Has anyone ever heard angels actually singing? To judge by the Christmas carols we sing routinely, one would have to say ‘yes.’ Here are just a few carols that mention angels singing:
Adeste Fidelis (2nd verse: Sing, choirs of angels…)
It Came upon a Midnight Clear (that glorious song of old, of Angels bending near the earth, to touch their harps of gold…)
O Holy Night (fall on your knees, O hear the angels’ voices..)
Hark the Herald Angels Sing (Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king..)
Joy to the World (And Heaven and Angels sing, And Heaven and Angels sing…)
Angels We Have Heard on High (Angels we have heard on high, Sweetly singing o’er the plains.)
Silent Night (Even this all-time favorite gives us a second verse that goes: Heavenly hosts sing alleluia...)
So what’s going on here? In fact, there’s a rather substantial literature about this phenomenon, or, we might call it, Christmas miracle. Or perhaps we should follow Yuval Harari in his book Sapiens, where he points out that one of the abilities that set Sapiens above all other primates was the ability to invent fictions—such as god, or corporations, or justice—and then get millions to believe in them, and thereby cooperate as if such legal or corporate fictions were real. But either way, how is it that so many millions, perhaps billions of us, believe in and celebrate in song this idea that angels sing? What is angel singing anyway? What does it (or would it) sound like? And where does the notion come from?
Most people point to the Bible as the source for the concept. Passages in the New Testament, such as Luke 2:8-20, where angels announce the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, are prime referents. Then there’s Job 38:7, where the Old Testament says that during Creation, “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” But as Ryan Fraser points out in the Jackson Sun of Mar. 6, 2015 (www.jacksonsun.com), “the text mentions morning stars singing, but not angels.” Fraser goes on to debunk each biblical reference in turn (including Luke 2:820 which reads that the angels were “saying” not “singing”) and reaches his conclusion: even according to the Bible, angels don’t sing, and actually can’t sing; only humans can do that. In contrast to this, however, we see Youtube posts that purport to be recordings of angels really singing. For example, this one below, which even has commentaries by people who cite their ecstatic responses to this heavenly music:
Angels singing Heavenly Music for you - YouTube
And one of the many responses:
“Aw God bless this beautiful music I am not scared because Jesus is with me we.re all going home soon I'm so excited.”
In addition, one can find detailed explanations about the experience a person may have with such angelic sound, and why it’s not what you might expect. For example, Whitney Hopler, who claims to be a “religion expert,” wrote this Twitter post that made its way to the website learnreligions.com:
Your guardian angel may send you a message of sounds you can hear audibly while you're contacting him or her through prayer or meditation…Since angels often transmit information to you through electromagnetic energy, you may hear a ringing sound in one or both of your ears during prayer or meditation with your guardian angel…It’s a high-pitched sound because angelic energy vibrates on a high frequency. The information that angels send is contained in energy that must be slowed down for humans to understand its message…
Interesting, and authenticated with scientific-sounding paraphernalia (‘electromagnetic energy’ which ‘vibrates on a high frequency’), though it still doesn’t confirm that angels sing. At least not in a way that we can hear. So perhaps we need to investigate the nature of angels a little further. On a website called christiancourier.com, there is a dialogue between a professor and some students leading to a piece called “Why do Christians believe in Angels?” (part of an overall article, “What Does the Bible Say About the Nature and Role of Angels?”) by Wayne Jackson. There we learn much technical information, such as that the word angel “derives from a Greek term which suggests the idea of sending a message.” Thus, angels would seem to be primarily God’s messengers. We learn further that angels are “created beings,” and, as such, are not immortal, as only God is. The Bible suggests that along with the universe, they were created in that frantic first week of divine creation. Their nature seems to be that of “spirits,” and they are held accountable by God for their actions (some of them actually ‘sin,’ like that rebellious old Lucifer.) Finally, they are very useful beings to God:
… the Lord indicated that at the time of the judgment angels will be used to gather evil persons out of God’s kingdom (Mt. 13:41). It is significant that at the time of Christ’s return, He will be accompanied by “all the angels” (Mt. 25:31).
OK. So now we know what angels are and usually do, but we still don’t know why they’re depicted as singing around Christmas time, nor what they sound like.
What, then, can we conclude? It seems to me that many Christians—and Muslims and Jews and others—have a felt need to believe in some sort of supernatural beings, whose voices are so pure that they evoke the idea of that place of purity, Heaven, or Valhalla, or whatever your place of eternal peace and innocence might be called. Our language is replete with metaphors of “angelic singing,” most commonly, “she sings like an angel.” And to judge by the sample on Youtube, that would be a soprano accompanied by organ music, perhaps singing in a pristine forest. Or perhaps a boys’ choir would be a closer fit. Clear boy voices would evoke the idea of innocence—before puberty, and all it implies, leads to a big change in the male voice and behavior. The depiction of angels by painters (putti—the winged infant child in Greek and Roman art) would seem to confirm this; all are youthful, and innocent, and apparently pure, fluttering about on gossamer wings. And all this is prior to, we assume, the corruption and decay of earth and earthly life spoil the ideal creation we suppose the Creator meant. Were it not for humans, and those rebellious angels, who spoiled it all.
This is what, presumably, angels are singing about in all those carols: the Savior has come to redeem the world, e.g., to make its pre-lapsarian purity and innocence possible again. And he does it accompanied by choirs of angels, or via the announcement of messenger angels, who come to bring the good news to, among others, the virgin who will innocently and without the earthly stain of intercourse, give him birth. So they sing, these Christmas angels, even though singing is not in their nature. And we in the millions sing about them, absent-mindedly giving credence to the altogether preposterous existence of angels themselves, and of their ethereal singing. After all, it makes for a nice story. And for the lovely Christmas carols we all love to sing.
Merry Christmas, everyone, and merry singing.
Lawrence DiStasi
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