Luke 1:11 Zechariah was in the sanctuary when an angel of the Lord appeared, standing to the right of the incense altar. In church on Sunday the pastor talked about the song the angels sang to the shepherds and it got me thinking about this whole angel thing. 1. Why did God make people if he already had angels? I mean, angels are beautiful and perfect. Was it because they couldn’t choose to love Him or something like that? I mean, really, humans are messy and disobedient and fickle. God knew full well that when He made us He’d have to come save us from ourselves. Why bother? Why not have a relationship with the angels instead? Or is it more fun to have unpredictable, crazy humans? 2. In the book of Daniel the angel tells Daniel that he was sent by God the minute Daniel started praying but that he was delayed by demonic forces. I wonder how often God sends us an answer but it is delayed by demonic forces. I think I’ve covered this in a previous post. 3. Were the angels jealous when God created man? It’s kind of like the older sibling thing. They had been created but it wasn’t enough. Did they ever wonder why they weren’t enough or why God felt the need to have a relationship with something as problematic as humanity? Just sayin’… 4. When the angel appeared to the shepherds in the fields after Jesus’ birth he calmed them down and told them about what had happened. I wonder if the angels were extra bright that night because they were so excited and awed about what God had done. Anyway, the shepherd finally start breathing again and suddenly a vast host of angels appears in the sky. They have another heart attack. I didn’t think about it until the pastor mentioned it but a vast host is something like millions of angels. I always pictured 20-30 angels, but this is a whole different picture. Can you imagine?! Millions of angels singing in the sky! Did anyone else see this?! Seriously, a million, brilliantly shining angels appear in the sky singing the Hallelujah Chorus… That had to light up the fields like the day! Of course, I suppose they could have only been visible to the shepherds… But, wow! That had to be incredible! 5. When Zechariah questions the angel on the validity of him and his wife having a child when they were way too old for that to happen (sounds like Abraham and Sarah!), the angel says, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news!” (Luke 1:19) Dude! I’m an angel! Why would I lie about this?! In this translation, and several others I’ve read, Gabriel sounds like he’s just smacked his forehead in shock that this guy is questioning an angel. It shows some emotion from the angel and is an interesting reminder to me that the angels did have feelings and emotions. I wonder how many times they shook (and still shake) their head at humanity wondering how on earth we could be so monumentally stupid and so incredibly loved by God. So, those are, randomly arranged of course, some of my thoughts on angels. I’m sure there are other thoughts running around in my head, but these are the ones I can remember at 5:00 in the morning.