29 East – Angel
Deborah Ann Rink – Donor
In this panel, an angel is pictured with hands in prayer posture, and a shepherd’s staff is before him. The Archangel Raphael became identified as one of the three heavenly visitors entertained by Abraham at the Oak of Mamre. Raphael is said to guard pilgrims on their journeys and is often depicted holding a staff. He is not named in the New Testament, but later Christian tradition identified him with healing and as the angel who stirred the waters in the Pool of Bethesda.
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people waiting for the stirring of the water, for an angel of the Lord went down from time to time into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had. —John 5:2-4