28 September 2008
St. Athanasius Lutheran Church
St. Michael and All
Angels Vienna, VA
“Great
Angels, A Greater Saviour”
Text:
Luke 10:17-20 (Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3; Revelation 12:7-12)
Grace, mercy, and peace
to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Do not rejoice in this,
that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in
heaven.
Today, Logan’s name was
written in heaven. Our Lord Jesus once again kept His promise to come through
the water and Word of Holy Baptism, and made another child His own; another
sinner into a saint. The unholy spirit with which Logan was born has
been expelled, and the Holy Spirit has entered in. Logan is now a child of God,
a brother in Christ, a man of faith. And so we rejoice. And the angels of God
are rejoicing with us.
Yes, the angels.
They’re here. They’re always here, for our Lord is here. And, the Scriptures
tell us, they are always rejoicing in
our Lord and when His forgiveness is given. For what pleases God, pleases
them. . . . But they are not the only angels that are
here. There are others here who are not rejoicing. Those angels whose
delight is not in God and His forgiveness, but in themselves, and in their work
to destroy all that our good and gracious Lord has created. Yes, they are here
too, Satan and his minions, and today they have a new enemy, a new foe to
attack: little Logan. For while Jesus saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,
that just means what the apostle John told us in the book of Revelation - that
the war in heaven has now come down to earth.
If only we could see the danger that surrounds us everyday.
Satan has us convinced these days that the world we see is the true reality,
and that the world that is unseen is the stuff of fantasy and wishful thinking
- but as usual with satan, isn’t in fact the very opposite true? The current
financial crisis has burst the balloon of those who have built for themselves a
visible fantasy of wealth and success here, which has proved to be no reality
at all! And similar fantasies of good health, long life, houses with white
picket fences and 2.5 children, have proven equally elusive reality for many.
Yet still we cling to these things. . .
. But
it is the unseen that is the true reality. For what we now see will not
last forever; what is unseen will - our God and Father, our Saviour Jesus
Christ, the Holy Spirit, and His kingdom which will have no end. Satan has
deceived us in our perception of reality, that we cling to what will not last,
so that he can take away from us what will.
If only we could see the danger that surrounds us everyday.
For if satan is so brash and bold as to make war in heaven, how much more here.
Against us who are so weak, and easy to tempt, and easy to seduce into false belief, despair, and other great shame
and vice. (Small Catechism, Explanation to the Sixth
Petition)
Just consider how
easily we have been seduced into wrong thinking about angels. A look in any
store or internet search will reveal chubby-cheeked cherubs and charming,
delicate-looking feminine forms - friendly, harmless angels that don’t really
do much except cause people to fall in love with each other or whisper into our
ears secrets that a mean God didn’t want us to know. . . .
But the Scriptures paint quite a different portrait of angels. Far from
child-like or feminine, they are more like the fearsome warrior on the cover of
the bulletin today. They are armies of combat veterans, protectors sent by our
loving Father, to interfere with the plans and assaults of the enemy. Since we
cannot see the danger, perhaps we think it not real, and that we don’t need the
angels of God to defend us. Thankfully our heavenly Father sees and knows, and
sends His angels to serve.
So given the danger that surrounds us everyday,
how could we put little Logan into such a difficult and precarious situation?
How could we give him such a mighty and lifelong enemy, and rejoice in doing so? Well, we do, and we
can, because although the battle rages on, the war has been won. Because the
gifts of God are greater than the schemes of the enemy. Because the great
dragon that was thrown down to the earth, was defeated by a baby boy who at one
time was the same age as Logan and nursed at His mother’s breast. A baby boy
wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. A baby boy the news of whose
birth the angels announced and celebrated. A baby boy who was not only a baby
boy, like Logan, born in the natural way, but the Son of God, conceived by the
Holy Spirit, and born without sin. A baby boy who is the King of angels, come
to do what no angel could do. For while Michael and his angels tossed the old,
evil foe down from heaven, it was a baby boy named Jesus who defeated him once
and for all. Only Jesus could save us from our sins and rescue us from the
clutches of satan.
And so while Jesus saw
Satan fall like lightning from heaven, it was here on earth where Jesus
looked him in the eye and defeated him once and for all. For it was here on
earth where the greater victory took
place, through the death and resurrection of Jesus. For by the cross, the sins
which satan uses to accuse us were taken away and atoned for by Jesus. By the
cross, Jesus entered death in order to defeat death. And then rising from the
dead, and descending into hell and crashing its gates, Jesus stripped satan of
all his power. Sin, death, and hell have all been defeated by Him, and so there
is nothing left for us to fear. Satan is a dragon whose teeth have been removed
and whose fire-breathing breath has been silenced - by (as St. John told us)
the blood of the Lamb of God. By the blood of Jesus.
That is the blood that washed little
Logan clean of his sin today in Holy Baptism. Not just water, but the blood of
Jesus and the Word of His promise did that, and gave Logan the new life of
faith.
That is the blood we will receive again
today in Holy Communion to forgive our sins and strengthen our faith. Not just
bread and wine, but the body and blood of Jesus and the Word of His promise do
that, and give each of us the life and resurrection we continually need.
That is the blood which still overthrows
the dragon and looses his grip on us when we are given the words of absolution.
Not just wishful words, but the blood of Jesus and the Word of His promise give
those words power, and give us the forgiveness we so desperately need.
And that is the blood
with which our names are written in the book of life in heaven. So that even
though we live in the midst of a war - some of which perhaps we see, but most
of which we cannot see - we are safe. No matter how old you are or young you
are. Whether you are a Christian of great faith, or of weak faith. For the
power is not yours, but Christ’s. And so we rejoice - not as those who continue
to play happy music on a sinking ship - but as those who are safe in the ark of
the church. That though the waters rage around us, they cannot sink us. Or to
use a slightly different analogy, one that was brought up in our Psalms study a
week or so ago - satan is the big, bad wolf who can huff and puff, but cannot
blow this house down.
And so today we welcome
little Logan into this house, and into this family of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
And while we have given him a mighty and lifelong enemy, he has also received an
even mightier and lifelong Saviour. A Saviour who came down to live in a little
boy’s body, so that little boy - and all of us - could rise to live in His
house. And while I do not know what the future holds for Logan, or for any of
us - I do know that neither he nor any of us will ever be alone. For the Son of
God who came to be with us is with us still, and sends His angels to guard and
protect us. And so now we join with the unseen
angels and archangels and all the
company of heaven, and rejoice in the gifts of Jesus given us here. But it
will not always be so. For the day is coming when we will finally see what we
now believe. When we whose names are written in heaven, Jesus takes to be with
Him there.
And so today we
remember and celebrate angels, but even more we celebrate with them a greater
Saviour, who has given us what no angel could - the gift of forgiveness, the
gift of everlasting life, the gift of Himself. So rejoice, children of God.
Rejoice! For your names are written in heaven.
In the Name of the
Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Now the peace of God
which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in
Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.