Festival of St.
Michael and All Angels on
Let your holy angel be with me, that the wicked foe
may have no power over me. Amen.
Psalm 103:17-22 But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's
children-- 18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his
precepts. 19 The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom
rules over all. 20 Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who
do his bidding, who obey his word. 21 Praise the LORD, all his heavenly
hosts, you his servants who do his will. 22 Praise the LORD, all his
works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the LORD, O my soul.
“Festivals” were times of great rejoicing
in the Middle Ages. In an age where backbreaking work from sun-up to sun-down was
the rule, a special religious festival could provide some time off for worship and
relaxation even in the middle of the week. One very popular festival in Lutheran
Churches was the festival of St. Michael and All Angels. This festival has been
celebrated in
This festival does not praise, worship, or honor angels. That would be idolatry! This festival is meant to thank God for his gift of angels – much like we thank God for the harvest at Thanksgiving or thank God for another year of grace at New Year. We live in dangerous times. Thank God for the protection that his angels provide. In an age where angels are often misunderstood, it is good to hear what the Bible has to say about these ministering spirits! Today we are reminded of the activity of God’s angels within our lives. Angels are among us.
As we discuss angels, we first of all need to discover why we need angels and why God would send his angels to minister, guard, and protect us. We certainly need angels. But we certainly don’t deserve these ministering spirits. When we were born, we were born sinful. We were infected with the deadly disease of original sin. We had contracted this disease from our parents, all the way back to our original parents – Adam and Eve. As babies we looked cute and cuddly, innocent and blameless. We were anything but. We were horrible, hideous creatures. We were really children of Satan, the sons and daughters of the Prince of Darkness, destined for eternal damnation.
Our future looked bleak and hopeless.
Our gracious God inserted himself into this deadly situation. He sent his Son from
the glories of heaven to win us back from Satan. Already, shortly after his birth,
Satan tried to snuff the life of the young Christ-child as King Herod had soldiers
kill all the 2-year-old boys and younger in
Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he had to deal with Satan’s jabs, punches, and upper cuts. There was the jab of Satan’s demons mocking Jesus as they possessed God’s people. There was the punch to the gut as one of Jesus’ closest friends tried to get him to not endure the cross or the grave. There was the upper cut of Jesus’ disciple, Judas, betraying him to his enemies with a kiss.
On the cross, Satan thought he connected with the killing blow and he had won. The Son of God was dead. The saints of God now belonged to Satan. Yet, Satan couldn’t have been more wrong. When John writes in Revelation 12 about the war in heaven between the 5-star general of the angel hosts, the archangel Michael leading God’s angel army against the dragon, that ancient serpent, Satan, John is writing about Christ’s victory over Satan and over his demon angels. Christ won the victory with his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. That’s what Jesus means when he tells his disciples that he saw Satan fall like lightening from the sky. The war for our souls was won by Christ with cross and the open grave.
The war is over, yet Satan continues to battle. That battle for our souls continued at our baptism. When your parents brought you to the baptismal font, you were brought as a child of Satan. The devil’s unseen demons had their greedy little paws all over you. Yet when those cleansing baptismal waters flowed over you, those demons were dispossessed. In fact, ancient baptismal liturgies spoke of baptism as an exorcism, as the devil was cast out and Jesus set up his kingdom in the heart of the baptized. Then God’s mighty warrior angels, dressed in their full battle gear and holding their flaming swords gathered around you, to protect you from the Evil One.
In the same way, God sent the Angel of the Lord to protect the Israelite army against the heathen Assyrian invaders. “That night the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning-- there were all the dead bodies!” (2 Kings 19:35)
As we grew as little children, we could get into trouble. We pulled the drawers out of the dresser, using them as stairs to reach the glass aquarium on top of the dresser. We pulled the dresser and aquarium on top of us. We escaped with a good soaking and only a bump on the head as the aquarium glass met our thick skull. We may have escaped serious injury as God’s angel held up that dresser and aquarium, for God “will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” (Ps 91:11)
Or how about that time when you were stranded in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire or a broken battery cable. Out of nowhere came a friendly truck driver, who fixed you all up and left without receiving payment or even a “thank-you.” God’s holy writer reminds us, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Heb 13:2)
You were in the bunker in World War
II, with bullets flying all around you, yet somehow you made it home alive. That
may have been God’s warrior angel protecting you, just as the angel kept Daniel
safe by shutting the mouths of the starving lions. You were terrified of silent,
deadly efficiency of the Viet Cong in the jungles of
But God doesn’t just protect us from
harm, these angels are also ministering spirits, sent to serve those who will inherit
eternal salvation. (Heb 1:14) Recall how the angels ministered to Jesus after his
battle with Satan in the wilderness or how they ministered to him after his prayer
in the
In Acts 12 we find the Apostle Peter, laying bound in shackles, in prison, awaiting execution. As Peter lay sleeping, an angel appeared, not barred by such things as doors and iron bars. The angel appeared to Peter, shook him awake, and told him to prepare to escape. As a light shone through the darkness of the prison, Peter’s chains fell off, and he followed the angel out of the prison and into safety.
