The dark day when Jesus stopped the angels

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/031420.cfm
Micah 7:14-15, 18-20
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Frank and Ralph rested on a kinnikinnik covered knoll overlooking a lovely valley in a Northeast corner of Mueller State Park. Angels don't actually rest. It's not necessary. It is, however, what humans do. Daily hikes, a distinctly human activity, had taken them farther and farther from their retired environs at the RV Community in Woodland Park. Today, though, dark clouds rolled in from the West. The dry air crackled with electricity. The chilled, windy flurry of winter's end, plus the sloped scene at their feet, looked familiar to a similarly ominous scene 2,000 years earlier. 

“Remind you of anywhere?” asked Frank.

“Boy do I,” said Ralph. “That’s when Jesus flipped the pancake. He upped the ante. He...uh..."

"What?" asked Frank.

"You know," Ralph said, waving his hands in the air. "Over those last few weeks, he revised how the realms operated. He'd already taught the people how to excise demons. Then he took them on all by himself. Our roles changed. I mean, basically, he told us to step aside.”

"Why didn't you just say that?" Frank asked. 

“Well,” said Ralph. “Just goes to show you.”

Frank shook his head. This was Ralph's new “saying.”  “Just goes to show you.” He must’ve said it ten times already this morning. Frank couldn't figure out its meaning. He didn't think Ralph knew either. 

"Jesus flipped the pancake?" Frank asked. Ralph shrugged.

They discussed for some time their shared two-millennium memory, back when an assignment installed them as the guardian angels to Jesus. Nothing was easy. Over the last days of Jesus’ ministry, demonic attacks intensified. Worse, though? Emerging angst on Jesus' face. 

Jesus, Frank, Ralph, and a burgeoning band of Christ-followers stopped not far from Jerusalem. Crowds joined into a multitude. This would be Jesus' final trek. The tally of disciples climbed into the hundreds as the throng headed toward the holy city. Numbers of Pharisees, tax collectors, and scribes increased also, since they were largely centered in nearby Jerusalem. The angels conferred with Jesus about the nasty horde of demons who hovered and scuttered everywhere they went. 

Angels, of course, can see the populations of the demonic realm. The demons had progressively been filling the skies, blocking out clouds and sun. People only saw stange-acting crows and ravens. They were weighed down by unseen parasitic demons, and no longer flew smoothly. Rats and other varmits, also saddled by evil beings, cowered in the crevaces of rocks. Jesus acknowledged them. He had no comforting words. 

As Jesus’ cures scattered demons from village to village, Ralph and Frank had watched and worried. The newly ophaned evil creatures were an unfortunate consequence. Once cast out, each whispy, wiry fiend wafted away in a smoky profile of venom. Yet, the angels knew another victim would be found. Any animal or bird they could find. Frantic out-of-body demons cling even to already possessed hosts, surviving as passengers — land and air-bound barnacles.

Angels don’t get nervous like humans. Their entire being lights up. Angelic specters become a luminescent cluster, a twirling golden bunch of bananas — except rather fuzzy looking. The image is hard to explain. When frightened, from the tips of their hyper-rotating arms, which in full extension look very much like wings, to the rounded parts of their toes, which flicker like Christmas tree bulbs, frightened angels shiver and blink several shades of yellow. This phenomenon continues unabated until another angel comes along and calms them down.

To the human eye, uneducated in angelic emotional states, a nervous angel appears to be a flashing light in the sky, a sparkled reflection of sun striking clouds. A glint does not frighten man or woman. When repeated or sharply flared, a person today just reaches for sunglasses. Animals, however, have no sensual filters for emotional angels appearing in the earthly realm. Their non-theoretical brains interpret correctly. They see angels in a dither, not lightening. When you see a cat, a horse, or a deer suddenly crouch or halt for no apparent reason, an angel may have lost control.

