190929 Sermon for St. Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2019

190929 Sermon for St. Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2019

One of the most powerful stories that we are all taught by many different sources is that progress is marching on. We are getting better and better all the time. There seems to be a lot of evidence for this. People used to not have toilets. Now we do. People used to not have electricity. Now we do. Sick people used to die quickly. Now they die slowly. People used to have to write letters. Now they text. Who knows, then, what we might discover in the future, but whatever it is, it is going to be great.

Another important part of this story of progress also has to do with religion. The story of progress says that we have outgrown religion. According to the story of progress, religion was a substitute—and a rather poor substitute at that—for science. For example, people used to not know how weather worked, and so they ascribed it to the will of a certain god. People used to not know how diseases worked, and so they ascribed it to a demon. Now we supposedly know how weather and diseases work, and so there is no longer any need to believe in gods or spirits.

The story of progress has been very successful in our culture. It is in the air that we breathe, and so it has its effect on us Christians as well. We also are prone to disbelieve in the existence of evil angels and good angels. We are even more prone to disbelieve that these spirits have anything to do with our day-to-day life. If such things exist or if they actually do anything, then we want proof. Since the proof is never as good as we want it to be, it is a whole lot easier to just believe what everybody else believes. People will think that you are weird if you don’t believe what everybody else believes.

Therefore, being a Christian today requires some independence. Christians have a very different story of what the universe is all about. We are not the product of progress or evolution. The heart and soul of the story of our existence is the love of God toward us in Jesus Christ. For us and for our salvation God became man. Jesus redeemed us by dying on the cross even though we have been rebellious towards God. The Creator has joined himself to us with the greatest intimacy and friendliness. God is flesh of our flesh—an unheard of thing and very intimate. He is also very friendly. All who believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Those who do not believe in him remain in their sins and are condemned for they reject the best and most important thing that has ever happened—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Angels are not at the very heart of this story of our existence, but they are still very much a part of it. The festival of St. Michael and All Angels gives us the opportunity to look at their part in the story of the universe that is otherwise neglected or dismissed as antiquated.

Angels were created by God as spirits. Spirits are unusual creatures in that they don’t have bodies like we have bodies. When they have become visible to people, it is because they have taken on a visible form, like the Holy Spirit took on the form of a dove at Jesus’s baptism. The Holy Spirit is not a dove. The Holy Spirit does not have a body. He is a spirit. That’s who the angels are too, but sometimes they will take on a visible form.

Sometime after God created all the angels, there was some kind of rebellion among the angels. The Bible doesn’t tell us nearly so much about this as our curiosity might want. All that we can say for sure is that as a result of this rebellion there were thenceforth good angels (as God had originally created them all to be) and evil angels (who once were good, but then made God their enemy).

The fallen angels are also called demons. The leader of the demons is the devil or Satan. It was this Satan who took on the form of a serpent, or possessed a serpent, and tricked Adam and Eve into their rebellion against God. Satan is the liar and the murderer who is ultimately responsible for all the misery that we have to endure. According to the prophecy that God himself made in the Garden of Eden, he was going to be crushed by the Seed of the woman. This was fulfilled with Jesus’s death and resurrection. The serpent’s head was crushed. The devil lost all claim to us. Jesus purchased us, not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood and his innocent suffering and death.

Although the devil has already been defeated, he has not yet been put away once and for all. Now, for a short time, he uses the only weapon he has, which is to lie, so that souls are murdered through false believe and despair. Soon Jesus will come, though. That is when things will enter their final state. The devil, together with all evil creatures—including evil men, women, and children—will be forever locked up in hell. That is good. They will never again be able to break into the goodness of God’s creation and corrupt it.

Opposed to the devil and his fellow demons are the good angels who did not rebel against God their creator. The Bible testifies to the existence of angels from Genesis to Revelation. It was angels, cherubim, who barred the way for Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of life. That’s Genesis. St. John makes known in Revelation that the angels are the ones who will bring vengeance to all evildoers who live upon the earth in the final days. Between the beginning and the end, we see the work of angels throughout the Scriptures. Angels come to Abraham, to Moses, to David, to Joseph, to Mary, and to many others whom God loves.

