Michael and All Angels - 2 October 2005 – Rev'd Harvey Smith

It was in Turkey, around the 5^th century, that the feast of St Michael and All Angels was first celebrated. It honoured him as a saint for the healing of people.  The cult that developed was based around some hot pools with apparent healing properties. Later in the middle ages the cult received an enormous boost when there was an alleged appearance of St Michael at some place with an unpronounceable name. Many churches are named for St Michael and a close priest friend of mine whose name was Michael had his birthday on St Michael’s day. We are coming close to the end of my knowledge of this day.

As far as angels go, I once had a disconcerting conversation with Harry Poole. I was replacing Harry as the Vicar of St Margaret’s Kawerau.  Harry was showing me around.  When we reached the altar area he said to me with a completely straight face how blessed the worship had been the past few months. ‘Oh’ said I, ‘how has that happened?’ ‘Well’, said Harry, ‘we have had four angels attending church every week.  They sit on the altar rail at these points’. Being a solid son of Taranaki where reality is a warm cowpat on a frosty morning I tried not to look puzzled.

I read up on Karl Barth who has a great love for angels and as best as I can make out after thirty five pages of densely argued teutonic thinking he declared that if God wanted some angels around him then it was OK with Barth. Of course Barth did say: Whether the angels play only Bach praising God, I am not quite sure. I am sure, however, when en famille they play Mozart, for Barth had this enormous love for the music of Mozart.

With those thoughts in my mind I thought we might attempt the passage from Revelation where Michael and his angels are doing visually spectacular things and we are apparently in the middle of the story so that is a good start.

The context in which it was written was that of the persecution of the church. Perhaps there had already been a persecution and John could see a further dreadful time rapidly approaching the church.  He wrote this book to keep the Christians steadfast before and during the approaching storm.

In his book John employs a wide range of literary devices. These range from straightforward prose to poetry to myth to allegory. He draws deeply on ancient stories and myths which were widely known and in current circulation. John uses these devices as a means to draw out the significance of the gospel story. As often happens in the Revelation, what he sees is described largely in traditional imagery, and what he hears gives the Christian reinterpretation. The theological comment is provided by the loud voice from heaven.

Our text tells us that in heaven we have a war between Michael and his lot against the dragon and his angels. That war is decided by something that happens on earth. What happens on earth is the crucifixion. The dragon never had a chance.

The heavenly chorus explains that the real victory has been won by the life blood of the Lamb, a symbolic way of describing the role of Jesus Christ in the crucifixion. Michael’s victory is simply the heavenly and symbolic counterpart of the earthly reality of the Cross. Michael, in fact, is not the field officer who does the actual fighting, but the staff officer in the heavenly control room, who is able to remove Satan's flag from the heavenly map because the real victory has been won on the cross.

In the biblical tradition Satan regularly appears in heaven and has every right to be there. The Hebrew word Satan means `adversary' and can be used of a man who brings an accusation against another in a lawcourt. In the Book of Job one of the angels in the heavenly court is called Satan, because he holds an appointment as accuser or prosecutor in the lawcourt of God. His task is to arraign people before the bar of the divine justice. When not occupied with his official duties, Satan spends his time going to and fro on the earth collecting evidence, even to the point of putting temptation in people's way when the necessary evidence for a conviction is lacking. In a later book of the Bible, Satan actually comes into conflict with God because, martinet that he is for the full rigour of the law, he is totally blind to the other side of God's character. Retribution is not God's last word on human sin.

In the New Testament and the Rabbinic writings Satan still retains his legal duties as prosecutor, frequently with Michael as the counsel for the defence.

For Michael is the great prince who has charge of the people of God. As long as there are human sinners to accuse, Satan's presence in heaven must be tolerated, for God himself recognizes the justice of the indictment. Thus, although John depicts the battle between Michael and Satan in military terms, it was essentially a legal battle between opposing counsel, which resulted in one of them being disbarred.

The earthly side of this legal battle is worked out fully in the Fourth Gospel, to which we may turn for further light. The turning-point comes when Satan, through his earthly minions, of whom Judas Iscariot is the chief, accuses Jesus and demands the death penalty. Jesus is innocent, as Pilate thrice declares, and Satan, though he wins his case in the earthly court, loses it in the court of final appeal, but he loses more than this one case.

For Jesus is a representative figure, standing trial on behalf of those he represents. He is the Messiah, in whose person God intends `to gather into one the scattered children of God'. He has `loved his own' with a love which amounts to total identification. His death is therefore not his judgement alone but the judgement of all people. `Now is the judgement of this world; now shall the prince of this world be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself’. Because he has identified himself with all people where they are, under the judgement of God, he draws all people through his death into unity with himself where he is, in the bosom of the Father; and Satan, having lost his case, loses also his job. There is no room for him any more in heaven, and it remains only for Michael to drum him out. As Paul puts it, `there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus'

It is to be noted, however, that Satan does not accept defeat without a struggle. The real victory of Michael may be a forensic one, the victory of an advocate whose case is wholly dependent on the record of his client; but it takes open war to clinch it. Satan is stripped of his rights, but not of his power to do appalling harm. He is thus made the symbol for two different aspects of the problem of evil. For sin has two different kinds of consequence: it estranges us both from God and from our fellow humans, but it also sets in motion a chain reaction of damage, which continues to operate independently of its original author.

The Cross is God's cure for sin, both for its guilt and for its power. It is his declarative act of acquittal, grounded in Christ's self-identifica­tion with sinful men, and needing for its completion only that we should accept in faith what he has offered in love. But the Cross also shows how the power of evil may be absorbed by innocent suffering and neutralized by forgiving love.

Such is part of the message that John brought to the church to enable it to withstand the dreadful storms that lay ahead. May it be to us a sufficient message to enable us to withstand our own storms and temptations which surely come upon us and will continue so until we join the angels in haven singing their song of praise: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the almighty who was and is and is to come. You are worthy, our Lord and God to receive glory and honour and power for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created. And yes, it will be sung to Mozart and not Bach. Amen.

Harvey Smith