Angry angels react like nervous ones, except anger's glistening color flashes red. Sad angels beam blue. Happy angels turn green and brown, or hazel if you prefer, which looks opposite of what you’d expect. Singing angels appear like fireworks. We're talking about the emotional extremes here, by the way. Not momentary reactions. Worshipping angels, for instance, glow into a bright white, a gleaming sheen far beyond the spectrum of the human eyeball. We don’t see anything at all because angelic worshipping emotions take place in the celestial realm. Realm crossovers of all emotive events, whether gleeful or grim, are thankfully rare.

Additionally, no revenge follows an ugly angelic emotion. Angels don’t get even. Not in the human definition of the term. For instance, if you poke an angel with a stick it’ll absorb it into their body, very quickly, much like a reflex. If you don’t let go you’ll lose a finger. Violently absorbed stuff inside of angels gets redeposited in distant galaxies. Usually a place they’re familiar with. You gotta know what you’re doing if you mess around with an angel. 

Frank and Ralph own and exhibit the same affinities as all angels. Differently, though. Conjoined angelic partnership makes them very unique. As co-workers, celestial colleages, they handle sadness, anger, and nervousness without outside angelic assistance since they calm each other down before they flare-up. This relationship began when they were very young.

According to secreted revelations, which can be divulged by reading between the Hebraic pictographs of the oldest scriptures available, angels were created distinct from the creation of the universe, but not entirely unrelated to it. During their quite lengthy birth and childhood, if we can so loosely describe angelic beginnings, young angels played among the heavens of galaxies as stars and planets were formed. Over billions of years, the angels excelled in the map of the universe. Heaven's celestrial (with emphasis upon "trial") travelers in creation's celestial expanse took preferences among the incredible variations of planets, atmospheres, and the molten suns that lit up space. The universe was their playground. While the Father and Son and Holy Spirit architected, built, and coaxed the amazing environs for the Son to inhabit and rule, the angels played. 

In this erstwhile age, the Father gave angels names, concocted sounds for each spirit from the hymns of creation. Some few were rewarded names only from God's heavenly rythms. The rest from our vast universe of tonal waves. All angels, though, were moved to write signature pieces, magestic songs, to express heartfelt moods about both God’s creation and the celestial regions.

Frank and Ralph, too, got names in that manner. Though in our linqual research the name Frank hails from French roots (derived from "Franciscus"), and Ralph is a shortened composite of “rath,” to counsel, and “ulfr,” for wolf, giving us "Rathulfr" (as coined by the Scandinavians), neither Frank nor Ralph claim French or Scandinavian heritage. Such spirits pre-date all human constructs.

Somewhere between 15 and 1 billion years ago, because we don’t have accurate measuring methods for early ages of creation, time ticked by at an alarmingly chaotic pace. A millennium might last a year in one part of the universe. One year might drag on forever; but, the next decade might last an actual ten years in our ticking pattern. Creation exceeds chaotic. It is cosmic. How do you measure the speed of a day when every forming galaxy stretches time faster at the edges than at the center? The entire universe waggles at complex, interwoven speeds.

Anyway, Ralph and Frank’s celestial names are completely unfamiliar to the ear when spoken at multiple octaves, as angels communicate. The human ear hears something like “Rauuleaph,” and “Frooonicka.” While a few opinionated angels believe the sea anemone can hear angelic tones — and porpoises too — most angels doubt the possibility. Consequently, our pronunciation of an angel’s name poorly represents the actual wording.

Over recent time, since worldwide communication through digital means, human introduction into the cosmos, schism of the angels, and the introduction of death by sin, angels adapted and devilish beings thrived. Not necessarily, or actually, in that order. Two retired angels’ names have adapted to fit the occasion of their different assignments. 

When Jesus was a child, and the angels were his guardians, he called them "Ralphie" and "Fronka." Besides adorable, the names were a tease. Jesus, of course, could see angels. He could have said their names properly because he had tickled them, racing after them in the depths of space when they were just pups. You can see how the two eventually emerged as Ralph and Frank. Well, if you can’t see that, it’s how it happened anyway.

