Men in White

 

Angels

            In Mark’s telling, on the first day of the week after Jesus’ death, three women—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome—took spices to the tomb where Joseph had buried the body of Jesus.  When the women arrived, they found the stone rolled away from the tomb; inside the tomb they saw “a young man dressed in a white robe.” (Mark 16:5) The man in white told the women that Jesus had risen.

            For two millennia, Christian readers have understood the “young man” to be an angel, which was surely the intention of the author.  In Luke, the women see two men “in clothes that gleamed like lightening.”  A few verses later, the women’s report is summarized as “a vision of angels.”

            Of course, angels appear in other places in the gospel story.  In the first chapter of Luke, an angel named Gabriel announces the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and, a bit later, the birth of Jesus to Mary.  In Matthew, an “angel of the Lord” tells Joseph that her pregnancy is an act of God and that Joseph should go ahead and marry her.  Matthew also says that angels attended Jesus in the wilderness, after he had been tempted by the devil.

            Curious minds want to know!  Gabriel is named, so we assume they all have names.  Why not?  God is an infinite being.  He knows the stars by name, says Isaiah.  It would not be difficult for him to know each angel.  If they have names, they could have distinct personalities.

            Could have!  Do we know for sure?  No.  Scripture doesn’t answer all our questions.  But it seems plausible that angels are spiritual and rational beings—as most Christian theologians have taught.  Apparently, angels can “appear” as human beings, but their “bodies” are not a constituent element in their being.  People, on the other hand, do not merely “have” bodies; we are body/soul composites.

            Curious minds want to know!  Our lives make sense by means of the narratives we inhabit (an important theme in MacIntyre).  So: do angels have stories?  Like ours, angelic stories would all be subsumed into the great story of the Christ.  But their stories would differ from angel to angel.  The “young man” who met Mary, Mary, and Salome with the news of the resurrection was not just any angel; he was a particular angel.  We might imagine the angel experiencing joy and divine pleasure in this assignment.  Some of us (novelists or poets) might even put words to our imaginations.  And the door opens; a great poet might include angels in something called Paradise Lost.

            Speculation, however delightful, must not obscure the main point.  We don’t know the name of the “young man in white clothes,” but we do know what he said to the women.  It is the message he conveyed to them that matters.

            “Don’t be alarmed.  You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.  He has risen!  He is not here.  See the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going ahead of you into Galilee.  There you will see him.”