St. Michael and All Angels – Friday 29 September A✠D 2023
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 103:20;103:1, 21-22; 91:11;103:1; Revelation 12:11
✠ Lection: Daniel 12:1–3; Revelation 12:7–12a; St. Matthew 18:1-11
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
When we consider the might of St. Michael and all angels to keep charge over us and to keep us in all our ways, we consider the source of their power and ours: God Himself. For without Him all created beings would claw and scrape only by their own strength and power. Therefore, we must consider what war is fought in Revelation chapter 12, a war in which we have high stakes, and by Whom the victory in it is determined. Also, when we consider the truth of our greatest battle in life, we see just how desperate we are for God to do what He is glad and able to do: to defend us against all danger and guard and protect us from all evil by waging holy war against the dark forces and by calling His holy ones, both saints and angels, to do the same.
The significance of St. John writing for us that war broke out in heaven is that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. We must look to this revelation of heavenly war as one calling upon us to realize the eternal life and death matters that are playing out in places that we are not able to see with our physical eyes. But however we come to interpret the war in Revelation 12, we see that our enemy is the same in each, as is our Victor.
We have heard how St. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought back. What does such a thing even look like? We cannot think that this was a mere endeavor of physical strength, for the dragon and his angels are at least aware enough of God’s almighty power, therefore they would know it to be foolish to try to overthrow heaven by a clash of might between the evil and the holy ones. Where then is the battle ground, or rather in order to gain what is the fight taking place, for that defines the war? It is none other than for your very soul, for as we fell into sin, and live in it, and at times joyfully wallow in it, we are the ones who have given Satan his very weapons to use in the face of God. They are his accusations against you that he has come to use as a potent weapon. They are potent, because just as with his most effective deceptions, they contain shreds of truth. It is true what Satan said when he tempted Jesus with ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ He quoted Scripture perfectly, yet he was deceptively applying it because the same Psalm 91 words are for your encouragement, yet not so that you put God to the test by climbing to the top of our church steeple and hurling yourself off just to see if the Lord will either send an angel to catch you or to suspend gravity so that you receive not the due reward of your foolishness.
The power that Satan wields most effectively and most dangerously against us is not only that we break the commandments of God daily and much, but that he actually uses his weapon in an attempt to provoke God to pour out His righteous wrath against us who are so undeserving of anything but that wrath. That’s the fierce war. It is a war of words, but we have hope because we have the Eternal Word speaking on our behalf and it is so much better than the best of all the Devil’s even most-accurate accusations.
So, if we interpret the war breaking out in heaven literally, in contrast to most of the rest of John’s vision, then it is an account of the one-time event of Christ ascending to the Father’s right hand to take His rightful place as the Victor King and the impact that had on our accuser. The reason and period of time in which the Devil would have had any ground to stand before God in heaven and accuse us, as that serpent of old, would’ve been all the days from our Fall into sin in the garden, where we first encountered our foe, until this moment in time when Christ ascended on high, 40 days after His resurrection, having completed His redemptive work in purchasing us back from sin and death by the shedding of His own blood. Payment for sins was waiting to be made, therefore the Devil actually had some ground on which to accuse us. Thus, upon Christ’s most glorious, most victorious ascension back into heaven to be seated there again, all grounds of accusation became silenced once and for all. The debt had been settled, payment made. And having no longer anything for which he may lay any substantial, unreconciled offense before God against us, the Lord gave the command to cast Satan out from before Him for good. It would then be by the saints in heaven witnessing their Savior ascend and their accuser being cast out that they would respond with the God-glorifying song that concluded our Revelation reading. Their confession was that by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, words that proclaimed that eternal Good News of Christ’s satisfaction for all our sins, Satan the accuser, your accuser, was and is overcome. This is an encouraging understanding of the war in heaven, indeed!
So, what if the war vision is figurative, how are we to understand it? The accusations would be the same because we have one in the same enemy and the sins requiring payment. But when and where is this figurative heavenly war? It would be that this war is the one that takes place continuously upon the earth, but still mainly in the places we do not see, i.e. the heavenly realms. The war takes place there because the prince of this world still seeks to destroy those for whom Christ has died. But the text is clear that he is cast down. That takes place when and where the blood of the Lamb is proclaimed by the word of testimony in Christ’s Holy Church. It is in this Christian Church that God daily and richly forgives all our sins and the sins of all believers. In forgiving us our sins on account of the sacrifice of the Holy Lamb of God, Satan’s accusations are repeatedly defeated and rendered useless against us. He is truly beat down under our feet when we lay hold of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, especially when we face up to our sins because it is only, and gloriously, by His incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension that we now have a just, upright, accusation-proof standing before the Father in heaven…forever.
The glorious reality for you is that no matter from which angle you consider what is meant by the words war broke out in heaven, you know the result. You know that there is no accusation of the devil against you that God will allow to be brought before Him because the Paschal Lamb has been sacrificed for the sins of the whole world once for all; that this slain Lamb is not dead but lives, has ascended, and reigns on high over His Kingdom. If this record of war was about a one-time event, then it points us to the Victor King Who, through his angels, executed His own power and might over your evil foe. If this record of war was about the ongoing reality in which you daily live, the Victor King is the same, for you are brought into and kept in the one true faith by the Good News of Jesus Christ being proclaimed to, poured upon, and fed to you. It is He Who fights as your Captain, your King. It is He Who hath given His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. It is He Who has won the victory, and keeps on winning, in your greatest battle. Though you do not see it, it is taking place. Though you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls, because He has brought to nought every accusation against you, having silenced them in His full payment of redemption for your soul. The war rages, but the Victor is sure.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.