During the gestational period of the universe, which coincided nicely with the gestational period of angelic development, Ralph and Frank were not as famous as they would later become. In fact, for more than 2 billion years Frank had a stutter. Can you imagine stuttering in seven octaves? Ralph’s developmental difficulty was similar, but more concerning. He saw double — things in front of him and behind him at the same time. Dagnab Balibius, as the angels say.

Frank and Ralph ended up together because one could speak for the other, and the other could see for the one. Billions of years ago the stutter and the double sightedness faded away. The two, however, remained joined at the senses, so to speak, inextricably tied at their tongues and crossed at their corneas. Inseparable still, and odd, they are a distinctly useful conglomerate of angelic beings.

I bring this up, because it helps to explain how the two angels were assigned to Jesus, and how Jesus came to love them. Plus, their assignment to guard, protect, an envelop Jesus did not come with a manual. Jesus was a baby, a boy, and then a man. He was also the redeemer and the sacrificial lamb to boot. This complication and practical impossibility could not be understood by angels. The Son of God's love, mission, and ultimate relationship to creation as the Son of Man was an unknown. Such was the fulcrum of change — visible man and divine redeemer — which started to become apparent on that strange, dark day outside Jerusalem.

The first angel assigned to Jesus (while in the womb) was too clumsy for the job. We leave out his name to protect reputations, and from a fearful expulsion into another galaxy. On Mary’s trek to see Elizabeth, said first angel accidentally tripped on an optical illusion and dramatically appeared in front of the donkey Mary was riding, The donkey had never seen the rarity of a fuzzy swirly morass of flailing bunched bananas before. The freaked out angel lit up yellow and red — both frightened and angry — right there on the road. The donkey bayed a nasal shriek, stood on his back haunches, and waved his front legs in the air. He nearly scared the living bejesus out of Mary.

That’s where the term originated. Mary affectionately called Jesus in the womb, “The about to be Jesus.” He was "Be Jesus" for short. Joseph laughed at Mary's telling of story on their journey to Bethlehem several months later. She only saw a flare of light flashing in front of her donkey. Joseph, then, also called the baby “Be Jesus.” During the entire trip he made silly jokes about it. Mary giggled. The angel, though, was not thrilled about being teased.

Mary and her husband were taking the same frighted donkey on this trip. Periodically Joseph would pat the donkey on the head and warn him about lightening popping into view. “Don’t scare the Be Jesus out of Mary,” he’d say. It was kinda funny the first few times. The angel had his fill after they arrived in Bethlehem. He begged to be replaced, complaining he was allergic to sheep.

The Seraphim sent a second angel, also to be unnamed. He turned out to be a feckless pinch hitter. In his defense, he had no time to prepare, and was in a constant dither over Jesus being divine, and how smelly everything was — including the poopy Jesus. A sneeze by Jesus would cause the angel to howl. He had uncontrollable fits over every little thing. Flashes of red, wiggly, over-ripe spinning bananas constantly popped into view. The animals in the manger flinched and bayed. Joseph believed, with increasing skepticism, that lit oil pots might be the source of the flashes.

Counselor angelic hosts rushed in over and over to calm down the new guardian angel. A mosquito bite on the back of Jesus’ neck sent the fraught angel into a coma. A necessary re-evaluation again took place. That’s when God stepped in and sent Frank and Ralph. They were not the next choice of the Seraphim. Two strikes was enough. The Seraphim were overruled. 

The duo were coined as Fronka and Ralphie when the baby was six months old. Jesus was an early talker.

The pairing worked. Frank kept watch of Jesus and his parents, acting like an invisibility cloak against demons, devils, and physical dangers. Ralph flitted around diverting everything from bombardier demons to windswept sand particles. Jesus watched them, smiling, and clapping, even into adult life. The angels loved Joseph and Mary, even though the holy couple had no idea of their presence. Except for that one time, when Joseph winked at Ralph before he passed away. Joseph touched Ralph's arm when the Seraphim escorted him to heaven. Clever Joseph.

