standing at the gate of Eden, whose sword flamed every way before the paradise lost, to the angel with the golden reed, who measures the city in the paradise regained. The Bible conception of the angel touches, on one side, the spirits that stand nearest the immanent glory; and, on the other, that mystery of life in which "Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And I have made this brief study of the Bible senses of the "son of man " and the "angels," because I suppose you have hardly imagined what a breadth and scope these terms take; and also because, in this inclusiveness, we can find applications of my text it is hopeless to seek in the common conception of what it means. Read it in the light of the commentaries usually written about angels, and you say at once, "Here is something that relates entirely to the Messiah. It is a part of that whole system of things that makes him rather the exception than the instance of humanity. These angels were to minister, and did minister, to him, because he was Messiah, not because he was man; and so we have no part or lot in the matter, except to study the curious records of their nature and agency, contained in the far-away hints of Gospel and Epistle. We live now in a prosy railroad world, in which the telegraph can outstrip in swiftness the swiftest flying angel of the old ages; and angels, for many a century now, have fled from the earth." This is all easily said, and men are saying it on all sides of us. But it is not true that the angels never come: the trouble is, we do not look for them where they are. We look for them to sweep down through the opening heavens when they have come down already, and are hidden in the bluebells at our feet. We want them to appear like the great angels of Angelo: they are looking at us out of the dreamy wandering eyes of the babe born yesterday. We read of the angel that came and fought for Israel in the old days. He came and fought for us in these new days, not on wings, but on strong tramping feet; black, but comely; standing side by side with our brothers and sons. He strikes the rock in the wilderness now with a drill, and bores Artesian wells, and ministers to hunger and agony through a woman's hands and heart, and a surgeon's skill, and all common human agencies. Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to minister? But "I think we do as little children do, Who lean their faces on the window pane, To sigh the glass dim with their own breath-stain, This indicates, then, the direction of my thought. It is not to teach you some strange doctrine, but to insist that you stand true to an old doctrine. I want not to bar out of any life the loftiest ministry of angelhood, but to insist also on your recognition of the lowest; and that these come to us also. Do you say that Moses and Elias came and talked with Jesus? Admitted. But the children he took in his arms were angels too, whose ministry was as indispensable to his tried and lonely life as that of the ascended prophets. And Martha troubled about his dinner, and Mary washing his feet with her tears, these were angels as truly as those that found him wandering in the wilderness, and fainting in the garden. - Small matters, you say, to that high soul,-a batch of children, a woman in a tiff, and a woman in tears; surely you are lowering the stand |