Saint Michael and All Angels September 29, 2013 Revelation 12:7-12 A little girl asked her mother, “Why don’t we see any pictures of angels with whiskers?” The lady smiled and said, “Because, if any men get to heaven, it’s by a close shave.” Of course, people who go to heaven do not become angels. Angels are a separate order of creation. But I do have to wonder – have you ever noticed, in all the children’s Christmas pageants, the angels are all girls? And the shepherds are all boys? While, historically, there have been female shepherds – but the only angels named in the Bible are Gabe, Rafe and Mike! The church has set aside September 29 as the festival of Michael and the angels, to thank God for the ministry and protection of these powerful spirits – and also, simply to affirm their existence. After all, their reality isn’t completely obvious to our limited perceptions. In teaching that these spirits exist, the church is defying popular opinion. People today think they are scientific and logical, but actually they are dogmatic and narrow-minded. People who insist that spirits aren’t possible aren’t being scientific or logical; they are operating from an irrational prejudice. Spirits are neither more nor less likely than elephants. But the church goes farther. It divides the spirits, saying that there are holy angels that serve God and his people, and there are also fallen angels or devils – and in particular, the Devil, alias Lucifer, alias Satan, alias Beelzebub, alias Old Nick, alias all his other aliases. The world throws up its hands at this too. People point to pictures of a silly looking gentleman in red tights, with horns and a tail and cloven hooves, with a goatee and pitchfork, and ask how we can possibly believe in that. Well, OK, I don’t believe in that Orange Julius kind of devil either. He’s just too ridiculous. He is one of Satan’s best ideas, since any time we can be fooled into thinking he isn’t real, he wins. But the Bible positively affirms a malevolent, powerful and cunning spirit, whose intent is to destroy the people of God. So, for your use with scoffers I offer a second thesis, a corollary of the first: People who dogmatically deny the possibility of devils are not being scientific or logical; they are constrained by an irrational prejudice. Devils are neither more nor less likely than the man-eating shark! That’s enough fussing about the world for one sermon. Merely affirming that these creatures exist isn’t all that useful anyhow. In an aquarium I can be objective about the shark. I can view him with scientific detachment. I can marvel at the wonder of his existence. I can even indulge the fantasy that he isn’t real. But, if I know that the shark is waiting for me in my bathtub – then his existence stops being a mere subject for argument or speculation. He is suddenly very important to me – because I am on his menu. So, what I want to do in this sermon is go beyond the mere existence of the supernatural orders of creation, to the more important question: So what? What affect do these creatures have on our lives? Take the easiest first. We know what impact devils have. All we need do is read the paper or watch the news on TV. We see the demonic at work every day – in world governments, in our cities where people walk the streets in fear for their lives, in business, where the passion for success and wealth changes good people into bad, even in the church where Christians abandon humble service to Christ and the neighbor and try to do each other, in the name of one cause or another. There are lots of examples of the demonic at work in our lives. It’s a bit harder to find the angelic at work. That shouldn’t surprise us. God has always been less flamboyant than Satan. It was the devil, you’ll recall, who suggested that Christ ought to announce his divinity with some spectacular signs. He has always been at home in show business. He regularly vacations in Hollywood. You’ll also recall that, rather than make a dramatic splash, when our Lord set out to save the world, all he did was hang there and bleed. Even when he allowed himself one triumph – by rising from the dead – he showed himself to a few hundred followers at most. God has always been modest. It is one of his virtues. And, in view of God’s accustomed way of doing things, it’s easy to see why it’s hard to see the activity of angels in the world. So, if we want to discover what angels do, we must consult the Scriptures. In Daniel, for instance, we learn that Michael is the defender of the people of God and the leader of the heavenly armies. Since the church is still here, in spite of all the efforts of its enemies and friends to destroy it, I conclude that Michael is still on the job. But this brings us to another potential problem. Whenever we start talking about spirits as powerful as angels and demons, it’s tempting to imagine that life is just a puppet show, and we are the puppets and the spirits are pulling the strings. Like Flip Wilson’s character Geraldine, who keeps saying, “The devil made me do it.” By blaming the devil we can absolve ourselves of responsibility for what happens in our lives and in our world. It doesn’t work that way, though. Listen again to today’s Epistle: And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven … Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. When did this battle happen? Answer: It’s going on right now. It started at the beginning of creation and will continue until the world’s end. But the decisive act of that battle has already happened. The reading says, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.” In other words, the Dragon was conquered when Christ died and rose. Who overcame him? The angels? That’s what we would expect, but that’s not what the text says. Listen again: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” That can’t be the angels. Angels are immortal. They can’t shrink from death, because they never die. So then, who are “they” who have overcome the Dragon by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony? We are! We’re not mere spectators, watching Michael and the Dragon slug it out. We are soldiers in this war; we are the ones who have overcome. How did we do this amazing thing? Well, actually, Christ did it. We overcame by the blood of the Lamb. But in Christ we also overcome by our faithful witness and our willingness to lay our lives on the line for him. This all makes sense when we recall that John was writing to Christians suffering the persecution of the emperor Domitian, when being a Christian meant being ready to die for the gospel. But we’re involved in the battle no less than those ancient Christians. There’s no way to leave it all to Michael and his angels. The devil is overcome by our testimony. The demonic in the world will be conquered only by the gospel. The confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, that confession that toppled the empire of the Caesars, is the same confession that will defeat Satan every time that Christians put their lives on the line for their faith. We have this comfort as we battle the powers of darkness: We are not alone. We have powerful allies. There is an instructive little story in 2 Kings 6. An army of Arabs surrounds the town where the prophet Elisha lives. His servant is terrified. But Elisha says, “Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes that he may see.” The servant looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. You see, the war goes on both in the natural and the supernatural realms. While we confront evil in the natural world, the angels confront it in the supernatural. While we are standing up to the Beast, Michael is having it out with the Dragon. That’s why every Sunday we join the angels in singing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Sabaoth” – that is, Lord of hosts, of the heavenly armies that fight alongside us and for us. + Arthur D. Yunker, pastor
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 19:08:23 +0000
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