Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
We might think of it in terms of an epic action movie with the latest special effects, or maybe we would think of it in terms of a first-person video game with the highest-resolution and most-realistic graphics. “It” is “war and peace”—not Russian Author Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace of the French invasion of Russia in the nineteenth century, but our Holy God’s “war and peace” between the cosmic forces of good and evil that transcend time. The three Readings and the Psalm appointed for today, the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, describe aspects of St. Michael and all good angels’ fighting for us against the forces of the devil and all evil angels: from apparently Gabriel’s report to Daniel about the Archangel St. Michael’s (confer Jude 9) helping Gabriel at the time of Israel’s exile in Babylon in today’s Old Testament Reading (Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3), to what may be the final cosmic triumph of good over evil on the Last Day, as we think of it, in today’s Second Reading (Revelation 12:7-12), with the day-to-day defeat of Satan in the ministry of the Church in the meantime in today’s Gospel Reading (Luke 10:17-20). Perhaps like a few flashbacks in a movie or progressive levels in game, some Bible commentators think of multiple falls of Satan, or maybe multiple stages of one fall, but we may do best to remember that, while we are inside of time, God is outside of time, and so we will struggle to understand how the devil and the evil angels’ fall from their created goodness in the beginning already related both to God’s later victory over them by way of Jesus’s cross and to their eventual confinement in hell for eternity.
If not an epic action movie or a first-person video game, then perhaps a legal drama television show such as L.A. Law or The Practice or a legal thriller fictional novel such as those by Scott Turow or John Grisham—for, at least part of the victory of good over evil for us includes the devil’s no longer being able to accuse us of sin in the heavenly courtroom. To be sure, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, is the deceiver of not only the first man and woman but also all the inhabitants of the earth, including you and me. Thanks at least in part to the devil’s temptation, the first and man and women fell from their created good-ness to a resultant evil-ness, which evil-ness leaves us who are descended from them also sinful by nature and committing countless—sometimes unspeakable—actual sins. Because of our sinful nature and our actual sins, we deserve both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity, unless we repent. And, even when we repent and are forgiven, and so are righteous by faith in Jesus Christ, Satan, as he did both with the patriarch Job (Job 1:1-2:13) and with the high priest named Joshua (Zechariah 3:1-10; confer Brighton, ad loc Revelation 12:7-9, p.333), lives up to his name “the accuser” and continues to accuse us of sin, no doubt in part because we continue to sin.
So, God continues to call and so enable us to repent of our sin. The consequences of sin in the world—natural disasters such as hurricane-turned-tropical-storm Ian and physical and mental illness—can serve God’s call for us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to at least want to stop sinning. And, when we repent, then God forgives us. Then there is joy in heaven before the angels of God over even one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7, 10). And, there is comfort for us sinners who repent, as there was for the prophet Daniel who set his heart to understand and humbled himself before his God, when apparently Gabriel eventually came to him, thanks to the Archangel Michael’s help, with more promises of the Gospel.
In keeping with traditions that reportedly go back at least as early as the fifth century, as part of our local custom, through the years, Pilgrim’s Board of Elders and I have tried to offer Divine Service here at Pilgrim on what are regarded as the “principal feasts of Christ”, which St. Michael and All Angels is regarded as by Lutheran Service Book (see pp.x-xi), whether such principal feasts fall on a Sunday or not, as today. Apparently the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels is regarded as a “principal feast of Christ” because of the close association between the work of the angels and the work of our Lord Jesus. So close is that association, that some interpreters even identify St. Michael the Archangel with the Lord Jesus. Although the pre‑incarnate Son of God can be referred to as the Angel (or “Messenger”) of the Lord, and although even the incarnate Son of God can be considered to be the Lord’s final revelation (Hebrews 1:1-2), the Church generally has distinguished and continues to distinguish between St. Michael the Archangel and the Lord Jesus.
Of course, the angels were created as spiritual beings with no physical body, though they can and do appear as men. The Son of God Who created them took on human flesh in order to save us and all people from our sin. As the angels sang when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Jesus’s birth brought peace between God and human beings to earth (Luke 2:14), and, as the people sang when Jesus entered Jerusalem to die, Jesus’s death brought peace in heaven (Luke 19:38; Brighton, ad loc Revelation 12:7-9, pp.332-333 with n.47). The long-standing enmity between the woman and her offspring and the devil and his evil angels (Genesis 3:15), the war between St. Michael and all the good angels and the devil and all the evil angels, comes to an end at the cross, as Jesus bruises (or “crushes” [NIV]) the serpent’s head, but the serpent bruises (or “strikes” [NIV]) Jesus’s heel (confer John 13:31-33). The devil and his evil angels contested the peace that Jesus brings. The devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13), in the Garden (Luke 22:39-46), and on the cross (Luke 23:36), but to no avail. Jesus perfectly kept God’s law, and He perfectly made up for our failure to keep it. Jesus’s resurrection in part shows that God the Father accepted His sacrifice on our behalf. In Christ, comes the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God. God’s great love sent His Son, and God’s great love sends also His messengers, as the angel was sent to Daniel in today’s Old Testament Reading.
In the book of the Revelation to St. John, the pastors of the seven churches are referred to as the churches’ “angels”, their “messengers” (Revelation 2:1-3:22). The authority of the One Who holds the keys of Death and Hades, the key of David, the One Who opens what no one can shut and shuts what no one can open, works through supernatural and natural agents, not only to seize and bind the devil but also to bind and release sin (Revelation 1:18; 3:7; 20:1-3; confer Isaiah 22:22; Matthew 16:19). The word of the messengers’ testimony is important, but it is the blood of the Lamb that conquers the Accuser, Satan, and all evil angels. We who repent and believe are baptized and so rescued from sin, death, and the power of the devil. At the Font, we have God’s Triune Name put upon us, and our names are written in the Book of Life in Heaven. We confess our sin for the sake of individual Holy Absolution, and so we are admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar, where we receive bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us and so that give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
As Moses’s successor named Joshua found out when he was by the city Jericho and encountered the commander of the army of the Lord—Who some think was the pre-incarnate Christ, and others think was the Archangel Michael—the question is not whether the Lord is for us or for our enemies but the question is whether we are with the Lord (Joshua 5:13-15; confer Brighton, ad loc Revelation 12:7, p.322). With the Lord, we have victory and ultimately peace in the cosmic war between good and evil, as we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12). We may think that we are outnumbered, but those who are with us are more than those who are with them (2 Kings 6:16). The gates of hell do not prevail against the Church, but the Church prevails against the forces of hell (Matthew 16:18). The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials (2 Peter 2:4-10), and He can and will deliver us in His way and in His time. Ultimately, the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel—whether Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, or Uriel (confer Reed, 566)—and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And, the dead will rise, and those in Christ, living and resurrected, will meet and always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:16‑17).
That ultimate victory and peace in the cosmic war between good and evil is what matters, not a box office bonanza or record high video-game score. The has established His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all. The Lord’s angels, the mighty ones who do His Word, obeying the voice of His Word, bless the Lord. All the Lord’s host, His ministers who do His will, bless the Lord. All the Lord’s works, in all places of His dominion, bless the Lord. You and I, now and for eternity, bless the Lord! (Psalm 130:19-22.)
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +