- The Angel of the Commonplace

THE STORY OF ZECHARIAH AND THE ANGEL (Luke 1:8-11) suggests that people in these strange days are seeing things badly out of focus. It takes real effort of the mind to wrestle loose from the false philosophies that hold the masses of mankind in their grasp.
Thinking only of America for the moment, it may be said with complete accuracy that the masses of our population think the same about almost everything. Our boasted right to disagree is a joke to the one who can see past the end of his own nose. Except for the numerically unimportant rebels among us, we Americans react alike toward our social stimuli. We are as carefully conditioned as were the people of Germany under Hitler or the Russians under Stalin. The difference is that our conditioning is accomplished not by force but by advertising and other media of mass education. The press, the radio and the various dramatic forms, among which the movie is the most potent, have brainwashed the average American as successfully as was ever done by the totalitarian propaganda machines. Of course there were no threats, no concentration camps and no secret police, but the job is done nevertheless. And the proof of its effectiveness is found in the fact that those so washed are not aware of what has happened to them, and will greet any such notion with loud guffaws. But whether the victim laughs or weeps, he or she is still a victim.
One ominous sign of our warped concepts is our false attitude toward the ordinary. There has grown up around us an idea that the commonplace is old-fashioned and strictly for the birds. Hardly anything is permitted to be just what it is—everything these days must be “processed.” On some levels of society, for instance, the sight of a mother nursing her baby would evoke exclamations of wonder if not downright disapproval. Have not the manufacturers invented better baby food than mother’s milk? And anyway, such food has not been “processed,” nor is it produced in a union shop. And how can Mrs. America be glamorous when engaged in such a lowly and commonplace occupation?
The mania after glamour and the contempt of the ordinary are signs and portents in American society. Even religion has gone glamorous. And in case you do not know what glamour is, I might explain that it is a compound of sex, paint, padding and artificial lights. It came to America by way of the honky-tonk and the movie lot, got accepted by the world first and then strutted into the church—vain, self-admiring and contemptuous. Instead of the Spirit of God in our midst, we now have the spirit of glamour, as artificial as painted death and as hollow as the skull, which is its symbol.
That we now have to deal with a new spirit in religion is not merely a figure of speech. The new Christianity has clearly introduced new concepts that face us brazenly wherever we turn within the confines of evangelical Christianity. The plain virtues, so dear to the heart of the prophet and apostle and the substance of the solemn and fiery sermons of our Protestant forebears, have been sent into retirement with the fireman’s horse and the blacksmith’s bellows. The new Christian no longer wants to be good or saintly or virtuous. He or she wants to be happy and free, to have “peace of mind” and, above all, wants to enjoy the thrills of religion without any of its perils. He or she brings to the New Testament a paganized concept of the Christian way and makes the Scriptures say what he or she wants them to say. And this the new Christian does, oddly enough, while at the same time protesting that he or she is in true lineal descent from the apostles and a true son or daughter of the Reformation. This person’s spiritual models are not holy men but ball players, plug-uglies from the prize ring and sentimental but unregenerate stars of anything but heavenly firmament.
True Christianity is built on the Bible, and the Bible is the enemy of all pretense. Simplicity, sincerity and humility are still golden virtues in the kingdom of God. The angel appeared to Zechariah when he was going about his regular prosaic business. There was nothing glamorous about the old saint’s task. There was no fanfare, no drama—just a good old man doing what he had been taught. He sought no publicity. The busy people outside paid no attention to him. In this dizzy era is it too much to hope that a few Christians will still believe in the angel of the commonplace?
Let’s turn off the colored lights for a while and see what happens. Maybe our eyes will get used to the light of God. And who knows? Maybe someone will again see an angel.