The War for Peace - Sermon for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels

Feast of St. Michael and All Angels
September 29^th, Year of Our + Lord 2024
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
The War for Peace 
Daniel 12:1-3, Revelation 12:7 - 12, Luke 10:17 - 20

Audio of the Sermon available HERE.

   Combat boots?  Web belt?  Camouflage trousers?  I’m not much for using preaching props, but last Wednesday, when I celebrated the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels with the students at Bethesda Lutheran School in Hot Springs, I actually wore these props.  I led chapel in a clerical shirt, as I would normally.  But for pants I wore my last set of woodland camouflage trousers, paired with my combat boots, from my days in the Marines.  I couldn’t quite bring myself to wear cammie trousers today, and, frankly, walking around in combat boots doesn’t work very well with my 58-year-old feet.  But I do want to get the same point across as I tried to teach the kids in Hot Springs.  And putting my old combat boots and cammies out for you to see during the sermon is helpful, I think.  Because they really don’t fit here.  Or do they? 

    We have gathered here this morning to seek the opposite of combat, no?  Peace is our goal, after all.  Every day, my go-to final greeting in emails and texts is “Peace in Christ to you.”  I’ve suggested, so far to only minor effect, that when we greet each other before the start of the service, we should do so not just with “good morning” but with a peaceful blessing, such as “The Peace of the Lord be with you!,”  Paul’s prayer of blessing for the Philippians is that “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard their hearts and minds.”  This is the “Peace” that Jesus declared to the Eleven Disciples, as He appeared to them, when they were hiding behind locked doors on Resurrection evening.  It seems the Church is all about peace, not war.   

   But then along come our readings for this morning.  From Daniel we heard, “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time.”

    And then, from Revelation, “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, ^[8] but he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. ^[9] And 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.  And so, “woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

    Finally, from Luke’s Gospel, “The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!" ^[18] And he said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ^[19] Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.” 

     Those are not very peace-filled passages.  And it’s not just these readings.  When I asked the kids in Hot Springs what angels look like, they colletively described a smiling grandmother with wings.  But throughout the Bible, in the Old and New Testaments, angels are mostly depicted as warriors, powerful fighters, who strike fear in the hearts of mankind, even when they come bearing Good News.

   So, which is it?  Is Christian faith and life about war, or peace?  Are we to fight and struggle, or are we to comfort and care and rest?

   Peace, true and lasting peace, eternal peace, these are Christ’s goal for us, and so they are also our goal.  But the Peace of God which passes all understanding was not achieved just through patient reasoning or good will.  God achieved peace through warfare.  Salvation is a battle against Satan and sin and death, a war that God both fights for us, and calls us to pick up our weapons and engage.  On this Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, we see that the heavenly hosts are also at war with the Devil, on our behalf.  Peace, eternal peace and joy, this is God’s goal for us.  But achieving that peace requires a fight.  God and His angels deliver us to safety and security through struggle.  There is a war to win our peace. 

   When I asked the students at Bethesda Lutheran School if we are supposed to fight in Church, they quickly said no.  And certainly, we should not be fighting against each other.  But if we fail to understand that there is a war on, we are misunderstanding reality, and we will not be well equipped or prepared to hold our place in the line.  Gentle and loving, kind and serene, these are all fine descriptors of Christ, and so also of the Christian.  But so are strong and fierce and brave.  All these true words about Christ and His Christians need to be understood in the light of God’s Word and His Work, so that we can both rest in His victory, and fulfill our callings as members of His army, His Church militant, still engaged in the fight, here on earth. 

   Warriors need to know their enemies, and understand their tactics.  They must also understand and be proficient with their own weapons and tactics.  And they need to constantly train, in order to be ready to fight when the time arrives.  What is true for earthly armies is even more important for God’s forces, since the stakes of our battle are not just life and death.  Rather, the stakes of the war we are engaged in are eternal life and eternal death.  Forever and ever victory, or defeat.   

