Archangels, and a suffering woman, Part 2

Archangels, and a suffering woman, Part 2

The icon of the Archangel Michael stands at the front of the church.  He is strong, very clearly a force to be reckoned with.  Angels are the messengers of God, but that does not make them cute and cuddly.  One has to wonder if they ever get tired of having to open every conversation with the same phrase:  “fear not!”  But that is part of who they are.  They are terrible in the old sense, just as they are awesome in the literal sense.

We saw some of that in our readings at Vespers on Saturday night.  We heard of the angel appearing to Joshua, and of Joshua falling on his face.  We heard of the angel visiting Gideon, announcing that he will be the one to deliver the people of Israel from the Midianites, at a time when he was hiding in order to thresh his grain.  Gideon was not quite so fast on the uptake as Joshua, but after the angel disappeared he, too, was dismayed and frightened.  And no wonder!  I don’t doubt that any of us would be the same way.

But while Angels are mighty and powerful and fearsome, they are creatures with free will, who also make a choice to worship God.  We know this because not all of them made that choice.  Our third reading at Vespers, from the 14th chapter of the Book of Isaiah:

How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!  He who sends for all the nations is crushed to the earth!  For you have said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will place my throne above the stars of heaven, I will sit on a lofty mountain, on the lofty mountains toward the north.  I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High.  But now you descend to Hades, to the foundations of the earth.

Lucifer and those who followed him fell, and were cast out.  We heard Jesus tell his disciples, “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven”.   Even among the angels, the proud fall.  Lucifer and those with him, who continually saw the face of God  and participated in the eternal worship, lost everything because of pride.

Those angels who remain with the Lord, however, did not fall to pride.  Indeed, what characterizes the angels we celebrate today is humility.  As much as power, as much as might, as much as any of these, the angels we sing of today are humble before the Lord.

Humility before the Living God is what the angels have in common with the woman with the issue of blood.  This is a lesson for us all!  The world tells us to be proud of whatever we wish.  Looks, intellect, success, wealth, achievement — all of these become the basis for pride.  But on this day, the day when we honor the Archangels and angels, when we see a desperate and suffering woman healed — on this day, we learn that it is humility that is essential for our salvation.

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