View from the Vicarage

March 2026 Vicar’s Message

A September message from Revd. Paul
Do Not Be Afraid

Now the Michaelmas daisies have come out in a splash of bright purple and as Elizabeth Barrett Browning said, Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.

To the scientist with one eye closed and the other glued to their microscope, the dull world can be measured and described in shades of grey. But to the poet Francis Thompson, The angels keep their ancient places; Turn but a stone and start a wing. Tis ye, tis your estranged faces, that miss the many splendoured thing.

The eye of the artist is dazzled by the inexplicable beauty of the world around us and the proper response to the colours of autumn is to bow down in reverence.

So, when we come to celebrate the feast of St Michael & All Angels, we are not discussing creatures that can be dissected and pinned to a piece of cork. We are humbly admitting that there are aspects of the universe that we shall never fully understand.

In the Bible there are some who “entertained angels unawares”. The word angel simply means messenger and some of God’s messengers came dressed as ordinary human beings. In the Apocrypha, Tobias and his dog walked six hundred miles with the angel Raphael from Nineveh to Rages and six hundred miles back again without recognizing him. Even the dog didn’t bark at him.

Yet when Raphael told Tobias and his family that he was an angel, they were terrified. So, he said Do not be afraid. Almost every time anybody sees an angel in the Bible, they calm with the same words.

Gabriel said to the Virgin at the Annunciation: Do not be afraid Mary. When Mary Magdalene and the other women came to the tomb where Jesus had been buried, an angel rolled back the stone; the guards shook with fear, but the angel said to the women Do not be afraid, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified … he has been raised.

Fear of the unknown is natural; but with the angels’ reassurance it can turn into the much more useful emotion of humble awe before the mystery of a spiritual dimension that we had hardly dreamt of before.

There has been a resurgence of interest in angels in recent years, but much of it is very trivial. Books on angels in the spirituality section of the bookshops abound in psycho-babble and the power of positive thinking, calling us to tune in to the higher vibrations of the angels. Or you can buy on the internet a lucky charm in the shape of an angel for your pocket.

Jesus said that each of his little ones has their own angel in heaven, whose task is to represent them before the throne of God. But the cosy belief that we each have a guardian angel to look after us because God is too busy is a light year away from the awesome messengers of scripture.

So, whether the scientific half of your brain believes that angels really exist or not, concentrate on the poetic and artistic side and let Michaelmas each year remind you to bow in awe before the wonder of creation and the majesty of the Creator.

The universe does not end where we are no longer able to observe it, nor is it bounded by the merely material. There is a spiritual universe interwoven with the physical one, open to the eye of faith.

God sends His spiritual messengers in many guises to carry to us the message that God loves us. Do not be afraid; bow down in awe before the angelic messenger, if you ever see one. But always remain reverential, as they are, to the heavenly Father who sends them.

Bless the Lord, you angels of His, you mighty ones who do His bidding and hearken to the voice of His word.

Psalm 103 v19-22

Blessings,
Reverend Paul