The Feast of St. Michael & All Angels – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 18:1-10

In Christ Jesus, who commands the holy angels to serve you, a dear “little one” of God, for whom He offered up His holy body and shed His holy blood, dear fellow redeemed:

“Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” It’s clear that the disciples were not including God when they asked this question. They were asking about all creatures below Him. They wanted to know in all of His creation, and particularly among those who acknowledged Him as Lord, “Who is the greatest?”

If this question were heard by the angel who would later be known as Satan shortly after God created him, he may have thought to himself: “I am. I am the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” The Bible does not tell us the whole story of Satan’s fall from grace. We know there are ranks of angels, and the devil seems to have been a chief angel, like the archangel Michael we hear about in today’s Epistle lesson. The apostle Paul describes these ranks of angels in his Letter to the Colossians: “For by [the Son of God] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” (1:16).

By the end of the sixth day of Creation, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). He rested on the seventh day in sweet communion with His whole creation. But soon after this, Satan decided he did not want to serve the God who created him in holiness. Perhaps it was for the same reason that Adam and Eve fell—they wanted to be “like God” (Gen. 3:5). So maybe the devil thought he could take God’s throne. Others have suggested that he rebelled against God’s command to serve humankind, seeing them as much inferior to himself. To prove it, he went to them in the form of a serpent and successfully tempted them to sin against God.

Whatever prideful thought and rebellious plan caused Satan’s fall, he enticed perhaps one-third of the holy angels to join him (Rev. 12:4). They rebelled against the holy God who created them and forfeited their holiness. All joy was stripped from them. Hatred consumed them. Darkness and death settled upon them. Jesus describes the devil as “a murderer from the beginning, [who] has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him…. [F]or he is a liar and the father of lies” (Joh. 8:44). The apostle John writes that “the devil has been sinning from the beginning” (1Jo. 3:8).

That the devil is full of thoughts of his own greatness is clear from the way he tempted Jesus at the top of the mountain with “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” “All these I will give you,” he said to Jesus, “if you will fall down and worship me” (Mat. 4:8-9). But Jesus gave glory to none but God: “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Mat. 4:10).

This is a reminder we need as well, to worship and serve only the Lord God. The devil is still active among us, tempting us to forsake God and pursue our own greatness. He tempts us in this way not because he thinks we are great. He actually thinks we are very weak and pathetic. The apostle Peter says about him that “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1Pe. 5:8). He thinks you are easy prey. If he can get you to look away from God and put your confidence in your own strength, your own goodness, and your own abilities, he knows he has you.

He even made progress among the close disciples of Jesus who each day heard Jesus teach and watched Him perform miracles. In their pride, they asked Jesus several times which of them was the greatest in God’s eyes. Of course they were nothing apart from Him, and neither are we. To illustrate this, Jesus brought a little child before His disciples and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

That is not what they expected to hear, and it isn’t what we expect to hear. Little children don’t seem all that great. At best, they seem helpless and needy. At worst, they are annoying and get in the way of what we want to do. Jesus says they are “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” They are great because they have no concern about their own greatness. A nursing baby knows how important his mother is. He trusts her to provide for him and take care of him. If he didn’t trust her, he wouldn’t cry for her to come. But he does cry, and she does come.

Faith cries out in confidence to God, and He comes with help and healing and strength. He knows your need. He sees how weak you are. He sees how you struggle and suffer. And He does not hesitate to come. He loves you. He will not forget you. When His people Israel at the time of Isaiah said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me,” the LORD replied, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isa. 49:14-15).

That is His promise to you. He “will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). He will not leave you to be devoured by the roaring lion. He will not let you go, just as He would not let Adam and Eve go. But the devil won’t give up your soul without a fight. As long as you live, he wants to tempt you away from the God who loves you. He also wants to tempt away the people in your direct care.

He wants nothing more than to break up your family. He does this by tempting husband and wife to become bitter toward each other and seek companionship elsewhere. He tempts parents to ignore the godly discipline and instruction of their children, and children to despise their parents. He tempts families to prioritize just about everything over the Word of God, whether work or play or entertainment.

When Peter described the devil prowling around “like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour,” he also taught how to escape the devil’s sharp claws and teeth. He wrote: “Resist him, firm in your faith” (1Pe. 5:8,9). You resist him by taking your stand on the holy Word of God, by trusting what God has done for you and keeps doing for you. The more you fill your ears and eyes and heart and mind with God’s Word, the more prepared you are when the devil attacks.

It does not matter how old you are or how long you have been in the church. You need to keep hearing and learning the Word of God. Jesus says that the ones who are greatest in the kingdom of heaven are the ones who “become like children,” who humble themselves like children. Children have a lot to learn. They need to be taught. And so do you and I. We should have a hunger for the Word of God. We should fill up on it every day. If our children see us doing this, they will learn to do it too.

Jesus could not underscore the seriousness of this responsibility in stronger words. He says that “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, says Jesus, it would be better to lose one of those members than to lose eternal life.

Finally, Jesus pulls back the curtain to show that life is about more than what you can see and do and gain. He says, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.” You and I and our children are so dear to our Lord that He assigns holy angels to each one of us to protect us and serve us. They are not concerned with their own greatness, like the fallen angels, the demons, are. They are concerned with glorifying God through faithful service to His people.

These angels surround us at all times. They see us in our good moments and our bad ones. They sorrow over our sin, and they rejoice at our repentance. Jesus says, “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luk. 15:10). They rejoice because He rejoices. Remember, they are always looking at His face, they always see His face. Our merciful Lord rejoices when the Holy Spirit has led us to see our sin through the Law, so that we might be comforted by His Gospel of forgiveness.

We certainly have sinned with our feet and our hands and our eyes. We have not always cared for our children like our Lord calls us to do and demonstrated for our children by our words and actions a faithful Christian life. But in His perfect care for us, our heavenly Father sent His holy Son to take our place and suffer and die for our weaknesses and failures. Jesus used His hands and feet and eyes perfectly in service to all the children around Him, both young and old. Then He let His hands and feet be nailed to the cross, while His swollen eyes looked in love upon all the sinners who surrounded Him.

“[F]or your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2Co. 8:9). He humbled Himself in obedience to the point of death, so that you would inherit His greatness and stand before God in glory. By faith in Jesus, you are counted among “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” The holy angels agree. They are not jealous for your position. They happily serve you and defend you as one who is redeemed and cherished by God. They joyfully look forward to the day when they will get to carry your soul safely to heaven, where all God’s children are gathered up in His arms.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.

+  +  +

(picture from “Michael and the Dragon” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)