St Michael and All Angels, 27th September 2020

St Michal and All Angels

When I was at university, the Autumn term was called Michaelmas term, and I never really understood why until I started preparing this sermon.

Today we celebrate St Michael and All Angels, or Michaelmas as one of the  days which mark the moving of the sun – 2 at the equinox and 2 at the solstice – the others being lady day (or mothering Sunday), Midsummer and Christmas.

And why do we celebrate Michaelmas now? What is the link between the angels and the Autumn equinox that marks the end of summer – the shortening of days and the season of dark and cold as we move towards winter?

Well if you’re anything like me, you are feeling a little depressed at this prospect – particularly with the likelihood of another lockdown, the inability to travel and the reduction of possibilities for meeting with friends and family. That was all hard enough as the weather got better in the first lockdown but how will we manage at this time of year, with a long journey ahead?

And this is where Michaelmas helps us, because Angels speak to us of light, consolation and warmth (as Rev David Kennedy, former Canon of Durham Cathedral says).

Light, consolation and warmth – 3 things we might really need right now.

Let me start with Light….biblical angels are associated with the presence of God. They are spiritual beings who reflect his light and glory. In the readings we heard today, we hear about angels ascending and descending – connecting the heavenly and earthly realms.

They are found in Bible stories as messengers, such as the annunciation, when Mary says yes to bearing God’s son, or when Isaiah and Ezekiel begin their ministry and are anointed to speak God’s word. They are beings who bring light and shut out the darkness – the darkness of sin, greed, envy and death – as when they throw the dragon, (or Satan), out of heaven, when they are found by Jesus tomb after he has risen and defeated death.

Angels help to draw us closer to the divine presence and open our eyes to where God is near – just as Jacob and Nathaniel’s eyes were opened in the readings we heard today. They bring us glimpses of the divine light of God and point us towards God’s truth and love…….Angels bring light.

And then there is consolation.

There are numerous stories of people in distress feeling the presence of another being, or experiencing God’s presence in a very particular way.

Over one hundred years ago, in 1916, Ernest Shackleton and two colleagues reached Stromness, a whaling station on the north coast of South Georgia. They had been walking for 36 hours, in life-threatening conditions, in an attempt to reach help for the rest of their party who were stranded.

To reach the whaling station, the three men had to cross the island’s mountainous interior with just a rope and an axe, in a journey that few had attempted before or since. By reaching Stromness they managed to save all the men left from the ill-fated trans-antarctic Expedition.

They didn’t talk about it at the time, but weeks later all three men reported an uncanny experience during their trek: a feeling that ‘often there were four, not three’ men on their journey. The “fourth” that accompanied them had the silent presence of a real person, someone walking with them by their side, as far as the whaling station but no further.

Shackleton was apparently deeply affected by the experience, but would say little about it in subsequent years, considering it something ‘which can never be spoken of’. Encounters such as these are common in extreme survival situations: guardian angels, guides, or even Christ-like figures have often been reported.

We also see these kinds of experiences in the Bible, such as when Daniel and his friends are thrown into the furnace. But I don’t think this is only true of near death experiences – I believe that God is present to us, and sometimes he makes himself especially present to strengthen, console or reassure us when we need it most. Angels console us.

And then lastly, they bring warmth – they show the glory of the Lord to others, such as the Shepherds in Jesus birth narrative – they bring wisdom and healing, as in the book of Tobit, where the Angel Raphael shows Tobias how to heal his father of blindness, they bring coals of fire to anoint Isaiah’s tongue, and the seraphim are described as fiery serpents in the first chapter of Ezekiel. Angles bring a little of the warmth of heaven to our cold earth.

They bring us reassurance and warmth when spiritually we feel the cold, when we feel the on-set of winter, or even when we reduce God to the merely rational and earthly.

Rev Dr David Kennedy taught for nine years in a theological college in Birmingham. One year, the community had been through a difficult time, there was a lot of stuff going on in relationships, significant personal distress and affliction, and there was a strong desire for healing. They decided to prepare for a special service in Chapel by prayer and fasting. When inside the Chapel, as they worshipped, David writes that it was as if something like electricity was filling the space.

One particular student stayed away because she wanted no part in what they were doing. Her room overlooked the chapel, and she said that she happened to look out of the window while the service was going on, and it was as if the chapel was on fire; fiery light was swirling all around it. She later said that she had been contemptuous of anything that might be called ‘angelic’; now she thinks differently.

I wonder how many of us are contemptuous of the idea of angels? Even surrounded by the beautiful images and statues in this wonderful building. It’s very easy to be cynical of what we can’t see in today’s world, and we are right not to believe fanciful tales, but I think there is a place for allowing for mystery – for that which we can’t explain and don’t understand – for accepting that God’s creation is infinitely greater than anything we can conceive, and that his creation is multi-dimensional. There are invisible realities that we do not see, hear, or perceive in the normal round of life. But sometimes, we catch a glimpse, we hear a fragment.

Perhaps there will be times when the distance between heaven and earth blurs, and God is revealed to us. ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’. The gate of heaven is everywhere.

Angels speak to us of a God who is not remote and absent from us, but engaged in our lives and in our world; heaven and earth are close to each other; the invisible mingles with the visible, the spiritual with the material.

Just like Ernest Shackleton and his two colleagues in South Georgia, we are not alone on our journey. Angels help us to see that heaven and earth do meet, that God is not inaccessible, that he came down in Christ and even now is pulling us up out of darkness and into his light.

Angels remind us, not so much about being separated from reality, but about our connection and purpose. They are messengers, signposts, to help us each to become all that God intends us to be.

Lord, give eyes to see and ears to listen, and as we turn towards winter, as the days become shorter and darker, may the angels of Jesus bring us light, consolation and warmth.

Refs: The Reverend David Stanton Canon

The Rev Canon Dr David Kennedy