Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven…. “But 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!”
Revelation 12:7-12

In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Our First World War Memorial depicts this vision of Saint John the Divine. There you see Michael. His name means, “Who is like God?” The Memorial has these words in Latin, Quis ut Deus. “Who is like God?” Michael’s name symbolizes his entire mission, his loyal angelic resistance to Lucifer’s attempt to usurp the Creator’s glory and power. And Lucifer, created to be first among the angelic princes of light, has, through his envy of the Lord, become a serpent, an evil worm, the great dragon who is thrown out of heaven.

But woe to the earth and the sea, for now the devil has come to inhabit our world. According to Holy Scripture, our first parents fell through the serpent’s temptation that they should, like him, “be like gods, knowing good and evil.” Adam and Eve thereby insured that the devil became, as Jesus calls him, the “Prince of this world.”

So the war that has been won by Michael in heaven, clearing out the dragon and fully one third of the angelic “stars of heaven” who had transformed themselves into devils, this war has now come to us here on earth. Often we are tempted to think all this is just mythology, especially when, as in the last two decades, things have generally gone well for us. But when great tribulation comes, such as in a World War or a terrorist attack on our city, we are forced to think again. Suddenly the words of Scripture take on a cogency that escaped us in our comfort.

There is an old prayer that seems suddenly quite up-to-date: “Holy Michael the archangel, defend us in the day of battle; be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and may the prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust down to hell Satan and all wicked spirits, who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”

Why has God allowed this battle to occur? Why, how, did God permit it in heaven in the first place? Because, God is Love. Yes, God is Love, and Love is a free gift, a grace. It is not automatic, not mechanical. Love must be freely given and freely returned. Love is not forced. God has wonderfully constituted his creation with myriad orders of spirits, including angels, archangels, thrones, principalities, powers, dominions, virtues, cherubim and seraphim. They are free, ministering spirits. They have to choose, for all eternity, to love and serve God.

Why has God allowed this war? Because, by the testing of free will, love and loyalty are manifested, beginning with the spiritual, eternal love of the angelic spirits. Some spirits have spurned love and loyalty. “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,” shouts the insolent Satan in Paradise Lost, taking his demonic spirits with him.

But on Satan’s way to hell, the Lord permitted the devil to bring his cause here on earth, attempting to ensnare and enlist us. Again, we ask, why has God allowed this development? The answer is the same for mortal men as for angelic spirits, the trial of free will. Listen to the words of Saint Augustine: “Our life in this earthly pilgrimage cannot be without trials, our progress can only be by way of our trials, and we do not know ourselves if we have not suffered temptation. There is no reward for the one who has not persevered, no victory for the one who has not fought, no fighting except in face of the enemy or in temptation.” (Wright, Readings for the Daily Office from the Early Church, p. 127) So it is, that only by testing is our love and loyalty to God and goodness known; only through testing do we grow and prepare for eternal life.

Our world’s great literature is full of this testing. The story of Christ is the supreme story in all this literature; the story of Christ is the core of the Word of God. It is the battle between Good and Evil.

Think of the chilling preparations the terrorists made on the night before they died. Years of meticulous planning now came to the final blasphemy. Jesus himself describes this blasphemy on the night before he died, when he warned his disciples that “the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” (Jn 16:2) Just so, the zealotry and madness of the terrorists, so assiduously cultivated, provided the door through which Satan gained entry into their souls, perverted their religion, perverted the name of God himself into a destructive idol, into a devouring monster. Now we begin to understand Christ when he described the sin against the Holy Spirit as the unforgivable sin. The sin against the Holy Ghost is unforgivable, because it leaves God with nothing left to do; like Satan, this sin has usurped all God’s prerogatives. And so God sends the soul to hell; hell is all God can do for that soul, because it is hell-bent and won’t have it any other way. “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”

Let’s return to our Lord Jesus Christ the night before he died. He washed his disciples’ feet. He gave them the gift of the Eucharist. He told them to love one another as he had loved them. He told them not to be afraid, because he was going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house, which has many mansions. The next day, Good Friday, as he was dying on the cross, Jesus took time to arrange for his mother and the beloved disciple to live together. He loved them to the very end. This is a very different kind of meticulousness and care that we see in Jesus.

Let us think of how Jesus faced his death. The fact is, no matter how spiritually mature we may be, there is about death a terror. Death is terrifying, not just because of our natural fear of the unknown, but because of death’s preludes. We fear unmitigated pain. We fear losing our bodily powers and functions, including our mental capacities. We fear what this will do to our faith. We fear the breakdown of body, mind and spirit. We fear the burden and loss it brings on those we love. We fear suffering all these things alone, with no one to love and console us. Yes, death is terrifying.

Terrorists are called what they are because they aim to bring all this death upon us suddenly and unawares. The great awakening and sobering that we have all undergone since September 11 shows that the terrorists have succeeded in teaching us again how tenuous and precious and frail our life is. Strangely, they have also taught us that true fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, spoken of by the Psalms.

Our Lord Jesus Christ faced all of this terror, and in doing so he is the greatest of all heroes. He was despised and rejected by men, yet he kept an awesome silence. He endured the dread and foreboding, the public shame and humiliation, the whipping and beating, the hunger and thirst. He carried his own cross and fell on the way. He underwent the nailing, bruising, the bleeding, the horrible stress. His mind and spirit followed his bodily sufferings, even to God-forsakenness. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” “Behold the Man,” cried Pilate. “Away with him,” cried the scribes and Pharisees, and the priests added, “He trusted in God; let God deliver him, if he will have him.” Who in the world ever seemed farther from God, than the Man on the cross?

Yet, dearly beloved, this Man is none other than Almighty God! More than that, at this precise moment, upon his crucifix, Jesus is most of all like God.

There, on the cross, Holy Michael the Archangel receives the answer to his great challenge to Satan. Who is like God? The Man on the cross, the Lord Jesus, He is God. He died, and behold, He lives. His victory is complete. It is finished!

God is Love, and those who would serve God must live and abide in love. He who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is Love. I am quoting Saint John the Beloved Disciple, who also wrote, “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (I Jn 4:7ff)

That is the kind of heroism, the kind of martyrdom that is demanded of us if we would serve God and follow his Son Jesus Christ. Not terrorism, for that is of the devil of hell; but true heroism, the heroism of Christ.

In Saint John the Divine’s vision, he says that we, Christ’s “brethren,” conquer the devil “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of testimony.” We conquer, by being heroes for Christ who “love not their lives even unto death” in a thousand different ordinary ways of “loving mercy more than life.” We conquer, by loving one another – here and now.

The Apostle Paul sums all this up, and in his summary we see the heroism of Saint Michael and All Angels, the heroism of the angels’ Lord and ours, Christ Jesus, and the heroism which is our calling as soldiers of Christ and saints. I will let the Apostle have the last word, telling us who is God and who is like God:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 3:5-11)

In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.