The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels
September 29, 2013 - Pastor Adam Moline
Daniel
10:10-14, 12:1-3 Revelation 12:7-12 Luke
10:17-20
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today is from the Gospel lesson just read, especially these
words, “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ. Today is the feast of St. Michael and all angels. It’s the day we talk
about the ongoing spiritual warfare that surrounds us in this world. St. Michael and all the good angels of God
are fighting, tooth and nail against Satan and his smaller weaker group of
fallen angels. And you and I are the
ones that they are fighting over. They
are fighting over where you get to spend your eternity.
It’s a war that
began long ago. It started in the Garden
of Eden, with those first words spoken by the fallen Satan to Eve, “Did God
really say?” Did God really say you’ll die?
Did he really say you shouldn’t eat?
Satan convinced Eve that God was a liar, and that God did not care if
you believed His word or not. So Adam
and Eve ate, and sin entered our world and realm. And Satan succeeded in his first goal,
bringing mankind into his war against God – on the side of Satan and sin.
And really, that’s
the same lie that Satan still uses against us today. Did God really say that was a sin? Did he really say don’t do this or don’t do
that? Did God really say you should go
to church every week! Did God really say we need to care for our
old delapitaded family members? Did God
say all life has value, and that we should live chaste lives. And so Satan’s battle against God continues
even to this day.
Satan struck next
as well, convincing the son of Adam and Eve that he was better than his
brother, sowing the seeds of discord within their family. And so the older son became jealous of his
brother. Jealous to the point of arguing
and fighting. Jealous to the point that
murder was an option to resolve the situation, and so it was that Cain killed
Abel, and even lied about it to God.
And it’s not that
different for us again, is it? The
spiritual battle over heaven invades our families as well. Our families are full of strife, where
mothers and sons won’t talk to each other.
Where brother and sister fight every time their together. And worst of all, where children are
abandoned and not cared for by their parents, perhaps even to the point where
it is considered better to kill a child before their born than to love and care
for them.
The scheming Satan
continued, both in history and in our own lives. He taught us to steal, he taught us to live
sexually immoral lives, he taught us covet and desire, he taught us sin in and
out – not just one or two of us. No, all
of us sin, every day, because of the work of Satan in our lives. Satan has always been a liar and deceiver,
and he continues working on us even to this day. And it’s our faults, for listening every day
to that whisper in our ear, “Did God really say?”
But in a war there
are two sides, and fighting against Satan, even right now right here, is a
whole troop of good holy angels fighting to keep us away from sin, fighting to
defeat Satan and his lies. And this
group is led by St. Michael the arch angel.
And we hear about that battle in all three of our readings for
today.
Daniel writes, “At
that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your
people.” And St. John in Revelation
says, “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting
against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back.” And the speak of the ongoing war between good
and evil. Michael fights against
Satan. He works to undermine everything
that Satan does? How? With God’s Holy Word, proclaimed in it’s
truth and purity. Through the sacraments
received for forgiveness of sins, every single one of them, forgiven by water
and word, and blood drank and body eaten.
These things are the weapon’s St. Michael the archangel uses against
weak and wimpy little Satan.
And in our texts
we hear what the end of the war will look like.
Good wins. Satan loses. Hear the words of Jesus in our Gospel lesson,
“I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.”
And St. John writes, that Satan “was defeated, and there was no longer
any place for (him or his angels) in heaven.9 And the
great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the
devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the
earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”
Satan loses the
war, even with all his battle victories, because of the decisive battle. Michael wins the war, not by his own mighty
valor, or by slaying Satan himself, but rather because of his secret
weapon. Michael has God on his side,
specifically the Son of God, who entered our world of sin, and vacuumed up
every bit of guilt and shame upon his own shoulders and bore it to the
cross. It is as Jesus dies that Satan
loses. It is by the death of the Son of
God, that that old deceiver is himself destroyed. And you are freed from all the consequences
of sin by the victory of Jesus.
The battles
continue right now, all around us angels, both fallen and good fight over you
and your soul. But dear friends, the war
is over, even as the battles wage on.
Jesus has won, and you will at the last inherit heaven and peace when
your Lord returns and finally throws Satan into his eternal punishment. Glory be to God, and his blessed servants and
angels, like Michael, who fight to keep you in God’s care forever more. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
