Scripture text: Revelation 12:7-12
When it was suggested that we celebrate the festival of St. Michael and All Angels with a special “Angel service,” I leaped at the chance. I was excited because it was an opportunity to clear up some things, a chance to educate and to challenge about an aspect of spirituality that we generally all accept, but almost never talk about.
That’s unfortunate, because when we don’t talk about things, a whole slew of incorrect information gets taken as fact. We do that a lot in this society. Americans, perhaps more so than most any other nation, are full of gullible people. We believe all kinds of hokum, all kinds of (pardon my language) bullcrap.
We believe that Nigerian princes want to use our bank accounts to hide their riches. We believe Madelyn Murray O’Hare is still trying to ban all religious broadcasting, 30+ years after she was found murdered. We think our nation is #1 in everything, when it really isn’t anymore. We say our President is the anti-Christ, which I find particularly amusing given who some of the other contenders for that title are across history. I’ll admit Obamacare has its flaws, but it’s a far cry from the genocide of 12 million people.
There are whole websites out there dedicated to debunking this stuff, because every day my Facebook wall and my email inbox fill up with garbage that people actually believe is true. And it’s not just scams, and political propaganda, and bunk science, it’s also things of faith, religion, and doctrine that are misguided at best and outright heresy at worst.
There was a time when having these sorts of wrong ideas about our faith would have gotten you killed, burned at the stake as a heretic and an unbeliever. Thankfully the church has matured beyond such barbarism, but heresy is still dangerous. Wrong thinking and believing these lies can be dangerous. Which is one of the reasons I challenge so much of it from my pulpit and will be doing so today.
So what does this have to do with angels? Well, let me show you. How many of you think an angel looks like this...
or this....
or this.
Cute, aren’t they? Inoffensive. Harmless. Safe. Pretty.
When an angel appears before a human in the Scriptures, do you know what the first thing that they have to say is? “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared! Fear not!” Would you be scared of these? No? Me neither, nor would anyone else be.
I can’t take this seriously and that’s the problem. That isn’t what angels are like. When they deign to manifest before us humans, that isn’t how they appear. Cute is nice when we’re talking about a child, or a member of the opposite sex that we might want to date, but it’s no good when talking about the spiritual beings that serve God in heaven. No, I’d rather have them like the pictures you see around this sanctuary today. Strong. Steadfast. Fierce. Even terrifying.
Angels need to be scary, because do you know what their job is? Yes, they are messengers and heralds, announcing God’s intent to prophets, virgins, and shepherds, but more than that they are also soldiers. Warriors of God in the heavenly places.
Among God’s many titles is that he is the “Lord of hosts.” That does not mean he is some sort of divine Martha Stewart and that he can throw one heck of a garden party. A “host” is an archaic word for an army, and who makes up that army? When the “heavenly host” appears before the shepherds outside Bethlehem, it is rank upon rank of angelic soldiers. That night, they sang a song of praise over the birth of Christ, but the rest of the time they are off to war with God’s enemies.
And that is the image of the angel presented in our Scripture readings today. Michael, for whom this day is named, is regarded as the general of that army and he and his army of angels do battle with Satan day in and day out. It’s a battle we never see, but its effects impact our lives.
Satan is out there and he is determined to make our lives, quite literally, a living hell. He wants us to doubt, to despair, and to believe all sorts of lies. That evil is greater than good. That our sin unforgivable. That there is no hope for us, that death is all there is to life. He wants us to believe that God is impotent, powerless, and cannot help us.
And if our image of the angels is that they look like babies with wings, we’re doing Satan a favor and making his life easier. Harmless. Impotent. Sentimentalized into meaninglessness. No, that’s not what an angel is. They are monsters, fierce, mighty, and terrifying. We want them that way, because as much as they may scare us, they scare the devil more.
Near the end of C.S. Lewis’ famous book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, after the great victory over the White Witch, the Lion Aslan wanders off into the sunset. Mr. Tumnus comments as they watch him leave, “You know, he’s not a tame lion, but he is good.” So it is with angels. They are a long way from tame, but they are good and they are on our side.
They are here to protect us from all the schemes of the devil. And they will always be there until that day when Christ comes to fully claim us as his own. It’s an interesting paradox in how we live. By his death and resurrection on the cross, Christ has claimed us as his own and sealed us as a holy people. But the kingdom has not yet come in its fullness and we live in that in-between time, where the devil can sow all sorts of doubts.
But that’s all he can do, because one thing he can’t do is snatch us out of God’s hands. Christ won’t let him and neither will his angels. They stand with us, against all those things that would drive us away from God. They stand firm. They stand fierce. And their whole existence is to ensure that we remain safe in the arms of Christ forever. They are scary and they are monstrous, but they’re on our side. Amen.
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