Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
September 30, 2024
St. Michael and All Angels
Reading: Revelation 12:7-12
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 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.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming,
‘Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Messiah,*
for the accuser of our comrades* has been thrown down,
who accuses them day and night before our God.
But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony,
for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.
Rejoice then, you heavens
and those who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
for the devil has come down to you
with great wrath,
because he knows that his time is short!
Meditation by Jeremy O’Neill
Happy Michaelmas! Though the feast of St. Michael and All Angels has declined in popularity in most churches since the 19th Century, we can take this celebration as a call to express our appreciation for Geese (traditionally eaten as part of a Michaelmas meal, but also serving as a symbol of the day itself) as well as an opportunity to reflect on angels.
Though angels appear throughout the Bible and are present in one of the most dramatic parts of our Eucharistic liturgy, I find it fascinating how visual the descriptions of angelic encounters are, coupled with how varied the reports on the angels’ physical characteristics are. When most of us think of angels, we imagine a flowing, graceful, beautiful human with wings and a glowing complexion. Ezekiel gives us the a far more frightening image than this one: “Their entire bodies, including their backs, hands, and wings, were full of eyes all around, as were their four wheels.” Isaiah tells us about famous six-winged creatures: “Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.”
I think our inability to come to a uniform and conclusive description of what an angel looks like can tell us about holiness. Angels interrupt and disrupt us. Angels, representations of the heavenly divine in our midst, appear out of nowhere. Just as we have unexpected encounters we later might attribute to the divine, or times when we feel God’s presence closer than normal, holiness often shows up for us in unexpected places. It is our job to choose to see it.
Yesterday in Church School Bible Trivia, we talked about the story of Balaam and the Donkey. A little known story found in the Book of Numbers, the donkey is able to see the angel in their midst, but a stubborn Balaam is not. Only when the donkey is given the power to speak does Balaam see the angel.
There are plenty of moments like this where the divine is right in front of us and we cannot see it. May we have the wisdom and the humility to look for the divine in expected forms and unexpected places, and celebrate it when we see it.
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