God’s Word for You
Mark 16:5 The angel
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, April 3, 2024
5 When they went into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a long white robe, and they were alarmed.
Angels have intelligence, understanding, and wisdom. They are powerful beings, spirits without bodies, but they can take on forms to be seen by and to interact with human beings. They were all originally created as holy, just, and good creatures, to glorify God and to serve him. We have discussed the fallen angels, or demons, along with chapters 1 and 3 and especially chapter 5 of this study on Mark. But we can surely add that the good angels praise and glorify God, carry out God’s orders, serve people, and they protect and make unseen fortifications around those who fear the Lord. They protect little children, guard adults in their ways and their various kinds of work; they keep watch, attend the dying, and “they take up the zealous care and guardianship of individual believers and also of all the estates that God has ordained: ecclesiastical, civil, and domestic.” As St. Bernard said: “The angels are present, and they are present for you. Not only are they with you, they are also for you. They are near to protect you; they are near to take care of you.”
God’s use of the angels is for our benefit. They are messengers whose very presence is a proclamation of the gospel to believers. These beings see God and do his will, and here they are, appearing to lowly mankind to convey both God’s will and his good will. They remind us of God’s hand in our lives because he adds their hands, unseen though they are, to his own.
Most of the angels that are described in the Scriptures are men (Genesis 19:12; Acts 1:10) or even young men. Some in Zechariah have the faces of women and wings like a stork (Zechariah 5:9). Certain angels in heaven are depicted as living creatures (lion, ox, man, eagle, Revelation 4:7), but those are part of vision, and a vision should be taken figuratively unless the context demands otherwise.
The angel here in the tomb was one of a pair, although Mark only mentions the one who speaks. His robe is a long, linen robe, like the third robe of Joseph the patriarch (the one given to him when he was released from prison, Genesis 41:14). The word (Greek stole) is also used for the priestly robes of the Jews (Exodus 28:2), but could be any robes of good quality (Esther 6:8; Jonah 3:6; Luke 15:22). The robe is not so important as the symbolic color, since white represents holiness, purity, and God (Matthew 17:2; Revelation 3:4).
Even though the robe has symbolism here, we can’t insist the sitting on the right side has any symbolism at all. In Matthew, the angel that rolled away the stone was sitting “on it” (the stone), and he is the one who spoke to the women (Matthew 27:2-7). Mark’s language does not exactly match Matthew’s, since reading Mark by itself, we might be led to understand that the angel was inside the tomb, sitting on the right side (where, we must presume, there was a place to sit, either the burial slab or some outcropping in the cave). Or was the angel sitting on the stone which was rolled away, from left to right, so that he was perched on top of the stone over to the right of the entrance? It is even possible that the sitting or perching angel was first on the stone, and then, when the women looked inside, he continued to speak to them, but now had moved as quick as a wink inside with them and was once again sitting. It each case, it is the sitting of the angel that is consistent. In the synagogues and perhaps other contexts, it was traditional to stand while reading the Scriptures and to sit down while teaching (Luke 4:20). What the angel had to say was definitive and established as fact: Christ has risen.
The reaction of the women was typical of an actual encounter with an angel. They were frightened, and surprised. This was not what they had expected to find. The expensive perfume was no longer on their minds at all. The angel’s purpose was to proclaim the message of the resurrection. The frail, doubtful, and yes sinful human mind still struggles with this unlikely message. A believer, a lifelong Christian may sometimes find to his or her surprise that such doubts never stop turning up, like weeds in the spring grass. But cheer up! It was for your doubts, too, that Jesus died and rose. You are forgiven. If Thomas could struggle a bit, you will be forgiven as well. But like Thomas, you have a place prepared for you in heaven by Jesus Christ himself.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.