Sermon: Festival of St. Michael and All Angels (transferred) 2011
September 25, 2011
Text: Luke 10:17-20
One time each year, I preach a sermon about angels. This week, on the Church calendar, there occurs the minor festival devoted to St. Michael and All Angels, which we celebrate today.
For many people believing in angels is like believing in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny – cute stuff for little kids, but not for grownups. But the angels we are going to talk about today are not cuddly. They are not cute. They don’t have feathers. The popular view of angels tends to be informed more by Hallmark greeting cards than the Scriptures.
In one poll, 55% of American adults say they have been protected from harm by their guardian angel. That’s more than half. Not just that they believe in the existence of angels, but that they have been individually and really helped by one or more actual angels.
But why is this important? What does it matter what we think about angels? Our doctrine of angels is not our most central teaching, but it is nonetheless important for several reasons.
Reason #1: It informs us that there is more to our existence than what meets the eye.
We live in an age that is highly rationalistic. Rationalists are people who consider human reason the final judge of what is true or not true. If we can't see it or touch it, if scientists at leading universities have not conclusively studied it, then it isn't real, or at least it isn't worth bothering much about. And so it tends to go with the angels. You cannot ordinarily subject them to scientific studies. You usually don't notice the work of the angels. The doctrine of angels reminds us that there are spiritual forces at work in the world, for good and for ill, whether we recognize their presence or not.
Belief in angels is good for us because it helps us remember the limitations of human reason. The Christian Church is not anti-science. We just don’t think that science is the ultimate source of all knowledge. Scientists don’t have all the answers.
I don’t know if you follow developments in science and technology, but there was a remarkable report from the Switzerland this week. Physicists believe they have witnessed a tiny subatomic particle travel faster than the speed of light. Ever since 1905 when Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity, it has been accepted in the scientific community that faster-than-light travel is impossible. Now facts that physicists have held as true for more than a hundred years may need to be completely rewritten. Modern science is capable of many marvels and we have achieved amazing feats, but we need to understand that scientific theories come and go. What the most brilliant minds believed to be incontrovertible truth fifty years ago, is not rejected. And some things that scientists believe in wholeheartedly today, will be shown false tomorrow. Don’t put your faith for ultimate truth in human reason. There are many things in this world that are beyond the capacity of our five sense to comprehend. Angels remind us of that.
Reason #2: We need to dispel certain myths about angels that are in our culture.
You have probably encountered the notion in our popular culture that we become angels when we die. But the fact is, people don't become angels. Angels are a completely separate species of creatures. Angels are pure spirits, whereas human beings will live in eternity with bodies. We say in the Creed every week that we believe in the resurrection of the body. Just as Jesus rose bodily, so all of us will rise on the Last Day to live with God in bodies that are free of all corruption. God didn't become a man so that we could become angels.
The other myth we need to shatter is the attitude that angels are cute and cuddly. In a lot of popular artwork, angels are chubby little babies like Cupid. Either that or they are the beautiful shimmering princesses we hoist atop our Christmas trees. But real angels are not heavenly Kewpie dolls. And they are not Walt Disney-style fairy godmothers. In the Scriptures, the angels are glorious majestic creatures that are warriors and messengers of God.
But I’ll tell you what’s not a myth. It’s not a myth that we each have guardian angels. It says in Psalm 91: “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. The angels do not want us to pray to them, but it is encouraging to know that God uses angels as His servants to help us.
Reason #3: We need to know that Satan is a real enemy.
Angels were originally created by God to do His bidding, but now, not all angels are good. There were angels who turned their faces away from the Lord, who wanted to do their own thing and exalt themselves. The book of Revelation gives us a picture of what happened when Michael, the chief arch-angel, and his fellow angels waged war against the rebel angel, the devil and his demons. "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."
Just like we believe that God’s good angels are real, we believe that the devil and his demons are real. And that’s not something we can be neutral about. Their presence here on earth calls for sober watchfulness on our part. But as the baptized children of God, you don’t have to live in fear of the evil one. Jesus overcame the power of the devil by His death and resurrection.
The same rationalistic tendency which gets in the way of believing in angels also interferes with our believing in a real live devil too. And the cartoony version of the devil as a little man in a red suit, pointy tail and a pitchfork distracts us from the seriousness of this subject. J. Edgar Hoover inadvertently helped the Mafia when he denied their existence. In the same way, I’m sure that nothing delights the devil more than when we don’t think he’s real.
The main thing Satan hopes to accomplish is to get you and me to doubt the promises and mercy of God. If he can do that, if he can get us to forget that God loves us and accepts us on account of Christ, then the day will be his. If you find yourself saying to yourself, “I am completely worthless,” or “No one cares about me,” or “My sins are too great to be forgiven,” then you know for a fact that Satan is up to his tricks. Put it out of your mind the moment it arrives.
St. John writes: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1Jn 3:8b). The church faces a real problem when we over-soften our message to make it more palatable to the world. Blood and torture and suffering and crucifixion are not suitable for polite dinnertime conversation. But we need to recover the sense that Jesus Christ has done battle with our enemies and defeated them.
I read a book recently called Why Men Hate Going to Church. The author addresses why he thinks there is a lack of men in the contemporary church. This has not always been the case and it is not the case in every culture. The author makes the point that many of our churches are filled with talk of love and compassion and relationships, we have pastel colors, flowers, robes and candles. From a certain point of view, it could be said that it’s all very feminine. I think he makes a salient point. Of course, talk of the love of God is central to Christianity but he says we need to recover a sense of the heroism and adventure of the gospel.
We talk about God’s love. God doesn’t just love us; He loved us enough to go into action. Jesus wasn’t born to sign a peace treaty with the devil or to work through a process of arbitration toward a win-win situation. In the war of the angels, there are winners and there are losers. The Son of God came to crush the serpent’s head and to destroy the devil’s work. His death on the cross was not His defeat. It was not the unfortunate end of an otherwise promising young man. It was the atoning sacrifice for your sins and therefore the undoing of Satan’s power.
When it comes to those who threaten His children, God is not just a celestial Mr. Rogers making nice. When it comes to securing our eternal welfare, our God is a warlike God. He’s both a hawk and a dove. He makes peace by destroying our enemy.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.