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. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Rejoice then, O heaven and you that dwell therein! 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!” (Rev. 12:7-12)

Angels are God’s messengers; angelus in both Latin and Greek means “messenger.” The Hebrew is malach; the prophet Malachi is “God’s messenger.” However, Satan, the accuser, and his army of rebellious angels are still making war on earth as they did in Heaven. The first question in the baptismal liturgy is “Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?” The next question is “Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?” The distinction between spiritual forces and the powers of this world is made clear, although we often only think of the latter. Both must be renounced, along with our own sinful desires, in order to follow Christ.

In the prayer Jesus taught us, we ask to be delivered “from evil,” a moral concept. But apo tou ponerou can also be translated as “from the evil one,” a reminder that Satan is still among us, tempting us as he did Jesus in the wilderness. Although he finds it “better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,” in the words of Milton’s Paradise Lost, the “apostate angel” is still eternally at war with God and his heavenly hosts, commanded by the Archangel Michael.

In Latin American countries, St. Michael is often portrayed with a sword in one hand and a balance scale in the other because, in his role as defender against Satan, he is the angel who weighs the souls of the departed to see who is saved. His name means “Who is like God?” in Hebrew, so portrayals of him often have the Latin Quis es Deus? inscribed on his breastplate. Satan is sometimes depicted as a dark angel with horns and a tail, but also often as a dragon, drawing upon this passage in Revelation. The most famous image of St. Michael doubtless is the statue atop the monastery dedicated to him on the tidal island on the coast of Normandy, Mont St. Michel, where Michael is piercing the dragon Satan with his spear.

But this is the Feast of All Angels, so we should consider another prominent angel in the Bible, the bearer of good news, Gabriel. He appears in the Book of Daniel to interpret a vision in chapter 8. In the New Testament he is sent to Zechariah as he is on duty in the Temple to promise the birth of a son to be named John, who will be the forbearer of the Lord’s Messiah. When Zechariah has doubts about his message, Gabriel introduces himself rather grandly and then gives him a sign that he surely did not appreciate: “And the angel answered him, ‘I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God; and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time’” (Luke 1:19-20).

Gabriel’s next duty is to inform the Virgin Mary that she has been chosen to be the mother of the Messiah. After greeting her and telling her the message, he responds to her reasonable question (How can this be since I have no husband?) very courteously:

The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called holy,
the Son of God.

And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible. (Luke 1:35-37)

There are two other angels named in the Apocrypha, Raphael and Uriel. Notice that all the angels have names that end in “El” or “God” in Hebrew. They can be translated: Gabriel, “Man of God”; Raphael, “God heals”; and Uriel, “Light of God.” Some Eastern Orthodox and Coptic traditions have three or four more names for angels.

In both the Old and New Testaments, angels come as God’s messengers over and over to people he has called, including the cherubim guarding the entrance to Eden, Abraham at Mamre, Jacob in a dream and then a wrestling match, Balaam’s ass and then Balaam, Manoah, Elijah, Isaiah, Daniel, Joseph in dreams, Zechariah, Mary, the wise men, the shepherds, Peter in prison, Paul, Ananias, and of course Jesus after the temptation in the wilderness, in the Garden of Gethsemane, to the women at the tomb on Easter morning, and to the disciples after Jesus ascends into Heaven. Jesus speaks of children having angels who behold the face of God (Matt. 18:10) and promises that he will return in glory with God’s angels (Matt. 16: 27).

Finally, let’s return to Revelation. Among the many angels with their various tasks to explain things to John, blow trumpets, lead heavenly choirs, and so forth, we are told by Jesus himself, “one like a son of man,” that each church has an angel watching over it. Indeed, the messages to the seven churches are to be written to their angels: “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write” and so on to each of the seven churches represented by the seven lampstands in the vision. Think of your parish church; there is an angel assigned to it — perhaps a messenger from the Lord, like Gabriel, and/or a protector from the evil one like St. Michael. Whether your parish is large or small, well-endowed or just getting by, the members of each church are precious in God’s sight and guided and guarded by their angel. Remember that each Sunday, when we pray to join with angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven to sing the song of the highest angels, the Seraphim, “Holy, Holy, Holy” in our Eucharistic offering. One of them is already there with you!

A Reading from John 5:1-18

1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-za′tha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. 5 One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked.

Now that day was the sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me said to me, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your pallet, and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working still, and I am working.” 18 This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Meditation

This man lying by the miraculous pool has been ill for 38 years. One must be the first to get into the water when an angel troubles the surface to receive healing; but someone else, either with better mobility or with a helper, gets in before him every time. A note on this passage elaborates, “other ancient authorities insert, ‘waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water: whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.’” But he is alone with no helper. Have you ever felt all alone with your illness, addiction or distress, even as it goes on and on for years? 

Jesus chooses to speak to him out of all the other sick people lying nearby. He asks what seems an obvious question,“Do you want to be healed?” But actually, we can get used to our afflictions so that the thought of returning to the normal duties of life can be terrifying. 

The first step in Alcoholics Anonymous is admitting that our lives have become unmanageable; the second step is coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. Jesus is asking him to take those steps: saying he wants to be healed and believing that this man, whom he does not know, can accomplish that. Jesus gives the command to rise, take up your pallet and walk. Once healed, he has to do the work of carrying his pallet away.

But now he is violating the Sabbath prohibition against work, just as Jesus has violated it by “working” as a physician. The Pharisees accosting Jesus are so enraged that he says he is working just as his Father is working, thus calling God his father, that they seek to kill him. They don’t care about the sick man or the miracle. That is their affliction.

The Rev. Dr. Jean McCurdy Meade is a retired priest of the Diocese of Louisiana, formerly the rector of Mount Olivet Church, New Orleans.

