Psalm 9111For he will command his
angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
Matthew18: 10“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. 11For the Son of Man came to save the lost.”
I honestly can’t remember which Pixar movie it is – I looked for a bit, but couldn’t find it, but there’s a scene in which there’s a baby, a little toddler, walking around a jungle.
And as the baby is walking, he keeps encountering dangers, but he is kept safe by friends, completely unaware of both the dangers and his protectors.
Completely unaware, this little one walks toward a cliff and someone lays down over it to make themselves a bridge so he can safely cross over them.
Completely unaware, this little one walks towards water and someone turns him the other direction.
And he walks toward dangerous predator’s and someone else allows themselves to get bit instead of him.
Today we consider two related things, the holy angels and God’s little ones, even receiving the kingdom of God like a little child.
As our Psalm says, God commands his angels concerning us, to guard us in all our ways.
And we are mostly unaware of how it is that they do this and what all it is that they are protecting us from.
It doesn’t depend upon our awareness. They aren’t following our commands, they are following God’s commands and His commands are always means for our good and protection.
God is doing the protecting, and He is also appointing His angels to do it with, too.
Sometimes, we become a little aware of some of the ways he is protecting us and those we love.
We all have stories – don’t we? About how a few inches or a few minutes made all the difference. A little change in space or a little change in time, and it would have been much different for the worse.
We all have stories – don’t we? Where we can point and say, “There God was specifically commanding his angels to guard and protect me and those who I love.”
I love to hear your stories.
And I can’t wait to hear all our stories when we see the face of the Father. Because the stories that we can tell are infinitely outnumbered by the stories we don’t even know.
We love good stories and eternity starts to not seem so long when we consider the number of good stories about God’s goodness and protection of us that we’ll be hearing and telling.
The word for guard, as in God commands his angels to guard us in all our ways, is often a military term.
It’s used of night watchmen and guard who are protecting and watching and defending while everyone sleeps and rests.
While you are doing nothing, Someone is watching and protecting.
It’s also used of how shepherds keep their flocks from need and danger. In your helpless and weakness, Somone is strong and protecting.
And there is this wonderful truth that God commands His angels concerning us to guard us in all our ways.
We don’t have to wonder if there was a time, a place, a path or if there is or will be a time, a place, a path that God’s protection wasn’t, is, or will be.
God never leaves us or forsakes us and today we are reminded of the promise that His angels are there, too, because they are commanded by God and they rejoice in God’s commandments.
They do not despise us – though they easily could.
Jesus says, 10“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
Angels could easily despise us.
Angels are beautiful and powerful and strong and high ranking. They could easily look down upon us and our weakness.
Scripture in Hebrews 1-2 even meditates on a surprising truth that the Son of God would become man and take on human flesh instead of choosing to become and angel. If Jesus wanted to show only His power and strength and beauty and may-a could-a should-a done that – taken on the form of an angel for the world.
But that’s not Jesus. And that’s not His angels. Jesus does not despise the little ones. He loves the little ones. He came for the little ones.
His power, his strength, his beauty is for, not against, the little ones.
He loves the weak and poor and insignificant to others. He loves those who others would consider to have low status and be of little value.
And He wants you to love them, too.
And He convinces us again to love them by first telling us to become like them. Really, to realize that we already are like them. We’re the little ones.
Jesus came to save the lost. God be praised when He continually humbles us to realize we’re the lost ones,
we’re the weak, the poor, the ones who in God’s sight deserve to have little significance or value or status.
And in loving and protecting s, He renews our love for the lost, the weak, the poor, the ones who in others sight have little significance or value or status.
In other words, everyone. Because compared to the big bad bullies of sin, death, and the devil – that is exactly who we all are.
God’s angels listen and do, even delight in what He commands.
And we do too.
And when we don’t, God works in us repentance and in that the angels rejoice.
We too often fail to do that, and even worse, we sometimes rebel against what He commands and don’t think it’s always for our good and the good of all people.
We too often are tempted to despise others, compare status’ and value and significance.
We’re tempted toward pride when we think we come out on top and despair when we think we come out on bottom.
But strong and beautiful Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
The angels who see the Father’s face do not despise the little ones.
And the Father’s face they see is viewing us in love and mercy.
And if we are to ever doubt that is the case, if you to ever doubt how the Father views you and what the angels are seeing when they look upon the face of the Father, then we look no further than the Son of God’s face.
The invisible Son of God took on a face. So that not only angels, but also shepherds keeping their watch by night and His very own mother Mary and adopted Father Joseph could look upon that face of that lowly, holy Little One.
Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
St. Luke tells us again and again that this Savior Jesus keeps setting His face toward Jerusalem. He came to seek and save the lost and while He’s on the way, He teaches and heals and cleanses and raises the dead, but that’s while He’s on the way.
Because He keeps setting His face toward Jerusalem.
Because that is the place where His face will be covered in spit and bloodied with the drops from the crown of thorns and those guards received Him with blows.
All because this strong one is protecting us little ones from the powerful forces of sin, death and the devil.
At one point Jesus says, Don’t you know I could call a legion of angels to my side – that is, if He despised His enemies and wanted His enemies destroyed, rather than dying for them to save and seek them.
In His death and resurrection, St. Paul says in Ephesians that Jesus unites all things in heaven and on earth. Which in part means that if God is for us, if God did not spare His Son for us, if God did not despise us, then His angels don’t either and gladly do what God commands them to guard us in all our ways.
God help you today in church to begin again to be aware that He is protecting you from much danger within you and outside of you, both visible and invisible. We don’t always know the details and we don’t always have to.
We’ll know them all soon when all our ways that God that God His angels are guarding end to when we see God face to face.