Usually this column is posted close to the "fun" holiday highlighted for the week...often leaving you only a last minute opportunity to observe the day. This time you have almost a week to make your plans...and to do it right you might need a bit of preparation. Next Wednesday, August 22nd, is marked as Be An Angel Day. Established in 1993, it's celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

In these few hundred words it would be impossible to tell you everything the Bible tells us concerning angels and still say what I intend to say, so please be content with a cursory overview. Angels materialize throughout scripture, from Genesis and the angel left guarding the Garden of Eden to Revelation and the vision of the end times...we know them best from the Nativity story and their appearances to Mary, Joseph and the shepherds.

The name comes from the Greek and it means  "messenger"...more than that, these attendants of God are believed to convey the authority of the Sender as if God were present. They manifest the message in two primary ways, either through direct "wings on" ministry of nourishment and strengthening as they did with Jesus after he overcame the temptations and on the night in another garden called Gethsemane...or wrestle with them as did Jacob. More often they arrive with a proclamation and announce the will of God that will become manifest in present or future time.

This day is not titled " Learn About Angels Day" or even " Act Like An Angel Day"...it's an invitation to BE an angel! No one in their right mind should really want to become an angel...because it would mean you were no longer a living, breathing human! We are to be who we are now and in time we might graduate to that status...but the point of the day is to remind us that we can emulate the purpose of angels by being the messengers of God's love for everyone. We are called and sent, like angels, to stop thinking only of ourselves and start showing up for others. We can turn up with a word of comfort and hope to the discouraged and disconsolate or even a word of warning and challenge to those who butt up against what we know to be God's design of loving graciousness. We can offer visible support for those who we know who have not enough or proclaim that those who have more than enough should share. But a better way next Wednesday might be through random acts of kindness...an unprompted greeting and smile, give up your seat for one who is standing, buy a cup of coffee for the one in line behind you, leave a small gift in your neighbor's mailbox.

If you add an " str" to the first letters of angel you'll form the beginning of the word stranger. If someone is familiar with you or is counting on you to help that is wonderful...but you probably won't fit the biblical definition of "angel". They show up when you least expect them, and they lift others to their level and leave behind a certain sense of amazement...and so can you! While it's great to assist a friend, family or fellow church member, ministry to a stranger can help turn what is initially their disbelief into believing. Or you might find that, like Abraham when he and Sarah showed hospitality to complete strangers, you might be unaware that it is you who are entertaining angels!

As the summer winds down I hope you're getting wound up for ministry this fall...it will be exciting!

Pastor Brent