How To See Angels
How does a man get to see angels, to sense their presence?
The following has been lightly edited from a previously unpublished Bible meditation by the late Reverend Richard Wurmbrand, shared by his son Michael in a recent ministry newsletter. You can also listen to this episode in the Prison Pulpit series on the China Compass podcast.
There are two ways of looking at a tomb.
We read in the Gospel of John, Chapter 20, that Peter and another disciple of Jesus came on Easter morning to the tomb of their Master, found it empty, and saw in it the linen in which Jesus had been wrapped.
Mary Magdalene also looked into the empty tomb, but she saw angels where the body of Jesus had lain. Soon after this, she was the first to see the risen Lord Himself. Now, some today see only the crumbling of Christian civilization, while others see angels at work preparing, through dreadful events, the blessed kingdom of God.
Just as Saint Stephen saw the glory of God, while murderers threw stones at him (Acts 7:55), so we see, amidst the slaughter of whole nations, the powers of resurrection working at the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, in which God's elect will be forever happy.
How does a man get to see angels, to sense their presence?
The apostles had been very active in the service of the Lord. Mary had sat quietly at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:39) and listened to Him expound the Scriptures beginning with Moses and all the prophets. (Luke 24:27) She probably heard from His lips the stories of many saints and martyrs for the faith and became familiar with them. Communion with saints and martyrs prepares for communion with angels. Every church service should mention the martyrs and engender among believers respect for these martyrs who were willing to sacrifice all for the Christ they adored.
Martyr proper refers only to one who has died for Christ. But we [must] think also about the "confessors", the old name of those who sit in prisons and are viciously persecuted for Christ's sake. Jesus promised that "whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." (Matthew 10:42)
His reward will be to have eyes open to see angels where others see only disaster.
George Vins, secretary of the underground Baptist Union in the former Soviet Union, suffered eight years in communist prisons. He addressed the judges and the prosecutor at his first trial saying: "I don't see [you as] enemies. You are my brothers and sisters in the great human family. After I have left the courthouse, I will pray in my cell to God for you all, that He may reveal to you His divine truth and the marvelous sense of life. It is the Bible which formed me. It is the Bible which has taught me always to tell the truth."
The Bible teaches us rather "to weep with them that weep" (Romans 12:15) and "to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them." (Hebrews 13:3) Only when looking through tears one begins to see angels where there seemed to be only a tomb.
Look well to your hungry brethren, who now, while it is summer for you, have their emaciated bodies pierced by the cold, sleeping on bare cement in unheated cells where snow never melts. You might see angels around them.
