Powers That Be

Light, by wlop

Propers: St Michael and All Angels (Mikkelmas), A.D. 2019 C

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Speak of angels, and I think it’s fair to say that the popular image which springs to mind is that of a small child or young woman dressed in flowing white robes with great feathery wings. This is how they are often depicted in art, for better or for worse. But this of course is not a biblical image.

The angels of Scripture appear in vast and terrifying array, as giants or as monsters; as cherubim with many heads and hooves and skin of bronze; or as ophanim, which the prophet Ezekiel describes as wheels within wheels, covered in eyes. The highest of them all, the seraphs—the “fiery ones”—are imagined as flaming serpents, burning above the Throne of the Lord, the veritable Dragons of God.

Angels are all of these things, and yet none of the above; for such beings are understood to be pure spirit, pure mind, unencumbered by physical form; able to put on bodies for a time in the way that we might try on clothes, but ultimately free from the restrictions imposed by matter or space or even time as we know it—for time to us indeed is a physical thing, and they don’t work like that.

Now, belief in angels is often relegated to the realm of superstition, along with belief in unicorns or fairies, which are a topic for another day. I could point out that belief in angels, under whatever name, appears universal; that all human religions, societies, and cultures have this idea of purely spiritual creatures populating this and other worlds, some working to our benefit, others to our harm.

But should you be of a more skeptical bent, let’s put it this way: angels are creatures of the mind. That doesn’t make them less real. That makes them more real.

Imagine dragons, for example. Dragons are not physical, biological creatures. The closest we’ve ever come to finding hard evidence of dragons is digging up dinosaur bones. And yet every culture on earth knows, more or less, what a dragon is. It’s an archetype, something hardwired into our collective subconscious. The idea of dragons existed long before you or I were born, and will continue long after we die. In that sense, dragons are more real than we are. Dragons are immortal. You cannot kill an idea.

Angels work in much the same way, except that Christians, like most all religious folk, would argue that angels are God’s idea, not simply our own. We did not dream up God; God dreamt up us, and all the fellow creatures who populate Creation both above and below the levels of reality of which we are aware. Angels are divine ideas that are bigger than we are, that transcend us, that outlive us, which have personalities and minds and wills of their own.

So if anyone ever tells you that angels are all in your head, take a page from Professor Dumbledore when he said: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Mikkelmas is the celebration of St Michael and All Angels. It is the celebration of the truth that we are not alone in this universe, that in fact all of reality is populated by an abundance of spiritual life and by intelligences far exceeding our own.

Vast intellects roam the spaces between the stars and indeed the worlds between worlds, and though they so surpass us in power and wisdom and glory as we surpass the primordial slime, yet they are our brothers and sisters in Creation; fellow participants in the joy and wonder of life, fellow reflections of the Beauty and Goodness and Truth of the God who creates and sustains all things in every moment of our being.

Everything that exists, in all its innumerable variety, exists within the ocean of God’s own love: quarks, galaxies, animals and angels. Just like us, they are free. And just like us, they can fall. Thus we have today the central story of St Michael and the Dragon.

The dragon, of course, is Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, greatest and highest of the seraphs, who are the greatest and highest of the angels. Lucifer was greater than all else in Creation, second only to God. And one day the notion struck him that maybe he didn’t need to play second fiddle. Maybe he ought to be, in fact, his own god. And so he rebelled in Heaven, on the first day of Creation, when God separated the darkness from the light. And a third of the heavenly host rebelled with him, or so the story goes. Thus was there war in Heaven—a war not of weapons, but of spirits, of ideas, a war of pure mind, between falsehood and truth.

And there came forth an archangel, one of the lowest of the choirs, who could not compete with the dragon in wisdom or in power. All he had was his faith, his love and trust and awe of God, and this became his rallying cry: “Who is like God?” he demanded. “Who can ever be like God?” And that cry became this angel’s name—“Who is like God? Who is like God?”—which in Hebrew is mī kāʼēl, the Archangel Michael.

This is the power that cast Lucifer out of Heaven and down to earth, where he became Satan, the Adversary, the Devil himself. Michael did not win by his own strength, but by his trust in God. And so the devil to this day is filled with rage and fury, for he knows now that his time is short.

Perhaps this ancient tale sounds to postmodern ears today like little more than a bedtime story, a metaphor or a fairy tale or a myth. That doesn’t much bother me, to be honest, for I find within me the growing conviction that such beings as these exist on a level of reality at which the distinction between fact and myth and metaphor all break down into truth.

But regardless, Satan is the spirit of pride, the idea of self-worship, of rebellion against all that is Good and Beautiful and True; while Michael is the spirit of faith, of simple trust in the idea that behind all the world’s wantonness, wickedness, and war, God has not forsaken us; that He does, in fact, love us; that He joins us in our sufferings, in our sorrows, in our doubts; and that He will lead us through them to a new life and a new world and a great Resurrection which will somehow, impossibly, set all things right, so that our final state shall be even more glorious than our first.

These two ideas are at war within you even now. They were at war before you were born, and will continue at war long after you die, for the spirits both of pride and of faith are greater than we are. Even so, the outcome of their contest is never in doubt. Sooner or later, faith will overthrow our pride. Truth will cast down our wickedness and our rage. And the simple, humbling thought—“Who is like God?”—reveals itself to be a glorious weapon and armor for the soul.

Because of course none are like God, none can take God’s place. Yet even as we confess this, even as we live by this light, we find that we ourselves begin to reflect God’s own Goodness and Beauty and Truth out into the world around us and even beyond, into the outer darkness, so that hell itself is overthrown by Heaven. In Christ Jesus, God has pursued the devil even into the pits of the damned, and there He has conquered!—so that there is no more place for the fallen to hide, no more tombs in which the dead can escape the Lord of Life. And ever by His wounded side is Michael with his sword.

Within each of us there is a dragon, but a dragon-slayer as well. And with the Life of Christ within us, there is no question as to the Victor of our souls.

St Michael, Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits, who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

For who is like unto God?

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.