   So, who is this enemy we are fighting?  Well, clearly from our readings, enemy #1 is Satan, or the Devil, the great Accuser of mankind before God.  He is that great fallen angel, a rebel against the LORD God.  Impotent against God Himself, he can only take his hatred out on us.  Because God loves us, the Devil hates us, and seeks to separate us from the LORD. 

   Knowingly or unknowingly, the unbelieving world is Satan’s big ally.  The Church’s relationship with the world is tricky.  Concern for our own souls and for the salvation of unbelievers means that we must do two things at once.  We must be vigilant against the temptations to evil that the world offers us on the devil’s behalf.  At the same time, we are called to look for opportunities to speak God’s truth in love to the world, because Christ shed His blood for the sins of all.   God desires that the wicked should turn from their ways, trust in Jesus, and be saved.  And He uses His Church, you and me, in that effort.    

    Most difficult for us in this war is the sad fact that we all have an enemy within.  We are not saved because we have conquered sin in our lives.  Indeed, God in His wisdom does not entirely remove sin from us when we are converted to Christ.  Baptism both washes us clean from our sins, and leaves us living in this world as sinners. 

    As sinners, we do not naturally nor easily understand the truth that Christ has given us in His Word.  As sinners we do not want to accept God’s Word.  This both relates to the original tempation to sin, when Satan successfully took down our first parents, and it helps us recognize the Devil’s #1 tactic, his primary weapon. 

   God’s revealed Word to the first man and woman seems to have been pretty short.  In fact, amidst all the freedom and blessing and dominion God gave Adam and his wife, there was only one limitation: Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

    “Did God really say?”  This was Satan’s opening salvo, and he succeeded in planting in the woman’s mind a seed of doubt about God’s Word.  The rest is tragic history that affects us all.  And all these millenia later, the Devil hasn’t really changed his playbook.  Instilling doubt about the truth of God’s Word is his go-to.  And God’s revealed truth is now much broader.  The Bible now covers thousands of years of history, must address so many different kinds of sin, and it also speaks of the mysteries of salvation.  Satan tries to twist all of it. 

    Wherever the Word is hard for us to grasp, or says harsh things about us, or simply tells us no, our flesh recoils.  Working with and through the world, the Devil has enjoyed a couple centuries of increasing success in making God’s people doubt His Word, and in building a disdain for the Bible in the minds and hearts of unbelievers.  This Bible hating perspective dominates in our education system and popular culture.  Sadly, many people who claim to be Christians have entirely embraced the denial of God’s Word that Satan began promoting in the Garden.  We will not be saved denying the Truth of God’s Word, for it is His means, His tool, for saving us.     

    As sinners, we have a desire to have our selfish tendencies be served.  Greed and laziness and pride threaten us all.  And of course, sexual infidelity has no place in the life of any member of the Church, which is the Bride of Christ.  But the lie of free sex without consequences sounds good to the sinner inside each one of us.  And, initially, it is a much easier choice than pursuing God’s way.  God’s way, of treating sexual relations as only rightly pursued between one man and one woman, commited to each other in marriage, is truly among the most precious and worthy to be protected parts of life.  

   Where our enemies preach that sex is free and easy and no big deal, the LORD says it is a sacred gift, through which the He desires to create more human souls to love.  Insofar as we believe and pursue the LORD’s way, we avoid much pain and heartbreak.  And, we will better understand His great love for us, because marital love, childbearing and family are among the Holy Spirit’s favorite metaphors to teach us about God’s love for His people.  So, it is no surprise that the world pushes back so ferociously against Biblical sexuality and morality.  All of us Christian soldiers are called to daily examine the sexual purity of our lives, for our own good, and for the good of the world.  Because the sexual revolution is an ever-worsening disaster for men, women and children, and makes it hard to believe the Gospel. 

   And by the way, while we are training our souls in this area, we should also vote no on Amendment G, which seeks to enshrine into our South Dakota constitution a right to abortion throughout nine-months of pregnancy.  Vote no on Amendment G.  This is an easy good work that God has prepared for you.    

