Destroyer

Midweek Lenten Vespers

Abaddon, Archangel of the Abyss

A Reading from the Revelation of St John:

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit; he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.

Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given authority like the authority of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to damage the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.

In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months.

They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

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.

Christians have no angel of death. Not officially, anyway.

Muslims do. They call him Azrael, the “Helper of God.” In Talmudic lore it’s Samael, the “Venom of God.” Christians often draft St Michael as our psychopomp: a spirit who guides the souls of the dead, and offers to them the path of salvation. But we have no official angel of death—save perhaps Abaddon, Archangel of the Abyss.

The word “abaddon” simply means “destruction,” and that’s how it’s used in the Hebrew Bible: not as a name, but as a noun; usually paired with sheol, “the pit,” another term for the grave. Thus, sheol and abaddon: death and destruction. In a more mythologized understanding, however, these two come to represent not abstract notions but concrete places: the geography of the underworld. Sheol is the land of the dead, the house of souls; while Abaddon is what lies beneath.

See, in the common understanding of the ancient Mediterranean world, the souls of the dead descend to the land of the dead, which the Greeks call Hades and the Hebrews Sheol. It’s a gloomy place in general, but it has some decent bits. Yet there is a level beneath Hades, an underworld under the underworld. Greeks name this Tartarus, while the Bible calls it the Abyss. And here there be monsters: the Titans and demons and dark gods of old.

The Abyss is a prison for horrors, so deep down that it was said to take nine days to fall from Hades into Tartarus. In the teachings of the Rabbis, this was Abaddon, the land of destruction, the land of the damned. It’s not until the very last of the Christian Scriptures—the Revelation of St John—that Abaddon becomes a proper name, not of a place but of a person. Abaddon is the angel of the Abyss, who holds the keys to Tartarus, the prison guard of hell.

And there is some debate, mind you, as to whether this Abaddon should be understood as one of God’s holy angels or as one of the fallen, one of the demons. On this topic, as with so many others, Christians tend to disagree. But in naming an angel “Destroyer,” it seems to me that St John is making an explicit connection to the Exodus, to the story of the Passover; when the Destroyer passed through the land of Egypt, claiming the firstborn of any household not marked by the blood of the lamb.

The difference between an angel and a demon is whom they serve. And the Destroyer appears to serve God, doesn’t he? Perhaps we have an angel of death after all.

I’ve a picture in my bedroom which my children do not like, though I confess that I am rather fond of it. It’s an image of the goddess Kali Ma from Hinduism. You might recognize her name from the Thugee cult of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which is wonderful fantasy but terrible theology. And I will confess that at first blush she does appear rather horrifying: a different weapon in each of her many hands, with a skirt of severed arms and necklace of skulls. Indeed, one might think her more demonic than divine.

But within the Hindu faith, Kali represents the Holy Spirit of God manifest in Creation as the vengeful mother, the protective parent destroying anything and anyone who separates her from her children. And so what she destroys is in fact ego, pride, devils, idols—anything that isn’t God, anything that keeps us away from God. Her name means “time,” and eventually time breaks down everything that’s not eternal, everything that isn’t God.

The Destroyer, then, is not someone to be feared. She’s only scary toward evil, toward lies, toward delusions. She breaks them down to bring us home. That is the role of Abaddon in the Bible, the proper interpretation for tales of divine violence. God is not evil; if He were, He wouldn’t be God. And so God does no harm—unless it is to heal. Surgery might seem like violence, but a doctor cuts to cure. Chemotherapy is a poison, but what it poisons is disease.

Should you throw a clump of iron ore into a blazing furnace, it might seem as though you destroy it, as though you burn it away. But soon you see the steel within, pure and strong and true. That is what God destroys: impurities, shadows, illness, death. In the end, God shall immolate in the fires of His love anything and everything that separates Him from you. And that might seem like perishing, like perdition, like the deepest pits of hell. But I promise you: it is only the death that brings us new life.

It is only the Cross that lifts us on high.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying:

“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new … It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

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