According to a poll last year, more Americans believe in angels that in God who created the angels. Not surprisingly then, there’s also a lot of confusion in our world today regarding the role of the angels: some attribute too much to the holy angels, almost worshipping them in the place of God; others live as if the angels are part of the relics of an ancient mythological past along with fairies and gnomes. Both errors are false.
The angels are the heralds of God’s plans, ministers of His divine glory and will. Indeed, this is what the word, “angel” (angelos in the Greek) means, i.e., “messenger of God.” Their power comes not from themselves but from God the Holy Trinity, who created all things visible and invisible, and whom they serve. Their presence and help is seen throughout salvation history.
While the Church has always affirmed the veneration, the honoring, of the holy angels, we reserve worship for God the Holy Trinity alone. We honor the holy Archangels and the bodiless powers as part of the Church, our protectors, and servants of the Most High God, and fervent intercessors for our souls.
The Archangel Michael is the chief of all angels. His name means, “Who is like unto God,” the name he earned challenging and then casting out Lucifer, Satan, from heaven when he sought to challenge and be equal with God. Our Lord Jesus Christ refers to this event in today’s Gospel for the Feast: “I saw Satan fall like lighting from heaven” (Luke 10:18) and the Prophet Isaiah proclaims in the Old Testament readings for the Feast: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!” (Is. 14:12).
God sent the Archangel Michael likewise to lead the Israelites as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night as a sign of God’s protection and presence in the Exodus. He appeared to Joshua before the battle of Jericho (Josh. 5), was present with the three holy youths in the fiery furnace, who were preserved from the flames by their faithfulness to the One true God (Dan. 3), and he transported the Prophet Habakkuk to feed Daniel in the lion’s den (Dan. 12).
St. Michael bears a flaming sword, symbol of God’s victory over the forces of evil. Gabriel bears an orb, often with Christ’s image in it, symbolic of his role as the revealer of God’s divine presence and will as it pertains to mankind’s salvation. But even these—the greatest of the angels–never act on their own, for they are subject to the divine will, bringing revelation, enlightenment, and protection.
Satan, attempted to make himself equal with God, to challenge God, his Creator. He divided the angelic powers, as sin always divides, bringing a third of the angelic host with him (the demons that tempt and serve their dark lord). Hence, Satan’s temptation to Adam and Eve of the same vein: tempting them through deception to disobedience and, therefore, departure from life with God, promising them that they would “…be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5).
The Archangel Michael is the faithful, courageous, and humble angelic response to such insufferable pride. But not only is he an answer to Satan, but to modern man as well, who in his ideal of humanistic independence and autonomy sets himself up to know more than God, to be equal with God, to believe he can make his own path to God instead of following the revealed path, and, make God subject to and the product of the limitations of human reason.
Pride caused the first departure from our sharing in the divine life. St. Michael is a reminder of the central place of humility, necessary for true enlightenment and illumination for those who wish to share in God’s Kingdom because God Himself is humble. In the beginning, God spoke creation into being by His Word, who became flesh to enter into human nature and redeem it. The Incarnation is the supreme example of God’s condescension, humility, whereby transcendent God makes Himself known and re-opens paradise for all to partake.
This revelation of the Incarnation, God calling us back to paradise, life with Him, is the particular province of the Archangel Gabriel, who reveals the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy that a virgin will be with child and His name will be Emmanuel, “God with us” (Is. 7:14).
Appropriately, Gabriel, whose name means “Might of God,” is often depicted in the holy icons holding a branch from paradise. His revelation to the Virgin Mary proclaims the return to paradise, the return to grace that Christ’s Incarnation and defeat of death accomplish. He announces the invitation to return to God’s presence through participation in His divine life.
St. Raphael, whose name means, “God heals,” reminds us of God’s healing and salvation, both temporal and eternal, both in this life and, ultimately, for the life to come with Him in heaven.
The angels and particularly the Archangels, the holy protectors of this church, are stunning in their power, their other-worldliness, their light, a glimmer of which we see in the holy icons here. But all of this immaterial glory is only a reflection of the glory of God, which is the light that illumes them and all the Saints, the glory which God in His mercy and love for us as Holy Trinity, invites us to share in and grow us in as we become fellow partakers of the divine nature.
The Archangels are an ever-present reminder to us that Paradise is open to all. God calls all to salvation, for such is His love for us, as we read in today’s Epistle, “What is man that You are mindful of him, Or the son of man that You take care of him. You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, And set him over the works of Your hands.” Every divine service, we join our voices with these our holy patrons to proclaim God’s wonder and commune with Him and the whole company of heaven.
The holy angels are our guides and our protectors; they continuously point us to Christ, the Author of all life, Life and Reality Itself, for “Who is like unto God”? In their obedience they remind us of the strength of humility, of the selflessness courage to faithfully serve the one true God and love the truth that Christ is. They remind us of our divine calling to come outside of ourselves and our self-focus, our egos, to love and to serve, to glorify God the Holy Trinity in all things, to become like the angels in our desire to see God’s will accomplished in us, in the world.
The question we ask ourselves today is the same question asked in St. Michael’s name: “Who is like unto God?” Do we live out this humble question in our daily lives? Do we live in the fear of God, reflecting in our daily lives this truth: that no one is God’s equal, that He is the One “who was, and is, and is to come,” the One who saves? Those who live out this truth are those who consciously strive, beseeching God, that His will be done in their lives and that they may be accepting of His divine calling to live to His glory, to become possessors of angelic courage and humility, to be witnesses of Christ and His truth in our community, in our world today.
The angels are here to help us, to guard us from the evil one and his minions, and to guide us in the way of truth and life. God has given us at Holy Archangels such powerful protectors and intercessors that we may have boldness and faith to vanquish sin and the passions from our lives and join the angelic chorus in proclaiming, “Who is like unto God?” Holy Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and all the angelic hosts intercede for us before our merciful God, to save our souls!
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Feast of the Holy Archangels 2015
Epistle: Eph. 2: 4-10; Hebrews 2:2-10 (Holy Archangels)
Gospel: Luke 8:41-56; Luke 10:16-21 (Holy Archangels)
