Preached at Choral Evensong on the Eve of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels and welcoming Fr Michael Walcott to the Parish of Croydon as Associate Vicar and Chaplain in the Whitgift Foundation.
+
Tonight, we begin the celebration of the
feast of St Michael and All Angels.
In the ancient custom of the Church a
celebration starts on the eve of the feast.
Tonight we celebrate Saints Michael,
Gabriel and Raphael and all the angels of God, his messengers.
To speak of angels can sound a bit weird
and whacky, even New Agey, something you might think that rational Christians
left behind years, if not centuries, ago.
Except we’re faced with the presence of
angels in the scriptures and in the liturgy of the Church, and so they can’t be
readily dismissed.
And what we see there is that the angels
are protectors and connectors: they protect us from Satan (a fallen angel) and
connect us to God.
Our first reading may have sounded
obscure but it accounts for the beleaguered king of Israel facing the rampaging
army of the king of Syria.
Nothing can save him now, until through
the prophet his servant sees something he would not otherwise have seen.
The Lord opens the servant's eyes, and
he sees that the mountain is full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding
Elisha.
Thus is revealed God's invisible,
protecting, and powerful heavenly army.
As a protector, we name the archangel
Michael, as protector against the armies of Satan.
Think of the Book of Revelation:
Now war arose in
heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon
fought back, but he was defeated…that ancient serpent, who is called the devil
and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. (Revelation 12.7,8a,9)
What a powerful protector!
And, as our second lesson, told us,
Jesus speaks of the protection of children whose angels see the Father’s face
in heaven.
These are often termed our Guardian
Angels.
They protect and connect personally:
they protect us from evil and connect us with the vision of God.
And that connecting role of angels is at
the forefront in the birth of Christ.
Think of the involvement of the angels
in the connecting of heaven and earth in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
That’s when the archangel Gabriel comes
to Mary to announce to her that she is chosen by God to be Mother of the Lord.
It’s when an angel says to shepherds, in
a glorious and luminous presence:
Fear not, for
behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. For
unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the
Lord. (Luke 2.11)
And then ‘a multitude of the heavenly
host’ - angel upon angel - fills the skies praising God and singing:
Glory to God in
the highest,
and on earth peace
among those
with
whom he is well pleased. (Luke 2.14)
It’s no accident that in the ceiling of
the quire of this church, and moving towards the sanctuary, are figures of
angels, recalling that our earthly worship connects to the heavenly worship.
In the Liturgy of the Eucharist we
praise God, and join in the worship of the heavenly Temple (cf Isaiah 6.3):
Therefore with
angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify
thy glorious name, evermore praising thee, and saying:
Holy, holy,
holy, Lord God of hosts;
Heaven and earth
is full of thy glory!
Hosanna
in the highest.
Angels connect us with the worship of
heaven, because they are heavenly bodies, not human ones.
But angels are not remote from human
beings.
Angels and human beings are all
creatures of God; they are part of the God given order of things in creation,
and they’re on our side.
As our collect for this great feast
prays:
O EVERLASTING
God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men [humans]
in a wonderful order: Mercifully grant that, as thy holy Angels alway do thee
service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on
earth.
Still, the angels are distinct from us,
which is why the question, ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin’? is
a pointless one (excuse the pun!).
One person can’t dance on the head of a
pin, but given what we know of the multitude of the angelic host, they probably
can, because they are not embodied as we are.
And their strongest message is of the
dignity of the human body - as worthy of protection from evil and connection
with God - that is most powerful, and why they are so associated with God
taking human flesh in Jesus Christ.
On this feast we are delighted tonight
to welcome a priest.
And his name is auspicious: Michael
Angelo Walcott.
A priest has, in a sense, to be angelic –
not to be prissy and remote, or off the set of a nativity play - but as a
protector and connector: someone who presents God to his people, and his people
to God.
Angels are powerful indeed, and all too
often churches want a priest with the combined talents of the archangels; but
priests are also human beings.
God gave us Fr Michael, not St
Michael!
God works through our humanity to be the
face of his Son today: that is how we can be ‘angelic’.
Fr Michael mustn’t be laden with over
expectation, but to use his priesthood to place God before God’s holy people,
and God’s holy people before the Holy God, in the presence of angels and
archangels and all the company of heaven.
Fr Michael, may the Heavenly Father,
send His angels to watch over you and your loved ones. Guard you from all harm,
danger, and evil, and cover you with Your divine protection, through Jesus
Christ, our Lord. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment