The Feast of St. Michael & All Angels

‘For he will command his angels concerning you.’

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It is the feast of angels: the feast of those who cannot be seen. How then do we think rightly of that which transcends thought?

It is difficult to say: The Church has seen them as
contemplative, winged children, showing their innocence and devotion to the
eternal vision of God’s glory. She has seen them as women bedecked in gleaming
robes, accompanying the celestial choir on harp and violin. She has seen them
as spectacular and strange creatures, pouring forth praise before the golden
throne of the Almighty.

Indeed, in eternity, the angels shall play and meditate and sing; but such
things shall they do when there is peace. But now is not a time of peace. War
is upon us.

It is the feast of angels: the feast of those who cannot be seen. Let us
therefore think rightly of them who transcend thought.

War is upon us. Therefore God has raised His legions against those who threaten
that they are legion, for they are many.

So what are the angels, but an army? And what is their work, but war?

Behold, how it is written that ‘war arose
in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.’

For what man can test the Leviathan? And what son of men can tame him? ‘For no one is so fierce that he dares to
stir the serpent up. His back is made of rows of shields; his breath shows
forth lightning, and his eyes are like the wakening of the dawn. Out of his
mouth go flaming torches. His breath ignites the coals. His heart is hard as
stone, hard as the anvil of a millstone. He counts iron as straw, the arrow
cannot make him flee. Weapons are counted as stubble, he laughs at the rattle
of javelins. He looks down upon all that is exalted, he is king over all the
sons of pride.’

For this, our ancient foe, the Serpent of guile, the accuser filled of malice,
from our birth in the garden, has sought to devour us; that he might ‘eat dust all the days of his life’,
even consume the frailty of man, who is ‘but
dust, and to dust he shall return.’

Sinless Eve was deceived by his deception, and Sinless Adam was cast down
by his false words. And this monstrosity, the Devil, has beguiled all mankind
ever since, for he is ‘a liar from the
beginning, and the father of lies.’

What man, then, shall oppose him? What son of man shall take
up arms of battle against his might?

For the Lord God Himself proclaims of our adversary, ‘You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in
beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your
covering, and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the
day that you were created they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian
cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the
stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you
were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.’

See how, in his creation, the Devil is not only cunning, but
beautiful. Not only is he defiled, but adorned. Every blessing of radiance was
bestowed upon his raiment, even as every work of evil proceeds from his hand.

Shall you then, dear children of Adam, resist him who no flesh can touch? Shall
you then strike him whose ‘bones are as
rods of bronze, and his limbs as bars of iron?’

Despair, O children of Adam, for ‘though
the sword reaches him, it does not avail, nor the spear, the arrow, or the
javelin.’ There is no salvation against his might, nor is there escape from
his thirst for your soul, ‘Therefore behold,
the hope of man is false, at the sight of Leviathan he is laid low.’

But God shall not allow man to be destroyed, nor suffer His image within
man to be desecrated.

So He has called forth the Archangel Michael to strike the
dragon, and by the trumpet he has assembled the heavenly legions to rain
judgment upon the fallen angels.St. Michael conquered in the heavenly places, ‘and there was no longer any place for the fallen angels in heaven. 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 with him.’

The heavens are purified of the darkness of the devil’s presence, and no
longer shall his accusations resound in the courts of the Most High.

Yet upon this earth his angels now wander ‘in
waterless places’, and Satan ‘walks
to and fro upon the earth, marching up and down over it’ ‘seeking whom he may
devoir.’ His putrescence fills the fallen world, even as his malice fills
the human heart.

The battle over heaven has ended, but the war over earth is begun.

What flesh shall stand against this all-consuming beast, and what son of man
shall withstand the terrors of his violence? Yet a voice resounds forth from on high, the eternal Word crying out to the
Father ‘Here I am, send me.’

‘So for us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven, and was made
man.’

This our champion, the Lord Jesus Christ, shall bear his arm against the
hateful serpent, and by His words, the Lord shall silence ‘him that speaks lies.’

