Psalm 8:5

(seated)

Today is the festival of St. Michael and all Angels. All three of our texts speak about angels in one form or another. So rather than a sermon on one specific text, our sermon is a topical sermon today on the topic of angels.

Angels and more angels. They are all over the Bible. The more you look through the Bible, the more they appear. Judges alone mentions angels almost twenty times. Read the Psalms sometime and just look for angels. You will find them in more psalms than you can imagine. Psalms, that great hymnal and prayer book of God's people, notes that we are created a little lower than the angels (Ps 8:5). Psalm 91 states the angels protect us from harm (v 11). Psalm 103 tells us they do God's bidding (v 20). They act as warriors and defeat our enemies according to Ps 35:5–6 and are encouraged to sing God's praises in Ps 148:2. Psalm 78 notes that manna is their food (vv 24–25).

They are everywhere in the Bible, and yet, Luther's Small Catechism only mentions them twice. Why? Is it because we don't know how they came into being? In the Bible they appear out of nowhere and then disappear. And you have noticed, that when reading the Bible, we can remember what happened in the story, but easily forget the angel, like in the story of the destruction of Jericho. We all recall the march around the city, once daily for six days and then seven times on the seventh day. We recall the trumpets' blast, Joshua's command, and the walls' that came tumbling down, but we forget the angel who appeared to Joshua the night before, the captain of the Lord's army. (Josh 5:13–14).

Angels are there, and then they disappear in our imagination, much like the angels who are depicted in the clear glass windows at the Cathedral of St. Michael and the Dragon in Coventry, England. Those angels are etched in tiers in the windows on the far side of the cathedral. The windows are transparent. You can see through them, and they let light in, as if the angels aren't even there.

Or, you may remember a time when we had a different kind of angel on the mind as you sang, "Let me kiss one tonight," along with Elvis. Meeting an "angel," searching and finding the "angel" that you want to live with for life, is one of the best gifts God gives; it's a heavenly experience. They often appear the way "real" angels do—when we least expect them. Most of us sooner or later meet an earthly "angel." But we have not yet met one like the ones we read about in the Bible.

Actually, some today dismiss angels altogether. Some are proud that they can live and move and trust solely in what they see and hear and touch. Some are a convinced realists, firmly grounded here on earth and willing and happy to live by their senses. These people are empiricists, living their lives entirely on what they can see and hear and touch and feel. They want to be responsible for their own life and their own problems. They think belief in angels, at least the biblical kind, is for children who need them to get through a scary, stormy night, or are innocent enough to believe in them.

Then perhaps one gets involved in an automobile accident. You might have thought to yourself, "If the car that piled into mine had been going just ten miles faster, all my empirical realism would have ended instantly. If the telephone pole had stood just one foot in the other direction, I wouldn't be here right now. In such cases, all our realism would have been knocked out of us in a flash, and we would have been introduced to another world. Were these coincidences, or was there a warrior angel who protected us, a being not limited to space and time as we are? Was there an angel who softened the blow of steel against steel and of steel against a telephone pole? After each accident, each near-death experience, this realist has to confront the fact that perhaps there is more to life than mere chance.

Martin Luther says that these disasters or near disasters are God's strange work to lead us to God's proper work, his work of grace. God uses his Law. God lets us know there is another dimension to life than what we see, hear, smell, and taste. You have been touched by a warrior angel's protection. Angels work on behalf of our compassionate God to protect us from harm.

Angels appear at almost every major event in the Bible. They were there when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden; they are there when the promise of a son came to Abraham; one was there with Abraham and Isaac; one announced Jesus' birth and many sang about it; they were there at his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.

3.

But there is another reason why we Christians should tune into angels. People all around us know about them. Because of the difficulties people have living in this world, many of them have turned to angels. A vast number of people long for something or someone who offers a better way of living than empiricism and realism. Television shows like Touched by an Angel indicate the world is yearning for something more than mere realism and material existence. Yet there is realism throughout the Bible. The Christmas story can be told realistically. Mary is pregnant but not by her husband. Herod slaughters innocent children.

Every successful bookstore owner acknowledges this reaction to empirical realism. They know books on angels sell well. Once I tested this theory by walking into a nearby Barnes and Noble and asking the clerk, "Where is your angel section?" Pointing, he replied, "It's there at the far end of the store under inspiration and religion." I discovered four full shelves of books on angels. I picked up one called, How to Talk with Your Angel. It suggests nine steps to get in touch with your angel and to develop the art of listening to your angel. The book assumes the way we get to heaven is directly related to how we deal with problems in this life. If we do a good job dealing with this life, we will pass through the tough stuff and gain heaven; if we don't, we'll have to be reincarnated and return to life to do it again. But an angel is the answer, because he or she will aid us in making our way through difficulties. So learn to talk to your angel.

We could say that this sounds like the ancient Gnostic heresy, which it does. But as Christians, We have a much better understanding of angels. We know it isn't because of the work of an angel that we gain heaven. It is through the great work of Christ's death and resurrection that sin and death are overcome. However, the world's interest in angels provides a connecting point for us to share our beliefs. But we should be clear about our angel facts:

1. Both good and bad angels are powerful. One good angel killed 185,000 soldiers in Sennacherib's army. One bad angel destroyed Job's property and took away his family. When Daniel was thrown to the lions because he refused to pray to the false gods of the king of Babylonia, angels closed the lion's mouths. It took only one angel to protect Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.

2. There are a great many angels. They surround God's throne, singing his praises as we speak.

3. Angels carry out God's bidding.

4. Angels are God's messengers and announce events of God's intervention into life, but they are not the means of saving people.

Saving us eternally took something far more powerful than an angel. It took the One from the throne of God who is above the angels to descend to us who are a little lower than the angels. When God chose to save us, He could not look above himself because there is no one greater than he. He could not look next to himself, because there is nothing his equal. He sent his archangel Gabriel to announce to lowly Mary that she would become the mother of the One sent from the throne of God. This One broke through the hard realism of this life of sound, sight, feeling, and tasting. He opened up the world of God's loving and forgiving compassion. He, the warrior Son of God, battled Satan and his angels. He declared himself victor when he descended into hell and rose again. He opened the throne of God to us.

This the angels could not do. They announced the birth to the shepherds. They sang in the heavens in joyful celebration. But to save us, to save us eternally, took the work of one stronger than an angel. An angel can guide us through danger. With them near us, we can say with the psalmist, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil" (23:4).

But even Michael, the great archangel, could not defeat the dragon and all his host unless the very Son of God died the death of a grim cross. He arose again and then descended into the depths of hell to declare himself victor over the forces of the evil one and his evil spirits. This victory could come only from the throne of God.

In this world governed by science and realism, it is good that we tune into the presence of angels. We can say, "Yes, we believe in angels." They are everywhere. There are thousands of them. But...

Our Angels Are Here to Celebrate the Victory Given to Us by the One Who Came from the Throne of God.

In him, we are baptized and called by his name. God's angels are here, there, and everywhere to protect from harm all who believe in him. But it is by the Lamb of God that we make it from this world of tears to the throne of God in heaven.

Now, I'm still a realist. When I take Communion later in this service, I will taste bread and wine as will you. I still trust my senses. But through faith, I also know that I receive the victory of God's Son over my sins at that same time. And I know that at that moment in time I will join with the angels, archangels, and all the saints of God already in heaven, singing and rejoicing that my name and yours are written in the book of heaven. Amen.