St. Michael and All Angels

The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

 On Wednesday, September 29, we celebrated the feast of St. Michael and all Angels, when we remember the many ways in which God's loving care watches over us.The Holy Scriptures often speak of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven who worship God and then act as God’s messengers on earth. The four archangels, the leaders of this heavenly band, are named Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel.

St. Michael’s name means “Who is like God?” Who indeed? And angels have been described in military language with Michael being named as the captain of these heavenly armies. In tonight’s passage from Daniel, he is called the great prince and protector of God’s people, who comes among them at a time of great anguish and suffering. We need St. Michael, the archangels and angels, and all their heavenly armies even now!

Time is both temporal and eternal, translated in Greek as chronos and kairos. And the times described in our scripture passages this day are both. They are often called the end times and St. Mark's gospel lesson has become known as the “little apocalypse.” It describes the time when Jesus warns his listeners to be alert for that time when the Son of Man will come to gather his elect.

I remember the first time that I stepped into the pulpit as a seminarian at St. John’s Church in Waterbury, Connecticut. As I began to speak, a man in the front row stood up, and as he walked out of the church, he claimed in a very loud voice that the end was near. I was a little unnerved; and yet false messiahs and prophets can be found on many street corners and, these days, especially throughout our social media. The warning from these people is that you better be alert, and get your life in order, or you will soon be left behind.

Have you been chosen? Have you been elected by God to live forever in his kingdom, protected eternally by God, his angels and archangels, and those who have been enlisted in God’s heavenly armies? Cue the Salvation Army now or the Calvinists or let’s sing “Onward Christian soldiers” together. Are you hoping to find yourself one day seated before the throne of God, listening to a heavenly choir that sounds as lovely as the one at Church of the Redeemer? Well, that depends on your theology of salvation. Personally, I believe that God’s grace is unlimited and undeserved and that there is a wideness in God’s mercy.

When some people read the Revelation to John, they might wonder if the author was smoking something before he put pen to paper. During this time of severe persecution against the Christian communities in the Middle East, John’s Revelation is intended to offer hope. He paints a picture of St. Michael, leading the heavenly armies to defeat the great dragon, who at that time was the emperor of Rome and his armies. John’s writing is filled with secret symbols and allegorical language as a way to protect the followers of Jesus from being found out and then martyred. 

I am not one of those people who likes to read the end of a story first in order to see what happens in the end.  And so, there has never been a time when I have been tempted to read the Revelation to John to understand the end of our salvation story. The four gospels do that for me. Jesus was born and lived a life of faithful service. He was crucified, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again and is seated at the right hand of God. John calls Jesus the Lamb of God; and today we claim that he takes away the sins of the world. We believe that Jesus is both the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of our salvation story. Full stop.

 But in truth the story of our salvation is not really over; indeed it is a never ending story. In the Revelation to John, Jesus is still speaking to us, as both the Lamb of God, whose garments were once bloodied, and now are pure white. And still, the story continues in you and in me. “See, the home of God is among mortals,“ John wrote. And so, like our true Messiah, our Prince of Peace and the Protector of God’s people, like St Michael and all God’s angels and archangels, we become God's messengers, who proclaim God’s unfailing Way of Love on earth as it is in heaven.

 In fact, the Revelation to John describes “the triumph of God over evil and death, not only as a future expectation, but also one that has already been realized in heaven. Our hope then is not based simply on the promise of God in the distant past but it is based on the present power of God manifest in the resurrection of Jesus,” writes Luke Timothy Johnson.(p 517)

The final image given to us then by the author of Revelation is one of a new heaven and a new earth. John reminds us that the Lamb of God, that is Jesus, dwells with us even now; and he will wipe away our tears during these current times of suffering. Death no longer will hold its sting, nor does it have a final victory. Cities and nations will no longer be divided. Gathered into a heavenly chorus, we are united as one community of God’s beloved children, where people of every language and tribe and nation live in peace. To the “One seated on the throne and to the Lamb - be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.”

So, be an angel, a messenger, and an evangelist: share the story of our salvation.  Amen.

Daniel 12:1-3 

Revelation 5:1-14

Revelation 12:7-12

Mark 13:21-27