https://app.dropwave.io/episode/13b6cdae-88e3-4466-ac61-59d3b8bd7896/st-michael-and-all-angels-michaelmas-ad-2025.mp3

++ JESU JUVA ++

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

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and all things visible and invisible. All that God created, He set into order. Sun, moon, and stars as signs for days and seasons and years. Birds that fly; fish that swim; animals that creep along the ground. Plants and fruit with seed. Animals and plants that reproduce according to their kind.

Day by day, the Lord creates, and it is good. He plants a garden and fills it with all that is needful for human life and flourishing. When Adam and Eve have been created and then married, God declares His creation “very good.” “Very good” means complete. “Very good” means beautiful. “Very good” means without sin. “Very good” means perfectly arranged according to God’s order. Every part of creation was exactly as God intended, and it was very good.

The “very good” creation also included the angels. Angels are not infinite and all-powerful beings; God created them. We don’t know exactly which day they were created, but from Job 38, we read that they rejoiced when God laid the foundation of the earth.

The angels are strong and mighty. Consider the strength of the angel who single-handedly rolled away the stone from Jesus’ tomb. The strength of these heavenly beings far exceeds our own. They are also great warriors. That’s what the word Sabaoth means — armies. So when we address the “Lord God of Sabaoth,” we call Him the Lord God of Armies.

We hear of examples of this in the first two readings today. Today’s Old Testament tells us of an angel who is keeping law and order in Persia. And in the reading from Revelation, we hear of Michael and his angels fighting a great war in heaven.

The angels are also holy by nature. They have no sin. They are unashamed to be in God’s divine presence. In today’s collect, we acknowledged that God has “ordained and constituted the service of angels and men in a wonderful order.” According to God’s good created order, the mighty and majestic angels were created to serve you. They rejoice to serve you.

It’s hard for us to believe things are ordered this way. Angels are strong, and we are not; angels are holy and we are sinful. But it is not strength which determines greatness. Consider Jesus at His incarnation, a tiny human in the womb of His mother Mary. He was weak. But even in such weakness, He is greater than the angels — and is their Lord and the Son of God.

The angels love what God loves. They love the order God has instituted. So they are troubled by sin. They are bothered by those who reject God’s order. They want you to remain firm in God’s Word and faith until you die.

That’s why when Jesus was born, an angel was so eager to come from heaven and announce His birth to lowly shepherds. And then the whole sky broke open as the angels chanted a song you know well: Glory be to God on high and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. The angels rejoiced in this because they were pleased to see God’s will being accomplished. Jesus had come to earth to defeat our enemies and deliver us from the power of sin. The angels rejoiced!

But not all the angels are holy. At some point in human history — after the “very good” creation was finished but before man’s fall into sin — some of the angels decided they knew better than God. Discontent with their place in the order of God’s creation, they rebelled against God’s order. We call these fallen angels ‘demons.’ The chief evil angel — called Satan or Lucifer or the devil — led the rebellion. By free choice, some of the angels rejected God’s order. Now they are confirmed in either goodness or wickedness. An angel cannot become a demon, or the other way around.

The holy angels are devoted to God and His will. The wicked angels are opposed to everything God sets into order. Full of pride, the demons set themselves in opposition to God. That means not just God’s order of angels and men, but every kind of order.

Whatever God loves, they hate. Whatever God hates, they love. God hates sin, for sin brings death. The demons love sin, for it enslaves and destroys. God loves us; the demons hate us. The devil and his angels are not creators. They cannot make anything new. All they can do is twist, corrupt, divide, and confuse what God has made good.

Whatever God unites, they seek to separate. Whatever God separates, they seek to unite. In holy marriage, the two become one flesh. The demons want to separate what God has joined together. They want to tear apart husband and wife. They promote counterfeit unions. They proclaim the freedom of indulging in the one-flesh union apart from holy marriage. They seek to separate the one-flesh union from its divinely intended fruit: children. The demons seek to overthrow the husband as the head of his wife. They want to disorder the family. They want to denigrate the high honor of fatherhood and motherhood.

In the creation, God divides and makes distinctions. He sets things into order. But the demons want to remove this order. They know that wherever God’s order is rejected, the only choice is chaos. Instead of a society that conforms to God’s order, they would rather see everyone do what is right in his own eyes. The success of satan’s work in the world is evident. Sin is publicly praised. God’s order is mocked.

Even though we see the devil’s attacks and even temporary cases of his victory in this life, he is already conquered by our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross. Jesus wins. Satan is defeated. That’s why the angels were so eager to throw Satan out of heaven. On the cross, Jesus defeated the devil. His blood, sacrificed for the sins of the whole world, He has presented in heaven.

In heaven Jesus declares: I have redeemed them. They are mine. My blood speaks for them. My victory is their victory, and the accuser has no authority to speak in heaven! Satan has no basis for accusation against you before God.

And even though he has been thrown down to earth, the way he is defeated here is the way he was defeated there: by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. It is the blood of Jesus — and the Word about that blood — that defeats the devil.