St Michael and All Angels - 29th September 2024
Usually this feast draws me towards pondering the unseen world of spiritual beings at this time of year when the darkness increases and misty days bring an air of mystery. The texts of the office speak of God’s glory and that of the angels who serve and praise God in the heavenly realms. It is a feast of golden light, of praise and awestruck wonder.
But there is another, darker aspect. These past few days I have been sitting with our first antiphon for Lauds and Vespers:
There arose war in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against Satan and his angels, and the accuser was thrown down, conquered by the blood of the Lamb.
There is war not just praise and glory in heaven. Satan and his angels have been accusing God’s people before God and must be dealt with. There is of course truth in Satan’s accusations, none of us is righteous before God, we all fall short, but God is merciful as well as righteous. Satan, the accuser, only knows the demands of the righteous God and has no concept of God’s mercy. He would block our way into the merciful love of God and so must be overcome, thrown out of heaven. It is the blood of the Lamb, Jesus on the Cross, who conquers and overthrows the power of Satan.
So what is Michael up to? I turned to G.B. Caird’s commentary seeking insight to unpack this. He says ‘When the victory is being won in heaven, Christ is on earth on the Cross. Because he is part of the earthly reality, he cannot at the same time be part of the heavenly symbolism… Michael’s victory is simply the heavenly and symbolic counterpart of the earthly reality of the Cross.’ We modern people are not easily at home with seeing life in terms of heavenly symbolism reflecting earthly reality but the drama of the Revelation to John paints a powerful picture of the way that the violence and trauma of our earthly lives is reflected in the spiritual realm.
This antiphon is actually a précis of Revelation 12 v 7-12 and skips over an important point – it says in verse 10-11 that ‘the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down… they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.’ For John these must have been the early Christian martyrs who followed the call of Jesus to deny themselves and take up their cross, embracing death rather than turning aside from their faith in him.
The victory has been won by Jesus Christ but this text points to the work that is still to be done to overcome evil on earth. Not just the martyrs but every Christian has a part to play in the working out of Christ’s victory. Jesus won the victory by going peaceably to his death, accepting the worst that life could throw at him without fighting back. Likewise we are called to accept the suffering that life brings and to embrace it with humility and patience. In our humble acceptance we create a dwelling place for the Lord in our own hearts and so bring more of the kingdom to birth. Bit by bit the power of evil is undone. I imagine this is what Paul is pointing to in his letter to the Colossians when he writes ‘ I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church’ [Col 1 v 24].
Both Paul and John in these early years after Jesus’ death were having to wrestle with the fact that the victory over Satan was clearly not being manifested in events on earth. It is still the case today. John writes of Satan being ‘thrown down’, but to where is he thrown? Down on to earth where he then goes on to create mayhem. The ultimate victory has been won but the battle continues on earth in the lives of each one of us.
The sense of the presence of the risen Christ and the indwelling Spirit in the experience of Christians down the centuries is what gives us the certainty that this victory is indeed won, however dire the circumstances in which we find ourselves. This is easy to say when we live such comfortable lives but I pray that we might use that privilege to enable us to do the hard work of overcoming evil in our own hearts. As we dethrone our selfishness and our desire for safety and security, as we embrace the risk of living selflessly, we do that work for others too. We make it easier for others also to grow into the life of the Kingdom of God and for the ultimate victory of love to become manifest.
With the angels we can enter in to the loving presence of God and sing:
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing.
[Rev 5 v 12, Second Antiphon for St Michael and All Angels Lauds and Vespers]
Amen.
Mother Anne - 29th September 2024