Message From the Pulpit
May 2003
Preached at All Saints
Church,
Dear
Members and friends of All Saints Parish,
The front cover of our bulletin
for the Feast Day of St. Michael and All Angels on September 29, 2002, was a
reproduction of a woodcut by Albrecht Durer, the foremost artist of the
Reformation. The woodcut shows the
archangel Michael thrusting a spear into the serpent Satan. The text is from the 12th Chapter
of the Book of Revelation:
“There
was a war in heaven: Michael and his
angels fought against the dragon…And the great
Dragon
was cast our, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan…”
Michael and Gabreil are
the two archangels mentioned in the Old and New Testaments, and Raphael and
Uriel are archangels mentioned in the Apocrypha. As we see, there are both angels and
archangels over them. (Not even in
heaven is there equality much less on earth!)
You will notice also, that the names of all the archangels end in the
letters el. These are the first letters
in the Hebrew word Elohim, which we translate as Lord, one of the Names of
God. The name Michael means “Who is
like God.” The name Gabriel
means “The strength of God.” And Raphael
means “The healing of God.” The
same principle holds true with human names in the Old Testament. Samuel means “Asked of God”. The same principle holds true with the word
angel. An angel is a “messenger
of God”. These messengers may be
either the holy angels or human messengers-evangelist. The root word of evangelist is angel.
Angels are the messengers of God, and
in our lessons today the angels bring two messages to us. The first message is that the warfare with
evil is much greater than we generally think; and the second message is that
the “worship of Almighty God is more glorious than we can imagine.
First, concerning the
warfare with evil, the message of the angels is that it is a cosmic struggle
involving all of creation. St Michael
and the angels under his command have fought against Satan and his devils, and
Satan has been defeated and cast out of heaven.
Our Lord confirmed this, early in His ministry. He sent out seventy disciples, giving them
power over evil spirits; and when the disciples returned and told them of their
great success, our Lord responded: “I
behold Satan as lightning fall from heaven.”
(St Luke 10:18) The Revelation of
St. John continues. As a consequence of
Satan’s expulsion from heaven: “Woe to
the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea!
For the devil is come down unto you, having greath wrath, because he
knowest that he hath but a short time.”
As St. Paul says in his Letter to the
Christians in Ephesus: “We are up
against the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents
from the very headquarters ofevil.”
(Eph. 6:12 Phillips Translation)
As C.S. Lewis describes our situation:”We live in enemy-occupied
territory!” Our situation is a dangerous
one. And as every military commander
knows, the worst mistake we can make is to understimate the enemy. In this regard, the message of the angels is
clear: The warfare with evil is a cosmic
battle.
The second part of the
message of the angels is that in the midst of our battle with evil, our worship
of Almighty God is more glorious than we can imagine. The Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard,
remarked that most of us have the wrong idea of Christian worship. In the usual view, he says, we see the
congregation as the audience, and the minister and lay readers and organist and
choir as the performers, and the Holy Spirit as the prompter! That, Kierkegaard says, is exactly
backward. One hundred eighty degrees off
course! In Christian worship, he says,
he says, Almighty God – Father, Son and Holy Ghost – God is Himself the
audience. You, in the congregation, are
the performers. God wants to hear your
voices. He wants to hear your
praise; He wants to hear your
petitions. You are the performers. And the clergy and lay readers are the
prompters! Earlier in this service, a
lay reader said, “Praise ye the Lord.”
And you responded, “The Lord’s Name be praised, “and then proceeded to
sing the “Venite”. You are the
performers; we are the prompters.
Moveover, this service
of worship in which you are performers is part of a whole act of Christian
worship that is going on this day throughout the whole world. From the rising of the sun until the going
down thereof, in every country of the world, in every language. God’s Name is being praised. We are part of a world wide act of Christian
worship. And our worship today extends
beyond the limits of this world into eternity.
St. John, in his vision on the Island of Patmos, beheld the worship in
heaven. And in our worship here this
morning we join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in the
hymn that St. John heard being sung in heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious
Name; evermore praising thee, and saying “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts.”
The company of heaven. Just this past week someone remarked, all on
his own, “I sure do miss Dick Harmon.”
Hardly a week goes by in this parish that one of these dear members is
not remembered and mentioned here. And
the good news of St. John’s vision is that in our worship, we are joined with
them, with all those who we believe are this day upon a farther shore and in a
brighter light. In our worship we join
with them. They do not join with us, we
join with them in their praise before the throne of God. “Holy, Holy, Holy.” We are not alone; in our worship, we share
with them in eternity.
The message of the angels
is that in the midst of our warfare we share in worship that is beyond anything
we can imagine. We worship with angels
and archangels and all the company of heaven. Our worship comes to a climax in The Gloria in
Excelsis! In the Prayer of Consecration,
Christ has offered Himself to us, and we have offered ourselves to Him. “And here we offer and present unto thee,
Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living
sacrifice unto thee.”
In the Gloria in Excelsis, we join with
the angels, who sang on that first Christmas Eve, “Glory be to God on high, and
on earth, peace, goodwill towards men.”
Remember, since angels are eternal, we are singing with the very same
angels who sang to the shepherds that night.
St. Bernard of Clairvaus, speaking of angels, compares us humans to “earthworms”. We earthworms join with the very angels who sang
that Night. In our worship, we share
with them in eternity. In eternity there
is neither past nor future, only the present; and in that eternal presence. We stand as close to the angels as the
shepherds did that Night. “Glory be to
God on high.”
As we sing in one of our hyms: “Angels, help us to adore Him; ye behold Him
face to face.”
“Grace
be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Yours in our Lord,
Hugh Hall