St. Michael and All Angels 2024

(John 1:47 to end, Revelation 12: 7-12)

Today is the feast of St Michael and All Angels, Michaelmas. We live in a world of

angels. Or perhaps I should say a world fascinated by the possibility of angels. ‘I

believe in angels’, sang Abba; ‘I’m loving angels instead’, sang Robbie Williams.

Angels are popular subjects in the visual arts too. In the Tate Gallery you can’t fail to

be moved by the power of Sir Jacob Epstein’s sculpture ‘Jacob and the Angel’. One

of the most painted scenes in the history of art features an angel, Gabriel, as he

announces to Mary that she will bear a son. So we sing about angels, we draw, paint

and sculpt angels, we make films about angels – I’m sure many of you know the

1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life where a guardian angel, Clarence, helps a

despairing businessman appreciate the value his life has for others. Our churches

are decorated with carved and sculpted angels; we sing of angel voices, herald

angels, and holy angels bright in our hymns; they dazzle us in myriad colours in

stained glass. But who are these mysterious heavenly creatures?

The word ‘angel’ comes to us from the Greek word ‘angelos’ which is a translation of

the Hebrew ‘malak’. Both terms can be translated ‘messenger’, which is useful in

understanding some, of the functions angels perform in the Bible. There isn’t enough

time to look at all the references to angels in Scripture, but I think we can broadly

categorise the biblical tradition about angels as falling into three areas: angels as

manifestations of God’s presence on earth, angels as God’s companions in heaven,

and angels as distinct, occasionally named, beings with specific roles or functions to

perform.

So firstly, angels as God’s presence. In Genesis 18 we read ‘The Lord appeared to

Abraham by the oaks of Mamre.’ Abraham in fact encounters three men, to whom he

offers hospitality. The text slips easily between identifying the strangers as men, the

Lord, or angels. Similarly, Jacob encounters a man by night, they wrestle till

daybreak, the man blesses Jacob, and Jacob recognises that he has wrestled with

God. Though Epstein called his sculpture of this encounter ‘Jacob and the angel’, the

text is ambiguous. Similarly in Exodus 3 as Moses is tending the flocks, a flame

appears in a bush, identified as ‘the Angel of the Lord’. Is the angel distinct from

God, or God’s own being? This same Angel of the Lord appears in the road in the

book of Numbers to block the progress of Balaam’s donkey. In Judges the Angel of

the Lord appears to Gideon, but it is the Lord himself who speaks with him.

Secondly, we encounter angels as heavenly beings. Just as a human king rules over

a court, so God has a heavenly court of angels. ‘God has taken his place in the

divine council’ begins Psalm 82. In Isaiah chapter 6 the prophet sees a vision of God

on his throne, attended by the six-winged seraphim. In Ezekiel, the prophet sees

God carried on a chariot accompanied by four living creatures. These also make a

reappearance in Revelation, with the faces of a lion, ox, eagle and human being. In

Daniel, a court of heavenly beings accompany God as the books of judgment are

opened. At the beginning of the book of Job, God consults the heavenly court, one of

whom is named as ‘the Satan’ and sent to earth to test Job’s piety. And when the

Lord’s angel descends with news of the Messiah’s birth to the shepherds of

Bethlehem, the heavenly host are again present, singing ‘Gloria in Excelsis’.

So angels symbolise the presence and voice of God on earth. Angels, named as the

heavenly host, living creatures, or a divine court, attend and worship God in

heaven. But what of the angels we know best of all, those with names.

There is archangel Michael, the commander of the heavenly armies in the book of

Revelation, after whom our festival today is named; Raphael, the healing angel who

accompanies Tobias on his travels; and most celebrated of all, Gabriel, the heavenly

messenger who comes to Daniel at the time of the evening sacrifice, and to Mary in

Luke’s gospel with news of Jesus’ conception. These named angels appear only

in the latest book of the Hebrew Bible, Daniel, in the Apocrypha, and in the New

Testament. They represent a move towards a developed hierarchy of heavenly

angels, distinct from God but sharing in his work. But what might angels teach us

about the nature of God?

Firstly, God is not alone is heaven. The same God who created the Earth and dwelt

among us in the person of Jesus also created the heavens, and dwells there in the

company of the heavenly host. Secondly, God wants to communicate with us.

Whatever we think about the depictions of angels in the Bible and elsewhere, they

exist to enable human beings and God to relate: Gabriel brings a message of good

news; Raphael guides a young man to heal his father; Michael leads the forces of

good to defeat evil.

In the vastness of the Universe, we are very tiny indeed and angels allow us to

glimpse that God’s creation and purposes are far beyond what we can ever know or

grasp. Yet, that the angels care for human beings, and reveal God’s purposes to us,

gives us hope that despite the tininess and brevity of our existence, God sends

ministers to protect and guide us. I believe in angels because I believe that good can

defeat evil, that we are loved and protected as children of God, and that love takes

us beyond the gates of death and human frailty into the presence of God where we

too, with the angels, will bow down in worship of our creator and redeemer. Amen