Michaelmas
Michaelmas Vespers, AD 2020 A
A Reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews:
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son”? And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”
Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire.” But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” And, “In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like clothing; like a cloak you will roll them up, and like clothing they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will never end.”
But to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? Are not all angels spirits in the divine service, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
A Sonnet for St Michael the Archangel, by Malcolm Guite:
A Child’s Prayer:
Dear St Michael, guard my room.
Don’t let anything eat me or kill me.
Kill it with your sword. Kill it with your sword. Amen.
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.
Around my neck I wear a small silver shield. In fact, I never take it off. And on it is inscribed the image of the Archangel Michael in full battle armor, a flaming sword in his right hand, and a shield in his left. And just as my shield bears the image of St Michael upon it, so his shield boldly bears the image of the Cross. It is to me a daily reminder that no matter what powers array themselves either for or against us, salvation is found in Christ alone.
The real Michael wears no armor, has no shield, bears no sword; because the real Michael has no body in the way that we imagine such things. He is not human, nor ever was. He is something far greater, far older, far wiser than any man. Michael is one of the bodiless powers, spirits of pure awareness, pure mind, who existed before the physical world was brought into being; born, as Augustine would have it, on the first day, when God made light and separated the light from the dark.
We call them angels, and this conjures in the modern imagination men or women or little pudgy babes swathed in soft white with gentle feathered wings—which is about as far from the biblical narrative as one can stray. Angels, in the Bible, are not Precious Moments figurines. They appear as giants and dragons, gods and monsters, flaming serpents, four-headed beasts, and perhaps most memorably of all as wheels within wheels covered in eyeballs.
They are as alien, as awe-inspiring, as terrifying as we can conceive. To see them as they truly are would break the human mind. They are made from God’s own thoughts as we are made from mud and clay. I confess I’ve always enjoyed angelology. Some have dismissed it as the height of frivolity, as debating how many angels could dance upon the head of a pin. (Spoiler alert: all of them.) But I think there is something deeply humbling about contemplating creatures as far beyond us as we can possibly imagine—yet who are themselves no closer to the infinities of God.
Of course we cannot speak of angels without invoking the two most important to our own story: namely the archangel Michael and the fallen seraph we call Satan. Christian tradition organizes angels into choirs of increasing might and glory. The lower choirs are those closest in nature to us; the higher, those closest in nature to God. Archangels are fairly low in the pecking order, cosmically speaking, while the highest of the high are the seraphim, the “fiery ones,” the dragons of our Lord.
And the highest spirit of them all we call Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, the greatest of God’s children born in might and mind and glory. But even angels have free will. And so even angels fall from grace. The story goes that one day God gathered the hosts of Heaven and revealed to them a glimpse of the future; the story of Creation from God’s own eternal now.
And in that glimpse they saw a woman, the Theotokos, the God-Bearer, through whom the Creator Himself would enter into His Creation, as part of His own work, like an author becoming a character in a book he is still writing. And this enraged Lucifer. We don’t exactly know why. Perhaps because he knew our weaknesses, our frailties, our sinfulness. High as he was, he was sure he could see how unworthy humanity would be to bear the image and the blood of our God.
He wanted to be the Theotokos, it seems. He wanted to be the Mother of God.
And so Lucifer rebelled against his Maker’s will, and a third of the angels with him, so that war broke out in Heaven—a war of pure mind, pure thought, pure spirit; a war of immortals unlike anything that we could imagine here below. Until a lesser angel, from a lower choir, raised his voice like a clarion call and asked a simple, inescapable question: “Who is like God? Who can ever be like God?”
And this cry was taken up by the thunderous hosts of Heaven—“Who is like God? Who is like God? Who is like God?”—until it became this angel’s very name: Michael, the Archangel, general of the armies of the Lord. Thus Michael cast Lucifer down from Heaven, no longer the Light-Bearer but now the Satan, the Adversary, the Dragon, the Enemy of God and of the Good.
Therefore rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. But woe to the inhabitants of earth and of the sea; for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, and he knows his time is short.
This is not simply another story of a hero slaying a dragon—even if Michael is himself the archetypal hero, the original dragonsbane. No, for indeed Michael did not trust in the fire of his sword nor the strength of his arm. His own power, his own glory, could never hope to defeat the highest of all the angels, the dragon of the Lord. Michael was as far below Lucifer in raw mind and raw might as we are below him.
Rather, Michael trusted in the faithfulness of God—Who is like God? Who is like God?—for it doesn’t matter how great the dragon, how strong the giant. So long as we trust in the promises of God, in the goodness of our Lord, nothing can stop us. No-one can conquer us. Not sin, not death, not hell, and certainly not some has-been seraph who gave up God’s glory for the ugly pit of jealousy and pride.
It doesn’t matter if you’re old or young, rich or poor, strong or weak, human or angelic. Trust in God, and you will prevail. Trust in God, and the grave is defeated. Trust in God, and the very gates of hell lie broken and shattered before you. For we put not our faith in angels, either light or dark. Our faith is in the Cross of Christ, from which God poured out His life for this world, and defeated hell forever.
St Michael, the 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, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. For who is like unto God?
In Jesus. Amen.
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