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Hear the angel
The biblical account of the birth of Christ Jesus demonstrates both the special place angels have in our individual lives and their impact in the world. We cannot see them, but they are present to guide us, opening the way to hope and limitless possibilities that may currently be unseen. Angels are speaking to each of us not only at Christmastime but in every season. Are we listening?
The nativity story contains many examples of these divine visitants, explained in Christian Science as not ethereal beings but “pure thoughts from God, winged with Truth and Love” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 298). The angel Gabriel appeared to a priest named Zacharias to assure him that he and his wife, Elisabeth—despite both being “now well stricken in years”—would have a child (see Luke 1:5–17). This child would later be known as John the Baptist.
The same angel spoke to Elisabeth’s cousin Mary and told her she would have a child to be known as “the Son of the Highest”—even though, as Mary said to the angel, she “[knew] not a man” (see verses 26–38). Joseph, the man Mary was engaged to, was next to hear an angel, who reassured him that although Mary was carrying a child and one that was not his own, he should still marry her, “for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 1:18–25).
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