“The angel who was speaking with me came back and woke me up as one wakes up a man in deep sleep. He told me: ‘What do you see?’” (Zechariah 4:1-2)

I wish I would sleep so tight that it would take an angel to wake me up. To put it another way: the secret of a sound sleep is knowing that I’m going to be waken up by an angel. He it is that does it always, though I don’t realise it. His is the touch that caresses my face, the  twinkle that alerts my eyes, the voice that opens my ears… even if it is only the metallic sound of the rough alarm clock. It is my angel that wakes me up because it is he that has been watching my sleep the whole night and knows when I have to end it and get up to come to meet my day and my work and my life. He touches me with the tip of his wing, caresses me gently, tickles me in jest, and if there is need he shakes me and shouts till I come out of the night and greet the day. He wakes me up “as one wakes a man in deep sleep”. That was what the angels did to the prophets to tell them their prophecies. Let him do that to me too.

The prophet begins to see visions, and the angel asks him: “What do you see?” The prophet tells him, without himself understanding what he is seeing, and asks the angel to explain it to him:

“I told the angel who was speaking to me: What is this, my lord?’ The angel who was speaking with me answered and told me: ‘You don’t know what this is?’ I said: ‘No, my lord.’ He then went on and spoke thus to me.” (4:4-4a)