On that slope just outside of Jerusalem, however, there was no clapping. Jesus had been teaching for days, parable upon dictum upon parable. Many a Pharisee and scribe had gathered with the people. Demons were everywhere in the air, and clawing over the rocks. More were attached at the backs and legs of several robed clerics. At random times, and ever stealthily, demons would attack Jesus. Frank and Ralph breathlessly captured each one and expelled them into faraway galaxies. The angels' chests absorbed the demonic onslaught with amazing skill. Still, suicidal demons seemed unending and innumerable.

Jesus appeared unaware of the netherworld commotion. He concentrated on the gathering of people sitting below him on the hill. Dozens also stood at the edges (mostly the curious and worried religious). The place uncannily resembled the small valley in Mueller State Park, sparking Frank and Ralph's travel back in time. You can imagine the scene near Jerusalem if you hike Mueller enough and find the valley. Look for a slope covered with kinnikinnik and hundreds of pinecones.

Jesus stood, tired of a steady patter of caustic questions. He waved off the interrogation and gathered the crowd's attention to address everyone at once. Close to a thousand people were there. Jesus then told a tale of a father and his two sons. His tone and timber quieted the questioners, and the crowd craned their necks to hear. The skies darkened with demons as the story of the wayward boy took a turn that no one saw coming. Jesus described the father running to his evil son, and then he embraced him. 

Frank looked at Jesus for direction as the skies filled with devils. Behind and above them Ralph pointed at a welcome and fierce flashing of angels filling the heavens. He was relieved. They had responded to the guardian angels call for help. When Ralph also looked at Jesus, however, the Son of God and Man ignored the angelic duo. He lifted his eyes and pointed for the angels on high to leave. The demons, confused, stopped attacking Jesus. A power from Jesus kept them at bay.

With his hand still in the air, Jesus continued speaking. The older son in his story now spoke out. Jesus' voice adopted a bitter, blaming, accusatory temper.

"Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.
But when your son returns
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf."

The heavenly angels lifted away from the area. The devils and demons continued to pause, unsure of the angel exodus. Frank watched the evil horde, hearing them murmur in slithering tones. The demons had zeroed in on Jesus’ words. Frank heard the demons insist Jesus must now condemn the evil son, “As he should!” Jesus scanned the audience, eyeing each of the humans — and this time even the evil beings. His tone shifted to reveal a father's loving voice. 

"My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found."

Jesus glanced at Ralph and Frank, nodding that they should come and stand by him. After a second of calm in the crowd, just enough time for the angels to race to Jesus’ sides, the words sunk in. The angels did not know what to expect.

The place went wild. Ralph was surprised. The people, and even some of the Pharisees, lifted their hands into the air. Some had tears in their eyes. They were amazed at the graciousness, forgiveness, and mercy that Jesus revealed in the father.

Ralph and Frank watched the demons and the bulk of the Jewish elite peel away from the surging and cheering crowd. Evil flashed in their stares at Jesus as they left, but they skulked away fearful of the people. Then, they were gone. Nonetheless, their scheming whispers and furtive glances frightened the angels more than at any other time. Should they take Jesus away now? A panic set in, and with Jesus between them their normal means of dealing with fear was broken.

Jesus, however, calmed them both. He touched the angels on the backs of their shoulders as he reached out his arms. With his hands facing forward he appeared to be blessing the crowd. Many in the crowd bowed their heads.

The two angels sat rolling pincones down the slope in Mueller State Park as they considered the remarkable weaving of Jesus' life into a total change in creation. Eerily, Jesus' exposed position reminded the angels of his willing sacrificial posture on the cross.

“Jesus always knew what was coming,” said Ralph, eyes watching the darkening clouds above their spot at Mueller State Park.

“We think we’re protecting him, and he was setting it all up right there in front of us,” said Frank. He rolled another pine cone down the hill.

“Well, ‘Fronka’,” said Ralph. “Just goes to show you.”

“For goodness sake, ‘Ralphie!’ What does that silly phrase mean?"