What God is like [St. Michael and all Angels]

NO AUDIO. TEXT ONLY THIS WEEK.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Daniel 10:10-14, 12:1-3

• Revelation 12:7-12

• St. Matthew 18:1-11

 

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 Who is God.
 
Who speaks to you today, in your hearing, about St. Michael, whose name means “who is like God” which is a question better understood as “what is God like”. To answer the first, no one is like God. To answer the second, Jesus Christ is what God is like, how He thinks, how He acts, and how He talks.
 
For this reason, St. Michael is a feast day focused on Jesus, for even the angels worship Him, and St. Michael has been closely associated with Jesus, almost to the point of saying that St. Michael and Jesus are the same person, as we read Scripture. If one were to try to understand St. Michael in the Bible, by himself, he would fall down this hole and find himself siding with the Arians of our day, the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
 
It is they who believe that there really is no St. Michael, or rather that St. Michael is Jesus. As we heard this evening, God’s Word seems to agree as our readings from Daniel and Revelation show St. Michael doing Jesus things: he is the chief Prince, he rises up to help and guard God’s people defeating satan, and he gives understanding.
 
The problem here, is that we then pit Daniel and St. John against the other Apostles who all conclude that Jesus was no angel (hehehe). Hebrews 1:5, “For to which of the angels did He ever say: ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You?’” It is in that letter to the Hebrews where St. Paul goes on to proclaim that Jesus is both higher and lower than the angels. Higher in His divinity, He is true God, and lower in His humanity, He is true man.
 
So that’s no good. Jesus is not an angel neither did God raise Him as an angel after He died. You won’t become angels either. We cannot agree nor believe that Jesus is anything other than the Son of God, the God-man, true God in the flesh come to seek and to save lost sinners.
 
A fabricated Jesus who is only a man and yet by secret knowledge and favor becomes more than a man does nothing for us simpletons with little to no apparent favor. A fabricated Jesus will not do when we gather around His Body and Blood. faith cries out and demands that we hear His promises of salvation and pardon, in Body and Blood.
 
Faith leads us here because, for God’s Church on earth, here we find our Risen help, our Guard, and our Enlightener. This is Who God is. This is What He does. Exodus 15:11 asks, “Who is like Thee among the gods, O Lord? Who is like Thee, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?”
 
Psalm 35:10 begins to bring us closer to Church saying, “All my bones will say, 'Lord, who is like thee, who delivers the afflicted from him who is too strong for him and the afflicted and the needy from who robs him?'”
 
Finally, Micah 7:18 gets to Jesus in His Words of Institution saying, “Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy.”
 
Which now, in Christ, means, “Take and eat…take and drink…for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). 
 
So who is like God? No one, but not just in His Almighty Overpowered-ness. No one is like God Who dies for us while we were yet sinners. No one is like God Who sends His Spirit to create His Church and offer salvation in Word and Sacrament. No one is like God Who commands His angels and archangels to watch over us. 
 
What is God like? He is a God Who works wonders, creating all things, even St. Michael as a mighty champion for the people. He is a God Who offers Himself to sinners in order that they would find Him easily and repeatedly. 
 
He is a God Who sends His only begotten Son to be lower than the angels, suffering and dying for fallen humanity, and to be higher than the angels, able to conquer all. He is a God Who has overcome the dragon and his angels, not by blade or bow, but by His own blood, as Revelation 12 told us this evening, and by the Word of His own testimony, His own Gospel, His own martyrdom.
 
In Christ, we are all little Christs, doing the good works God gave us to do for our neighbor, bearing our cross, and receiving Word and Sacrament from His hand. So of course St. Michael is in on the same game, just as Daniel is and all the saints gone before. We do the work of Christ in God’s eyes. 
 
Better than that, we get full credit for all the work Jesus did, without any merit or worthiness of our own. Who is like that God? No one.