   In whatever part of our life Satan seeks to destroy and enslave us, his primary weapon is the denial and twisting of God’s Word.  He mounts a combined arms attack against us by leveraging the lusts and selfishness and laziness of the world, in every arena of life. 

   So, how would we rate our battle performance?  The final victory is won, it is finished.  Now there is just the mopping up operation, our journey home, a path that still leads through enemy territory.  We will have to cross enemy lines.  Do we cross them to to tell the world the Good News of God’s testimony of forgiveness for them, revealed in the Lamb?  Or do we cross over to enjoy their sinful pleasures, without ever speaking a Word of Truth and forgiveness? 

   Are we drilling with our weapons, staying sharp in our accuracy and skill with the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God?  Or do we neglect the Word, and find ourselves defenseless before the lies of Satan?  Do we make peace with the fallen world, but find fault and fight and bicker within the Body of Believers? 

   As Christian soldiers, we must daily repent of our sinful tendency to desert ranks from the LORD, and join the enemy.    

   Good thing the archangel Michael is fighting on our side.  Good thing that, as Jesus teaches us, all of God’s children have a heavenly angel looking out for them. (Matthew 18:10)  And what weapons do the angels use?  They are described as warriors in the Bible, and they do fight many battles.  But do they really use swords and pikes, as we like to depict their battles in our artwork? 

    Well, no, not very often, anyway.  The word angel simply means messenger.  A holy angel is first and foremost a spirit sent from God who speaks His Truth.  A wicked angel, a demon, even the Devil himself, is a spirit who rebelled against God, and who always speaks lies, seeking to draw people away from God’s grace.  From time to time, we get accounts in the Bible where the angels do concrete things in the physical world.  But mostly they come and announce the Truth of God, and through their message, souls are protected. 

    Indeed, while a clearer understanding of the spirit world as the Bible describes it would be good for all of us, in the end, the weapons of the angels and the weapons of God’s people are just the same:  Victory is won by the blood of the lamb, and by the testimony, the bearing witness, to God’s great work, completed by Christ Jesus.   

    It is surely a strange victory, that time of trouble, when the dragon was conquered by the blood of the Lamb.  But we remember that Revelation is a book chock full of symbolic descriptions of spiritual realities.  The casting down of Satan, the removal of all his power to accuse sinners, truly and finally occurred when God’s Son suffered for and paid the entire debt owed by every sin of every sinful human being.  The Cross was the ultimate battle, where Jesus robbed Satan of his ammunition against us, by winning forgiveness for all our sins. 

    Now, our primary task, with the angels, collectively as church, and individually as Christians, is to repeat the testimony, the Good News trumpeted by the shed blood and innocent death of Jesus: Satan cannot accuse anyone who is in Christ.  His power over us sinners is gone, because all our sins have been atoned for.  Through Christ’s execution by the Roman soldiers, and even more by His acceptance of His Father’s wrath against our sin, everything Satan could ever accuse you of is now taken away, paid for in full and forgiven, by Jesus.  This is the testimony, and this is love, that God gave His Son for the sins of the world: Victory through the Blood of the Lamb.

 Let us pray:  Mighty Lord, you have conquered our enemies, and opened to us the way into your heavenly peace, through the Blood of the Lamb.  By your Holy Spirit, increase our understanding of Your testimony, so that we will be strong in faith, fervent in love toward our fellow Christian soldiers, and prepared to engage the ongoing battle of salvation.  Help us to speak of your Good News to the world around us.  Drive Satan away from us, give us wisdom and strength to reject the ways of the world.  Embolden our hearts by the promise that all the evil one’s power to accuse us before you has been washed away by the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.  Send your holy angels to walk with us on the daily battlefield that is Christian living, so that together we can make the good confession of your Son Jesus, our Warrior, our Champion, our Savior, our Lord, and our eternal Peace, Amen.