Angels: Bring Food

After a recent church discussion of Elder Godoy's talk I Believe in Angels, and also after reading an excellent response, I started to study what angels do when they appear to men. I'm trying to find every description of angelic visitations in (and sometimes out of) scripture and looking for common themes.

What's the point? One of my reasons is pure spiritual enrichment. Angelic visitations tend to be some of the most powerful displays of God's tender and personal loving-kindness. And maybe (maybe!) I can become a better minister by studying how God's angelic ministers do it.

My favorite theme so far is that angels sometimes bring food and drink with them. Not every time, of course, but there are two separate Biblical instances of angels bringing food.

 Example: Hagar

In Genesis 21 Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, concubine of Abraham, and handmaiden to Sarah, has been ejected from Abraham's household. She is left in the wilderness with the child Ishmael and a single bottle of water.

And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.

And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.

And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.
...
And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.

The water this angel brings was already there, but I think it hardly matters exactly how the miracle was done. The Lord heard her, knew she needed water, and gave her some.

Example: Elijah

In 1 Kings 19 Elijah is also wandering alone in the wilderness. He has just enacted one the greatest miracles of his ministry and convinced the people to kill out the priests of Baal. Unfortunately, this brought reprisal from the queen Jezebel who slew many of Elijah's fellow prophets. Distraught and distraught, Elijah flees to the wilderness. Exhausted, he lays down under a tree and gives up, saying "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers."

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.

And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.

And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.

And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

This angel doesn't have any message for Elijah. He'll get to talk with God directly on Mount Horeb. This angel's job is simply to make sure that his belly is full so that he can keep going with the bigger plan.

There are two lessons here. First, God is concerned with our bodily needs. He knows we need to eat and we need to drink, and he cares about that. He also knows that our bodies and our spirits are inextricably connected; Elijah didn't need an angelic sermon to get him to Horeb, he needed some bread.

 The second lesson is directly connected to the first, and is for people trying to minister in God's way. When God says "all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal" it must not mean that only spiritual things are important and temporal or bodily concerns can be ignored. It means that bodily, temporal care is spiritual care. Sometimes we just need to bring some bread.