When the angels come to these different people, we see what their chief work is. They are chiefly messengers. In fact, the word “angel” means “messenger.” They are God’s messengers. The people to whom God’s messengers come are to embrace that message by faith. Faith is the way that we receive and hold onto God’s greatest blessings. And so the work of angels as messengers is their proper and most important work.

We know that angels also do other works for God. It was the angel of the Lord who brought the plague upon Pharaoh and Egypt that happened at Passover. The angel of the Lord brought the plague upon David and his kingdom when he took a census of his people. The angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night who were about to overrun the city of Jerusalem. There is no doubt about the tremendous power angels have.

When God’s people come into contact with angels in their raw power, they are quite overwhelmed. Perhaps something of the holiness and majesty of God is reflected in these exalted creatures. The most typical response to seeing an angel in his raw power is to fall down on one’s face. The angels must say over and over again to those they meet, “Do not be afraid.” Then they give the message God has given them to communicate.

The Scriptures show us that these spiritual creatures are very different than some common notions people have about angels. The movie, “It’s a wonderful life,” has had a large impact on how people think of angels. The angel in that movie is kind of bumbling, kind of doting. He’s waiting to get his wings. In the 80s and 90s there seemed to be a lot of interest in writing stories with angels as characters. So there were TV shows and movies that were written where angels are cute, humorous—and perhaps this trait is the one that dominated all others: They were perfectly harmless. They wouldn’t hurt a fly. Nobody would be afraid of these grandmotherly characters. Unfortunately I think these TV shows and movies have had a bigger effect on what people believe about these spiritual creatures. More people watch these shows than read their Bibles.

And so we have quite a bit of growing that we can do in our understanding of angels and demons. Reading the Scriptures will tell us what angels are really like and what they have done in the past. The Scriptures will be our true source for information if we are interested in knowing anything about angels and demons.

There is another way our understanding should grow also, and that is to understand that demons and angels still exist, and they still make their impact on the way things go on earth. This is something that is difficult for us. Science has become the main way for explaining how things work, and one of the rules in science is that there can be no supernatural explanation for why things happen the way they do. A cause must be found for every phenomenon that does not make any reference to God or what he has revealed. That is one of the fundamental rules of science. Since science is such an important part of our understanding of the world, even though we are Christians it is difficult for us to believe that angels and demons have any place in a person’s life.

And so as I mentioned at the beginning, we have to learn to be independent as Christians. Angels and demons exist and they do stuff. What they do and how they do it is not going to be as clear to us as we would like, especially since we have gotten so out of practice. Somebody like Martin Luther understood demons and angels a whole lot better that we do because that was the way he understood life. He was raised with that understanding and enriched his understanding with Scripture. We have been raised with the understanding that there are no such things, and our Bible lie covered with dust in our homes. Therefore, we almost have to start over in our understanding of what they do.

So what do demons and angels do? Demons make people sick. They can make a person mentally disturbed. Accidents and other misfortunes may very well be the work of demons. Their chief work is geared towards our damnation, and so they lead us into temptation and try to keep us away from God’s wholesome Word. When it comes to such things I have to admit that I do not have the certainty that I would like in claiming such things. I’m pretty much a novice like you.

As far as the angels are concerned, we should understand them as fighting against the demons. They save many a person from various accidents. They shield and protect us. Their greatest desire corresponds to God’s own will, and that is our salvation. They guide us towards the Word of God and the Gospel. They rejoice when a sinner repents. Angels know better than anybody that it is only the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. What should it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, or suffer no accidents, of that his foot should not be dashed against a stone, if his soul should wither and die from starvation because he never heard the preaching of the Gospel?

We have a challenge today with this holiday. One of the reasons why we have holidays and saints’ days is so that we can learn from God’s Word about things that we otherwise wouldn’t take up. To my shame, I have to say that I don’t speak very much about the work of demons and angels. This festival has forced us to consider it. We have much to learn.

And so I encourage you not to let today’s thoughts just go in one ear and out the other. Understanding the world as being inhabited by these spiritual creatures is disallowed by the reigning story of progress. If we don’t deliberately think about these things and cultivate them, then we simply won’t believe them. Let us rebuild the old foundations that have been lost over time.