Sermon for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels

 

         St. Michael

                                                                                                Rev 12:7-12

                                                                                                9/29/24

 

 

In writing to the Colossians, the apostle Paul says, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”  Here Paul is clearly responding to those who said that Gentile Christians needed to observe the Law of Moses that God had given at Mt. Sinai.

Yet then he goes on to say something that has puzzled interpreters.  He writes, “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.”

            Paul warns against “worship of angels.”  It is not certain whether the phrase means actual worship of angels, or instead, “worshipping with angels.”  What is clear is that somehow, angels had taken on a role and focus that they should not have as Paul directs the Colossians to hold fast to Christ, who is the head of the Church.

            This example demonstrates that angels can easily become a source of fascination and misunderstanding.  They certainly are today.  Often when a person dies you will hear it said: “Well heaven gained another angel.”  This indicates that when a person dies, he or she becomes an angel.  Yet God’s Word tells us that this is simply not true.

            Today is the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels.  It is a day when we can focus on what Scripture teaches us about angels.  It is also a day when we reflect on one specific action by St. Michael and the angels, and what this shows us about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.

            Angels are spiritual creatures made by God.  They are part of God’s creation made during the six days when God created all things.  We confess this each Sunday in the Nicene Creed when we say that we believe in “one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.”

            In the Psalms we hear, “Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word!”  We learn that the angels are mighty spiritual creatures who carry out God’s Word.  Angels often serve as God’s messengers, delivering his word to people, such as Gabriel did when he announced to Mary that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit. At other times they carry out God’s will in this world, such as when angels rescued Lot and his family from Sodom.

            Angels are mighty, and since they are holy they are able to be in God’s presence as they praise him.  But we can never lose sight of this truth: we are more important to God than angels. We rank higher in God’s creation than angels. This is because we were created in the image of God. Angels weren’t.  God has shown how much he values us by sending his Son to take on our human nature in order to redeem us.  When Christ returns on the Last Day and gives us a share in his resurrection, our position in relation to the angels will be evident for all to see. As Paul told the Corinthians, “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?”

            The Psalm says that the angels obey the voice of God’s word.  However, the subject of angels leads us also to consider those spiritual creatures who don’t obey God.  We are of course talking about the Satan and the demons.  Satan and the demons were created by God in the same way that the angels were. Yet at some point between their creation and when we hear about the Satan’s temptation of Eve in Genesis chapter three, they rebelled against God. 

God’s Word does not tell us anything about how or why this happened.  We would like to know more. But where Scripture is silent we must be content to leave things there, and instead focus on what it does say. And what God shares in his word is what he has done to conquer Satan, sin, and death.  He shares what he has done in Jesus Christ to save us.

We hear about this in our text from Revelation.  Revelation is, frankly, a very challenging book of the Bible. It has been written in the genre of apocalyptic literature.  This means that it uses symbolic imagery in order to convey God’s truth to us.  This imagery means that Revelation often makes a big impression on us.  That’s a good thing … unless we lose sight of the fact that this is not a literal account – a blow by blow description of actual characters and events.  It is a true account, but it is one that is given using symbolic language.

Just before our text, John describes what he calls a great sign in heaven.  He sees a woman who is pregnant and about to give birth. He also sees a red dragon who wants to consume the child who is about to be born.

Now it seems clear that the women is Mary.  John tells us,  “She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne.”  The child born is Jesus, and using the language of the Old Testament he is identified as the Messiah.  Then in incredibly compressed language, we learn that he was caught up to God and to his throne.

In this brief statement, Revelation has summarized Jesus’ saving ministry.  Revelation begins by identifying Jesus as the “firstborn of the dead” – he is the risen Lord.  It speaks the praise: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom of priests to his God and Father.”  The book has identified Jesus as the One who died on the cross to free us from our sins.  Jesus has risen from the dead, and in chapter 5 John sees the ascended Lord seated on the throne in heaven receiving praise and worship from the heavenly host.

Then we hear in our text, “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world--he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”

We learn from Scripture that Satan had been able to appear before God in heaven. In the Books of Job and Zechariah he appears before God in order to bring accusations against Job and Joshua the high priest.  However, now Jesus Christ has completed his saving mission through his death, resurrection, and ascension.  He has redeemed us from sin.

And so Satan can no longer approach God to accuse God’s people. St. Michael and the angels kick Satan and the demons out of God’s presence.  After they have done so, John tells us, “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.’”

Satan can no longer accuse us before God, because of the forgiveness that Jesus Christ has won for us.  John hears the voice say, “they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb.”  St. Paul told the Romans, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Baptized into Christ, we are now the sons and daughters of God.

At the end of our text John hears the voice says, “Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” 

We learn that angels in heaven rejoice over the victory that Christ has won for us.  They rejoice over a victory in which they were God’s servants.  It was angels who announced to Mary and Joseph that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  It was the angels who ministered to Jesus after his temptation, and after his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was angels who announced the good news of Christ’s resurrection to the women on Easter.  It was the angels who announced at his ascension that Jesus will return in glory.

            Yet we also hear, “But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”  Satan has been defeated by Christ.  He knows that his time is short, for Jesus Christ will return in glory on the Last Day.  As so Satan makes the most of the time he has left.  St Peter warns us, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

            Because we face this threat we must focus our life on the means by which the Holy Spirit delivers forgiveness and strengthens us in faith.  We build our lives around the means by which Jesus is present for us. We turn to the Word of God as we read and study it.  We return daily to our baptism as we grasp in faith the promise that through water and the word we have been joined to Jesus saving death.  And we come to the Sacrament of the Altar for here Jesus is present giving us his true body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.  Here we find ourselves present with the angels, and archangels, and all the company of heaven who rejoice in what God has done for us in Christ.