Sermon: St. Michael and All Angels - 2020

27 September 2020

Text: Matt 18:1-11 (Dan 10:10-14; 12:1-3, Rev 12:7-12)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Today we commemorate St. Michael the Archangel and all angels: the real angels, not the angels of the movies and the cartoons.  Real angels don’t look like little naked babies, or fair-skinned girls with wings.  Real angels are not our dead relatives.  Real angels are spiritual beings that serve God outside of our material universe.  They are fierce and mighty.

In the creed, we say that God is the “maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.”  There is an entire invisible component to the Lord’s creation.  It is invisible because it isn’t material.  It is spiritual.

But that doesn’t make the invisible any less real.  Jesus Himself mentions angels in our Gospel reading.  He tells us that we need to become like little children to be great in the kingdom of heaven.  We need to stop thinking so highly of ourselves, stop depending upon our own bodily ability and mental powers.  For none of that matters in the kingdom of heaven.  What matters is our faith. 

And faith is where children excel and where adults fail.  To have faith is to believe – especially to believe what we are told even when we are tempted to disbelieve.  A rational adult is going to struggle with the idea that a wafer of bread is Jesus.  Not so with children.  They trust what they hear, and they do not allow their reason to get in the way.  We adults think that we’re so smart, we end up outsmarting ourselves to the point of stupidity.  A childlike faith trusts God’s Word – even when that Word doesn’t make sense to us.  God’s Word says that the bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood.  God’s Word says that Holy Baptism washes away sin and “now saves you.”  God’s Word says that our Lord’s death on the cross pays the price of our sins.  God’s Word says that those who are baptized and believe have salvation, that is, eternal life.  God’s Word promises that in Christ, we will rise bodily from death.

Children will believe what they are told because they trust.  Adults, having spent time among the liars and swindlers of this fallen world learn to question and to be distrustful.  But with God’s Word, distrust only leads to unbelief, and unbelief only leads to death and hell.  And so Jesus advises us to look to children, humbling ourselves by turning and becoming like a child in our trust in God and His Word, in our trust in Jesus and the cross, and in the Holy Spirit who draws us into communion with the Most Holy Trinity.

So what do angels have to do with any of this?

Our Lord says that we must not “despise” little ones, but rather we are to receive children in the name of Jesus.  Rather than seeing children as beneath us, we need to honor them and protect them from evil.  For “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in [Him] to sin, it would be better for him” to be drowned in the sea.  For “their angels always see the face of [Jesus’] Father who is in heaven.”

God protects his “little ones” – both literal little children, and we who are by God’s grace, children of God.  He protects us by means of angels.  Between our readings, we sang a verse from Psalm 91 – a Psalm used to cast out demons, by the way (demons being evil angels who are the enemy of God and man).  In this Psalm, we hear the promise: “He shall give His angels charge over you, to guard you in all your ways.”  So yes, we really do have angels that guard us.  God uses these ministering spirits, these “watchers and holy ones,” to oversee His universe – including His beloved people.  

“For the Son of Man came to save the lost.”  

Dear friends, we were lost until Jesus came into our flesh, died our death, and rose again from the dead for our justification.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep.  He rescues us.  And He uses angels to carry out this task.  They protect us from harm in ways that we cannot see.  They guard us in times of temptation.  They restrain evil as part of the Lord’s enforcement of His will.  They also call us home when it is our time to die, bearing us to Abraham’s bosom, as we sing in the hymn.

All throughout Scripture, the angelic host serves God, and God often has them serving us.  There is a very real spiritual war between the angels and the demons, between the Holy Trinity and the impostor mutineer Satan – who wishes nothing but destruction upon God’s creation – including our destruction, here in time, and there in eternity.

But once again, dear friends, Jesus “came to save the lost.”  

St. Michael the Archangel and his angels defeated the Old Evil Foe: “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.”  The angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven praise God for our Lord’s victory on the cross, for “the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.”

Satan means “accuser.”  But because of the cross, Satan may no longer accuse us.  He has no standing in God’s court.  He has been “thrown down.”  He has been mortally wounded by the “Seed of the Woman” (our Lord Jesus Christ).  For we have conquered “by the blood of the Lamb.”  

Everywhere God the Father is, there are the angels.  For they “always see the face” of the Father, as Jesus says.  Everywhere God the Son is, there are the angels.  They sang at His birth.  They ministered to Him after His temptation by the devil.  They served Him during His torment in the Garden of Gethsemane.  And they stood at the ready at the cross, even as the Lord did not call upon their legions to rescue Him, but rather He died obedient to His Father and in love for us, because He “came to save the lost.”

Angels were in the empty tomb.  And angels serve Him in eternity, at the right hand of the Father.  Angels continue to carry out their work of administering God’s kingdom, guarding us, and overseeing creation.

And what does it mean, dear friends, that “the Son of Man came to save the lost”?  We were lost because of our sins.  We stood accused by the devil.  We were destined for “temporal and eternal punishment,” that is, death not only in this life, but in eternity to come.  But God did not allow us to fall.  “For the Son of Man came to save the lost.”  We are saved by His blood, which is applied to us in Holy Baptism, and is received by us in faith – all by God’s grace, by His mercy, by His love.  

And the prophet Daniel, as was revealed to him by an angel, tells us about this salvation’s fulfillment on the Last Day: “And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time.  But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.  And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.  And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”

Let us hear the angel who spoke to Daniel, and let us hear all of God’s Word, dear friends!  Let us hear of St. Michael’s victory, which is our Lord’s victory, and let us turn like children and believe in that victory.  Let us rejoice in the care and ministry of the angels, even as they are invisible to us for the time being.  Let us receive many children (of all ages) into the kingdom, and in so doing, let us receive Christ!  Let us join the heavenly host in praising God, “Raise the glad strain: Alleluia!” – knowing that when we die, we will be brought to the heavenly realm by the angels, even as we await the glorious resurrection, when we become once more united to our bodies, to enjoy an eternal life that not even the angels have: “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”  

Jesus send Your angel legions

When the foe would us enslave.

Hold us fast when sin assaults us;

Come, then, Lord, Your people save.

Overthrow at last the dragon;

Send him to his fiery grave.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.