The archangel Michael, the prince of the angels guards God’s chosen people, as Daniel records for us. So many times when we read God’s Word we find that God sent his angels to minister to the needs of his servants, and he will send his angels to meet your needs as well.
Have you ever gone through a dark period where you have prayed and prayed and yet it seemed that no help had come? You felt as though God had disappeared and you were all alone to face your trials and burdens? God has a very special message for you today – He will never leave you nor forsake you - you are never alone! Yes, there are times when God withdraws to test our faith. He wants us to trust him in the darkness, as well as in the light. Whether or not we sense and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit or one of the holy angels, by faith we are certain that God will never leave us nor forsake us.
With all that angels can do, we might get the idea that angels are superior to human beings, but that wouldn't be at all true because Jesus didn’t take on the nature of angels, but of man. He became a true man with flesh and blood. We drew the greatest love from God! Think of it! God loved us so much that the Son of God became a human being! This mystery amazes even the holy angels! Even they cannot fully comprehend it. This doesn’t mean that we can boast about it because the cause of this amazing love lies in God, not in us. We have not caused God to love us. Quite the opposite, we have rebelled and angered God by our sins, yet he loves us in Christ.
Because God loves us so much, he sends his holy angels to guard and protect those whom he has redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus. These holy angels always see the face of the Father in heaven, which is another way of saying that they report directly to God about those they have been sent to protect.
Most of us have had those proverbial “close calls” when we became aware that God’s holy angels were protecting us. As Martin Luther teaches us in his Morning and Evening Prayers, we ask God to “let your holy angel be with me, that the Wicked Foe may have no power over me.”
And yet, there is a time when God’s holy angels are even closer to us and when they are doing their best and highest work. That time is here in the worship service. The highest joy of God’s holy angles is the worship of God. The psalmist tells us, “Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the LORD, O my soul.” (Ps 103:20-22) Here in the worship service, God’s holy angels join us as we praise God.
When a missionary succeeds, Satan falls like lightning. When a sinner repents, angels rejoice. We prompt an angel pep rally in heaven. Jesus tells us, “There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15:10)
After repentance, we rejoice in God’s forgiveness by praising the Lord by singing with the Christmas angels, “Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will to men.” The whole heavenly host of angels join with us in praising God in the climax of the Service of the Sacrament as you hear the pastor say, “Therefore with all the saints on earth and hosts of heaven, we praise your holy name and join their glorious song.” Then we join in singing the same song the seraphim sang as they circled God’s throne, “Holy, holy, holy Lord God of heavenly hosts; heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.”
Musically speaking, this is the
All of this comes right before our Lord distributes his body and blood to us, his completed work on the cross. Here our Lord comes to us in a way that he does not do for the angels, but they are not envious nor jealous. Instead, they rejoice and praise God for the great mercy he distributes in his Sacrament. So great is the mystery of this love that archangel, angels, cherubim and seraphim must join in praising God!
As our life comes to a close, we are comforted in the knowledge that just as the angels escorted poor Lazarus to heaven when he died, we know that upon the moment of our death, God has commissioned his angels to escort each believer to heaven and to give us a royal welcome as we enter the eternal presence of God.
As awesome as the angels are, isn't God even more awesome because he has accomplished our salvation? Not only that, but he is our almighty, everlasting, and all-knowing God who created angels to serve us. We don’t worship or pray to angels; no, God alone deserves our worship and prayers. But we can praise the Lord for angels! We praise God for all his holy angels and the ministry they perform throughout our earthly journey – baptism to worship to death and to heaven.
When God calls them to protect you, they will protect you; when God calls them to rescue you, they will rescue you; when God calls them to bring your soul to heaven, they will bring your soul to heaven. Nothing will hinder their interest or ability to do what God asks. Give praise to the Lord of hosts for the angels among us. Amen.
"Let your holy angel be with me, that the Wicked Foe may have no power over me!" Amen.