For ‘even as by one man, sin entered the
world, and death  through sin, so it is
fitting that by one man salvation come into the world’ ‘For as in Adam all die,
so in Christ shall all be made alive.’

God made man, as man, enters time to bring vengeance upon the ‘god of this world’.

Yet it is the way of this wicked Satan to bring oppression upon mankind
through his pride. Therefore it is the way of our glorious savior to bring
liberation to mankind through His humiliation. Let the combat commence: The
Leviathan against the Lamb.The Humble One, therefore ‘was
crucified for us under Pontius Pilate.’

Remember, now, how it was by a deception that the devil caused the death of
the First Adam.

See, now, how it is by a deception that the Second Adam, the Lamb, causes the
death of the devil.

For disguised in the frailty of human flesh, and exhausted by the cruelty of
every torture born of perverse human imagination, Our Lord Jesus presents
Himself, meek and broken, before the ‘power
of the prince of the air’, there to entice him into single combat, even as the
knights and heroes of old; one man against another; and the fate of Kingdoms
hanging in the balance.

The Leviathan, seeing the feebleness of human infirmity upon the cross, devours
Our Lord, swallowing Him as he has gorged on so many human souls.

‘And he descended into hell.’

Yet it is written ‘My strength is made
perfect in weakness.’ And even as a great fish, upon eating a fisherman’s
bate, finds beneath it the hook which pierces its lip, so too did Satan, upon
consuming the bloodied corpse of Christ, find beneath it all the majesty of the
Godhead. The mouth of Leviathan’s lies is pierced. The blasphemy of Satan’s
tongue is muted.

For now Our Lord’s power is made manifest; from within the choked throat of
Satan, He bursts forth, radiant and glorified.

‘And on the third day, he rose again from
the dead.’

Draw near to the tomb, and peer in. Enter the hewn stone of Christ’s grave,
and see that the Lord has been raised.

The angel greets you, dear Christian, and explains the absence of his God and
your God, his Lord and your Lord. ‘He is
arisen, he is not here.’ ‘He is going before you to Galilee. There you will see
him, just as he told you.’

For Christ our God is not finished; His vengeance against the evil one is
not complete, though His victory ‘is
finished’. The Lord goes forth to Galilee of the Gentiles, and unto all the
world, to pursue the unrighteous spirits, to hunt down fleeing Satan.

And the angel gives you orders, ‘go with
him to Galilee.’ Go, therefore, to war. Go therefore, you redeemed of
humanity, you born of water and of blood; march beneath the banner of the
Triune God, Our God made man before us as our king and commander, and
innumerable angels to the left and right as our comrades in arms, and our
companions in combat.

For it is into this Great War that we, the baptized, go, for the Word Incarnate
who leads the way has proclaimed ‘I come
not to bring peace, but a sword.’ ‘A sword that lays bare the throat of every
intention of the heart.’

On this Feast of All Angels, we greet the radiant knights
who flank us on either side, singing in rapturous harmonies the song of our
deliverance, crying forth ‘Now the
salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his
Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been cast down.’

Embrace them with joy, the Seraphs engulfed in holy light,
the Glorious Ones bearing swords of fire, and Saint Michael, captain of this
righteous legion, all of them our brethren in life, our comrades in strife, our
attendants in death, as we process through this life to storm the gates of
hell, that our king once for all proclaim His justice, and damn the Father of
Lies into the lake of unending fire ‘prepared
beforehand for the devil and all his angels.’

Witness then this great army of heavenly knights as they accompany you,
you, the image of their God and the object of their devotion, as the Church
daily enters the battlefield of this mortal life to shatter the dominion of
Satan and reclaim the world for the Kingdom of God.

And fear not that ‘a thousand may fall at
your side, and ten thousand at your right side.’

For though ‘the spirits are subject to you, yet do not rejoice. But rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’

For ‘many are the afflictions of the righteous. But the Lord delivers them out of them all.’

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Preached by Pastor Fields

Sermon Texts: Daniel 10:10-14, 12:1-3; Revelation 12:7-12; Luke 10:17-20; Psalm 91