READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Daniel 10:10-14, 12:1-3
Revelation 12:7-12
St. Matthew 18:1-11
In the Name...
Dear saints at St. John’s: grace to you and peace from Him Who is and Who was and Who is to come; from Jesus Christ the faithful Witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
Who speaks to you today, in your hearing, about angels in every one of our holy Scripture readings.
The Feast day that the Church uses to celebrate St. Michael the Archangel and all the angels is over 1500 years old and predates the Roman Catholic church. Yet, as you have heard this evening, Christians have been celebrating St. Michael as their champion since the time of Daniel, really since even Moses time, when St. Jude says in the New Testament, in 1:9, “Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, ’The Lord rebuke you!’”
So really, we are talking about Day One of the Church. And since we have not seen or heard of it since recently, we are talking tonight about just as many years of giving up things in Church. Yes, for at least 500 years, the churches have not been persecuted enough, because instead of the evil one taking things away and forbidding it by earthly decree, we have been voluntarily giving things up.
So much have we given up that it has affected our culture in our own country. Ever so slowly, even the Lutherans, have allowed so many things to go by the wayside and fall out of use in the Church. The celebration of saints days is one of them, the use of incense another, and chanting, genuflecting, and the list goes on.
Now, who cares, you say? None of that affects my salvation and relationship with Christ. It doesn’t matter how i worship, it only matters what’s in my heart. If that is true, then you have no grounds to complain about the state of your country. If that is true, you have no right to bemoan the fact that God is not in our schools. If that is true, you have no call to even come to church, for who needs church when they have their own heart-sanctuary?
To fight against this, we produce ceremonies which occupy time, thoughts, and physical energy. The Reformation was so dead set on not losing everything valuable that the Church had produced since time immemorial that in our own Confessions that say, “Falsely are our churches accused of abolishing the Mass; for the Mass is retained among us, and celebrated with the highest reverence. Nearly all the usual ceremonies are also preserved, save that the parts sung in Latin are interspersed here and there with German hymns, which have been added to teach the people. For ceremonies are needed to this end alone that the unlearned be taught [what they need to know of Christ].” (AC 24:1-4)
The world wants empty space. Empty space on our calendars, empty space in our hearts, and empty space in our heads in order that it may fill up that space with whatever evil, shame or vice it wants. And slowly but surely we agree and whether its to be more likeable or more tolerant, we voluntarily begin to give up everything that makes the Church, /Church.
When one day, we look at what we have and say, “What am I doing wasting my time in this worthless place?” and wake up to find Christ nowhere in our country.
But I am not concerned with our country and neither is Jesus or St. Michael. We are all concerned with faith. Your faith and your salvation. We want your church to be a fruitful place, not just full of activity, but full of Christ. Swimming in a sea of Christ. Eating and breathing Christ.
So the Christians before us, Old Testament, New Testament, and after have determined to fill up our lives with Christ. As we have already spoken on Sunday, they had an easy starting point: the Lord’s Temple. All the items and ceremonies involved with that was God’s starting point, but even then all those happenings there pointed to the Messiah to come.
When the Apostles came about, Christ gave them the fulfillment of that Temple culture and ceremonies in Word and Sacrament, which was not very different from what went on in the Temple. So we hear them being devoted to the doctrines, the breaking of the bread, fellowship, and prayers, in Acts 2:42.
The festivals in Church necessarily changed with the Incarnation of God. Since God was made man in Christ, now there was even more to occupy Church time. Not only could we celebrate Creation, Exodus, and God’s Word, but the sanctification and salvation that He worked through men.
With the new revelation that Jesus is both God and man, now men had a part in the Church culture. Now, the Holy Spirit did not dwell in temples made with stone, but with temples made by the hand of God, clay jars, dusty dolls: you.
Now, the great work of proclaiming perfect salvation to the world lies in the hands of men. Are we in trouble? Most of the time. But do we have a champion, a great prince fighting on our side? Yes. the Lord not only sends His Prince of Peace, Jesus, but also sends His entire army to our side, led by St. Michael, the prince of angels.
For it is with angels and archangels that we celebrate the Divine Service. And since we have such a rich history given by God, and since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, and since there is nothing more important in this world than communing with the Lord of all in body and blood, then we will make every excuse in the Church to get together as often as possible.
We will celebrate Apostles, Angels, and bishops and pastors. We will celebrate miracles, and platitudes, and commandments. We will celebrate books, and chapters, and verses. We will celebrate memorization, repetition, and monotony. We will celebrate the Lord’s forgiveness which is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
We will gather together to eat, drink, and be merry in the Faith as often as we can, for our Lord has come down all glorious to save us from sin, death, and the power of the devil through Word and Sacrament. And we will clothe that Gospel truth in all the richness we can muster in ceremony, hymnody, and art.
St. Michael and all angels are celebrated in the Holy Bible, but even if they all be forgotten and we never celebrate St. Michael or any other saint ever again, celebrating Christ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year in Word and Sacrament is worth it and enough. Thank God we have a God Who loves celebration as much as we do and so His Church reflects that, as best we can.
We believe and confess that the liturgy of our Church has the great function of keeping us in touch with the past and the dead in the Lord. So we use what has been given to us to celebrate a salvation history accomplished “yesterday”, the God-man Who lives and communes today, and the sure and certain hope of His resurrection for us “tomorrow”.
A blessed St. Michael’s Day to you all.
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