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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
“Hell is breaking loose”: that is how United‑Nations Secretary‑General António Guterres this past Wednesday described for the U-N Security Council the increasing violence between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon (UN News). Guterres applied the expression “Hell is breaking loose” to southern Lebanon, but, in some ways, Guterres also could have applied the expression to the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza or to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “Hell is breaking loose”: we might apply the expression to what is going on in our country, in our schools, in our families, or in our own lives. The expression “Hell is breaking loose” reportedly first appeared in English poet John Milton’s seventeenth-century epic poem Paradise Lost, in a fictional conversation between the arch-angel Gabriel and Satan (Milton line 917). Not fictional is today’s Epistle Reading’s account of the arch-angel Michael, whom we also heard about in today’s Old Testament Reading (Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3), and his angels’ fighting against Satan and his angels. Considering primarily today’s Epistle Reading, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, you can realize that “St. Michael and his angels fight for you”.
A little more than two months ago our Midweek Bible Study considered today’s Epistle Reading, and those participating in that Study might remember some of the things that we discussed. For example, St. John’s vision of Satan and his angels’ being cast down to earth comes during what might be considered a “break” between the second and third of Revelation’s three sevenfold‑visions that each span the time between Jesus Christ’s first and final comings. During this “break” between visions, God reveals to St. John the over‑arching cosmic events that explain the earthly events God is revealing to St. John. And, the casting-down of Satan and his angels described in today’s Epistle Reading apparently is distinct from and does not rule out any other castings‑down of Satan and his angels, either what we might consider before this one or after this one, recognizing that, while God both created time and works with us in time, God Himself might be said to be outside of time.
This Epistle Reading is appointed for today, the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. We might say more‑specifically all good angels, for we certainly do not celebrate the evil angels. Of course, all angels were created good, some time during the six literal 24‑hour days of creation, after which creation everything that was created was described as “very good” (Genesis 2:31). But, some time after that, Satan and his angels became evil, and Satan, that ancient serpent, as today’s Epistle Reading also calls him, is next seen trying to raise doubts about God’s Word and otherwise tempting the first man and woman to sin (Genesis 3:1-24). He succeeded with them, and so he succeeds with us. Satan and his angels can and sometimes do bodily possess some people, but we all experience his and their spiritually possessing us. As we believe, teach, and confess in the Small Catechism, the devil, the world, and our sinful nature do not want us to hallow God’s Name or to let His kingdom come, but they try to deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice (Small Catechism III:11, 18). And, too often, they succeed! We are rightly accused of sinning! As Jesus Himself teaches elsewhere, in the end, we deserve to depart into the eternal punishment of the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41, 46), unless we follow the Holy Spirit’s leading and enabling us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. God’s warning of judgment serves His purpose of having compassion, impressing on us the need to repent. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, whatever our sin might be. And, as Jesus says elsewhere, there is much joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10).
Our members Jeromy and Tina McMurray recently had a father and son visit them from Holland; the son apparently is quite a body‑builder (the proud father showed me a picture of his son competing). Maybe you have seen others lifting weights at a gym, some wanting to be stronger than others, if not the strongest in the world. Was that St. Michael and his angels’ secret in today’s Epistle Reading, that they were stronger than Satan and his angels? No! The deciding factor in the war that St. Michael and his angels waged against Satan and his angels was not pumping iron but, we might say, “pumping” blood, namely, the Son of God Jesus Christ’s “pumping out” His blood on the cross, as payment for your sins, my sins, and the sins of the whole world. (Gieschen, CPR 34:4, p.5.) Against that power of Jesus, Satan and his angels, today’s Epistle Reading says, were not strong enough, or, as the English Standard Version that we heard read put it, they were defeated. They were cast down to the earth, no longer able to accuse us, rightly or wrongly, day and night before our God. In Christ, we are able to conquer the devil and his angels by the blood of the Lamb once slain, Who, now resurrected, stands again (for example, Revelation 5:6). He is the salvation and the power and the Kingdom of our God, Who came in human flesh in order to die for us, in our place, as our substitute. The Son of God appeared, Holy Scripture says, in order to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8; confer John 12:31). As we believe, teach, and confess in the Small Catechism, that Son of God has redeemed us lost and condemned people, purchased and won us from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death (Small Catechism II:4; confer 1 Peter 1:18).
We who repent, receive the benefits of that redemption through the reading and preaching of God’s Word, through that Word combined with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine in the Holy Supper. Especially in the Holy Supper, as we receive bread that is the very Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the very Blood of Christ shed for us, we receive forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. As we receive that forgiveness, we laud and magnify God’s glorious Name, joining with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, including all those who have gone before us in the faith and who come after us in the faith, who are also united with us by the sacramental Body of Christ in the Body of Christ that is the Church.
As we prayed, the Collect of the Day for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels referred to God’s ordaining and constituting the service of angels and men in a wonderful order. Truly, the arch‑angels Gabriel and Michael and, as is usually thought, Raphael and Uriel, and all the other angels gladly minister to us heirs of salvation. They are stronger than we are, pumping iron or not, and they help and defend us here on earth. God having been willing, the Holy Spirit has led you to realize that “St. Michael and his angels fight for you”. Yet, as much as we thank God for and rejoice over St. Michael and all angels, we especially rejoice, as Jesus described in today’s Gospel Reading (Luke 10:17-20), that our names are written in heaven. Our names are written in heaven not because of anything that we have done but because of God’s great love, mercy, and grace in His Son Jesus Christ! So, we rejoice even when all hell seems to have broken loose: in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Ukraine, in our country, in our schools, in our families, and in our own lives.
You know, an interesting thing about that expression’s first appearance in Paradise Lost is that Milton has Gabriel ask Satan why Satan came to Paradise alone and not with all hell broken loose. We might answer that, in a sense, all hell cannot break loose! Satan and his angels remain under God’s sovereign control, operating in the limits that God alone sets. Yes, as today’s Epistle Reading describes, there is woe to the earth and sea, for the devil and his angels have come to us in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short. Even if he is given greater rein for a little while (Revelation 20:3), then his time is even shorter! He and his angels ultimately will be cast into the lake of fire and sulfur and tormented day and night forever and ever (Revelation 20:10). So, also, is our time short! Whatever we are suffering eventually will come to an end—a termination and a goal! Jesus says, “Surely I am coming soon”, and we say, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +