Those who are wise
shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead the many to
righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel
12:3)
Happy Michaelmas!
Yes, this Sunday is the
feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, a festival celebrated annually on
September 29th by Lutherans as well as by our Roman Catholic and
Anglican brothers and sisters.[i] It’s a tradition dating
back to the fifth century when a basilica near Rome was dedicated to the
Archangel Michael. In the Middle Ages Michaelmas signaled the start of Autumn,
and was a time when tenant farmers, who were just bringing their crops to
market, were called upon to settle accounts with their overlords and pay their
rent.[ii] Later, in English schools
the festival signaled the start of the fall term. For whatever reason our
ancestors had, it was celebrated by feasting on a goose.
In recent years the
festival has been enlarged from celebrating Michael to contemplating all the
heavenly messengers and the messages they bring.
I confess I never thought
much about angels. For me, an angel was a member of the American League
baseball team I followed via my Westinghouse AM clock radio when I was a kid
growing up in Southern California.[iii] I hadn’t given much
mental energy to contemplating the presence of invisible (or maybe
not-so-invisible) spiritual beings which might be surrounding us at this very
minute. Nevertheless, the belief in angels goes back a long, long time. Our
Jewish brothers and sisters and our Muslim brothers and sisters also believe in
angels. Throughout the centuries some people have felt a divine presence which,
if it were not exactly God, was at least someone on God’s payroll.
The Bible is full of
references to these beings. If you look at Genesis, there’s the story of Hagar (the
slave girl Abraham was fooling around with when he thought his wife couldn’t
get pregnant) being rescued by an angel in the wilderness (Genesis 16:7-9).
There’s the story of Jacob seeing angels on a ladder to Heaven (Genesis 28:12).
Moses was promised that an angel would go before him and the children of Israel
to help them whoop the locals and take over the Promised Land (Exodus 33:2).
There are a bunch of other angel sightings in the Hebrew Scriptures, including
visions to Elijah, Isaiah, and Daniel[iv].
As Christians, we usually
think of angels in connection to the Christmas story: the announcement of the
birth of John the Baptist, the announcement to Mary that she’ll be the mother
of Jesus, the announcement to the perplexed Joseph telling him to chill and
raise this baby as his own, and the stupendous appearance of the Heavenly Host
to the shepherds on the night Jesus is born. The angels do what they’re
supposed to do: bring messages from God—no matter how unexpected, wonderful, or
weird those messages might be.
Michael is called an archangel,
which means he’s pretty much the top angel. He is referenced in the First
Lesson assigned for this feast Sunday (Daniel 10:10-14, 12:1-3) by an un-named
angel who tells the hero Daniel that Michael is a protector of the Jewish
people. In the New Testament epistle of Jude, we’re told that Michael contended
with Satan for the body of Moses, and the book of Revelation (our Second Lesson
for Michaelmas, Revelation 12:7-12) depicts Michael as a warrior angel who
kicked Satan’s butt out of heaven[v]. In art, he’s almost
always depicted wearing armor and brandishing a sword. Michael is pretty much a
badass as angels go.
Jewish literature lists
the names of some angels and a taxonomy and hierarchy of their different types
and jobs. Basically, however, an angel is a messenger of God. The main duties
of angels, as we find them in the Bible, are a) praising God, b) delivering
messages from God, c) protecting and rescuing God’s faithful, and d) acting as
agents of God’s divine judgment.
I don’t know about you,
but I can’t say I’ve ever experienced the supernatural presence of one of God’s
angels, but I have been inspired time and again by some flesh-and-blood
folks who could very well qualify as angels given the above job description. In
fact, in the gospel appointed for Michaelmas (Luke 10:17-20), Jesus commends
the twelve disciples for their mission trip and tells them they’ve been
warriors who have made Satan fall just as Michael did. Those who spread God’s
Word and share God’s love are given authority over the power of the enemy. We
are called to do the work of the angels—praising, proclaiming, protecting and
nurturing, and standing up for the righteousness of God in a culture which is
violent, wasteful, selfish, and uncaring.
I believe in angels—seen
and unseen. As I said, there have been a few times in my life when I’ve
experienced unexpected, but greatly needed, acts of kindness. When I’ve been
down or discouraged some individual has appeared who has been a comfort or has
shared a word of wisdom. When I interview the families of the deceased in
preparation for a funeral service, I always close the conversation with prayer,
and I always pray that God would send a messenger—a person who can come into
the life of the bereaved as a bearer of patience and understanding amidst the
loss and grief.
We all like to think our
departed loved ones have become angels. Maybe they have. Who’s to say? But all
the messengers and the protectors, and the friends we have are gifts from God.
We are in the presence of the angels now, just as the old spiritual (which I
learned at the now-defunct St. Michael’s Lutheran in Germantown) says:
“All night, all day:
angels watching over me, my Lord. All night, all day, I got angels watching
over me.”
May the angels bless you
this week, my friend. May they keep you safe and bring you God’s peace.
[i]
The Easter Orthodox Communion also celebrates Michaelmas, but they do it on
November 8th. They like to be different.
[ii]
Fun fact: The person elected to collect rents and settle accounts was called a
“reeve.” The term for a reeve of a shire or “shire’s reeve,” gave rise to the
tern sheriff. Hence, St. Michael is also the patron saint of law enforcement
professionals.
[iii]
My parents got me the clock radio when I was about eleven years old, and it
lasted me all the way through graduate school. It was obtained by redeeming the
now-outlawed coupons which were once attached to packs of cigarettes. When you
collected enough coupons, you could turn them in for cool stuff. I got the
clock radio. My mom got emphysema.
[iv]
Excuse me if I don’t list all the textual citations. You can look them up
yourself or take my word for it, okay?
[v]
There are also some references to Michael in the Apocryphal books of Tobit and
Enoch.
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