Heb. 13:1-2 ESV

Last Friday evening my wife (Grammy) and I (Papa) attended our youngest granddaughter's (Taylor) annual holiday musical pageant at the "middle school" where she is a student. They called them "junior high schools" in Grammy's and my day. For about an hour and a half I sat on a hard, metal folding chair and listened to some really talented kids sing and play music related to this holiday season. Being totally objective about it, I have to admit that Taylor was the prettiest and the most talented performer of the evening.

While sitting on my uncomfortable perch and doing my usual surveillance of my surroundings (I am a trained observer you know) I made mental notes of several observations. One being, how did junior high kids get so tall? Some of them looked like they might be faculty. Of course, they might have been because another observation was how young the teachers looked. And, if you think the teachers looked young, you should have seen the parents of the kids on stage. They looked like kids themselves. I don't think I'll go to anymore of these events.

Of course the performance was centered around this holiday season and the music was the familiar songs relative to it. Some mentioned "angels" as in "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" and that got me to thinking about a topic for today's editorial. (I had to do something to take my mind off of my hard chair and being surrounded by an auditorium of young-looking people.) Kidding aside, I remembered a piece I had saved in my "possible editorial material" file and thought that today's effort just might be the time to incorporate it into a lesson. Let me at least try.

In just a moment I'm going to provide you with the aforementioned article, saved for this occasion, but first I'd like to sort of gear our minds to the lesson subject - "angels." I'd like put you in mind of two passages found in the book of Hebrews that I think fits with our topic. First, the writer in speaking about "angels," says in chapter 1, verse 14, "Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation." (ESV)

Then the second reads in this manner: "Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." (Heb. 13:1-2 ESV) And now for the little "saved piece" which is actually a short story written by a lady named Laura E. Richards and adapted by myself. I feel that it fits both of the passages cited above.

"Mother," said the child, "are there really angels?" "The Bible says so," said the mother. "Yes," said the child, "I have seen the picture, but did you ever see one, Mother?" "I think I have," said the mother, "but she was not dressed like the picture." "I'm going to find one!" said the child. "I'm going to run along the road, miles and miles and miles, until I find a angel." The mother said that this sounded like a good plan, but that "I will go with you, for you are too little to run far alone."

The child protested, "I am not little any more. I have trousers; I am big." "So you are," said the mother. "I forgot. But it is a fine day and I should like the walk." The child then said, "But you walk so slowly with your lame foot." "I can walk faster than you think!" said the mother. So they started, the child leaping and running and the mother stepping out so bravely with her lame foot that the child soon forgot about it.

He danced on ahead and soon he saw a coach coming towards him, drawn by prancing white horses. In the coach sat a splendid lady in velvet and furs, with white plumes waving above her dark hair. As she moved in her seat, she flashed with jewels and gold, but her eyes were brighter than diamonds. "Are you an angel?" asked the child, running up beside the coach. The lady made no reply, but stared coldly at the child, then spoke to the driver who whipped the horses and they rolled away in a great cloud of dust and disappeared. "That was not a angel!" said the child. "No indeed!" said the mother. "Nothing like one."

They went on, with the child running and dancing on ahead, from one side of the road to the other and the mother following as best she could. Then they met a beautiful maiden wearing a white dress. Her eyes were like blue stars and the blushes in her face came and went like roses in the snow. "I'm sure you must be an angel," cried the child. She blushed even more and said, "You dear little child. Someone else said that just last evening. Do I really look like an angel?" "You are an angel," said the child. The maiden picked him up and kissed him and held him tenderly. "You're the dearest little thing I ever saw," she said. "Tell me, why do you think that I'm an angel?" But then, suddenly her face changed as she looked down the road.

"Oh," she cried. "There he is, coming to meet me and you have soiled by white dress with your dusty shoes and messed up my hair. Run away from here and go back to your mother." She dropped the child, not very gently, and he stumbled and fell down. She hurried off down the road to meet her lover. The child lay in the dust road and cried until his mother came along and picked him up and wiped away his tears with her blue gingham apron. "I don't believe that she was an angel after all," he said. "No," said the mother, "but she may be one some day. She is young yet."

"I am tired," said the child. "Will you carry me home, Mother?" "Why yes," said the mother. "That's what I came for." The child put his arms around his mother's neck and she held him tight and trudged along the road, singing his favorite song to him. Suddenly he looked up at her face and said, "Mother, I don't suppose you could be an angel, could you?" "Oh, what a foolish child," said the mother. "Who ever heard of an angel in a blue gingham apron." And she went on singing, and stepped out so bravely on her lame foot that no one would ever have known she was lame.

What do you think? Should we look a little more closely around us for "angels?" There's an old saying about "not seeing the forest for the trees." Perhaps we can be guilty of "not seeing angels for the people."

Just a last little thought and then the lesson is yours. As the little story so effectively points out and, as seen in the verse previously cited (Heb. 1:14), I have no trouble visualizing Christian mothers as "angels." As "ministering spirits."

A man once said, in speaking about Christian mothers, that "she stands in the place of God to the child." Wouldn't you see that as fitting with Solomon's admonition in Prov. 1:8 to "not forsake the law of thy mother" because a Christian mother teaches the principles of God?

I'm not sure if there are very many "gingham aprons" still being worn today, but that isn't the only uniform worn by "angels." They could also be wearing work boots and denim pants, military uniforms, grandma's clothing or even middle school choir dresses. Just be on the alert so you don't miss one.

Ron Covey