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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:

The Diocese of Ife East – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Beaufort, North Carolina

A Reading from John 4:43-54

43 After the two days he departed to Galilee. 44 For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast.46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Caper′na-um there was an official whose son was ill. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went his way. 51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was living. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to mend, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live”; and he himself believed, and all his household. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

Meditation

Jesus is returning to Capernaum, the place of his first sign, making the water at the wedding feast into wine, and here he performs his second sign, a miraculous healing from afar. The miracles in John’s gospel are called “signs,” and are the confirmation of his teaching and self-revelation. Faith in who he is has to come first, as it did at the wedding feast – it was his mother’s faith that set that sign into action. Here it is the faith of an official who surely does not know Jesus and may not have even heard him preach but believes that Jesus can heal his son. Perhaps he is simply desperate, but he has enough faith to ask for a miracle. 

Jesus has just spent two days with Samaritans who said they now believe in him as “Savior of the world” because of his words – his teachings. He seems to have that in mind when he says to the official in Capernaum, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe,” contrasting the faith of the often-despised, mixed race Samaritans, with that of his fellow Jewish Galileans. Nevertheless, he assures the father, “Go, your son will live.” The father believes him and returns to his home about 25 miles away to find it was the exact hour when Jesus spoke to him that the fever left his son. His initial faith in Jesus is confirmed so strongly that he converts his whole household. 

There are stages in our faith, times we may doubt, or despair, or need a sign to help us keep that faith in difficult circumstances. What is needful is to ask for what we need in faith, however faltering it may be at the time. Approach Jesus and humbly ask. The miracle we receive may not be obvious to other people like this healing was, but it is nevertheless a sign that Jesus indeed is the Savior of the World.

The Rev. Dr. Jean McCurdy Meade is a retired priest of the Diocese of Louisiana, formerly the rector of Mount Olivet Church, New Orleans.

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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:

The Diocese of Ife – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
St. John’s Church, Tampa, Florida

A Reading from John 27-42

27 Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, “What do you wish?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the city and were coming to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has any one brought him food?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. 36 He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Meditation

The woman whom Jesus meets at Jacob’s well does not have her name preserved in Scripture, but she has an honored place in the ministry of Jesus. She is the first missionary in the Gospels, and to people who were not Jews, her fellow Samaritans. Samaritans and Jews were neighbors who had some common ancestors but Jews looked down on Samaritans as people of mixed ancestry who did not worship God properly in Jerusalem. She instigated a conversation with Jesus after he asked her to give him a drink when she came to draw water, wondering aloud why he, a Jew, would talk to her, a Samaritan, and even ask her for a drink from her bucket. He asks her to call her husband. When she says she has no husband, he says that she has had five husbands and is living with a man now who is not her husband. She realizes he is a prophet and starts a conversation about worship and God.

Jesus tells her that he is the Messiah her people as well as the Jews are seeking. She then runs back to the town to tell everyone, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”  They stop whatever they were doing and come to find him, asking Jesus to come stay with them, which he does for two days. They then exclaim that they asked Jesus to come to them because of her words, but became believers in Jesus because of his words, concluding, “You are the Savior of the world!”

She does what every believer in Jesus as Lord and Christ is called to do — to tell people about Jesus. If we think we are not very fit for the work of evangelism, just remember that this lone woman at a well with her interesting history with men didn’t seem like a very promising evangelist either. But she listened to Jesus and look at what she accomplished!

The Rev. Dr. Jean McCurdy Meade is a retired priest of the Diocese of Louisiana, formerly the rector of Mount Olivet Church, New Orleans.

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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:

The Diocese of Idoani – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Corsicana, Texas

A Reading from Judges 13:15-24

15 Mano′ah said to the angel of the Lord, “Pray, let us detain you, and prepare a kid for you.” 16 And the angel of the Lord said to Mano′ah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food; but if you make ready a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” (For Mano′ah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.) 17 And Mano′ah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” 18 And the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” 19 So Mano′ah took the kid with the cereal offering, and offered it upon the rock to the Lord, to him who works[a] wonders.[b] 20 And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar while Mano′ah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground.

21 The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Mano′ah and to his wife. Then Mano′ah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. 22 And Mano′ah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” 23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a cereal offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.” 24 And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson; and the boy grew, and the Lord blessed him.  

Meditation

Here is another time in the Bible that God promises the birth of a special baby even before the child is conceived. The angel of the Lord appears to Manoah’s wife, who was barren, and promises her a son, who is to be a Nazirite and will start to deliver Israel from their Philistine oppressors. She is told to avoid strong drink or unclean food — some of the very first advice about diet given to a pregnant woman in the bible. The woman tells her husband who then entreats God to send the angel again to teach them how to raise this child. The angel returns and speaks to them both. They press him to stay and eat with them. The angel declines but asks for a burnt offering to the Lord. Manoah asks him his name,“so that when your words come true we may honor you.” 

The angel’s reply is mysterious indeed, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” When the angel ascends in the flames of the altar, Manoah and his wife realize who it is they have been talking to — the Lord himself. They fall on their faces in fear that they will surely die, since no one can see God and still live. But she realizes that God would not have made them such a promise if they were to die. She does become pregnant, the child is born and called Samson, and the Lord who foretold his birth blessed him. 

The  Lord does not reveal his name nor need a name, since there is only one God; knowing the name of someone, especially of a deity, implies power over them. God names us, not we him. The only “name” he gives them here is an epithet, “Wonderful!” And in the fullness of time, with another woman and her husband, he gives us himself, “God with us.” The only name given under Heaven and Earth for the Lord is Jesus, the name above all names. 

The Rev. Dr. Jean McCurdy Meade is a retired priest of the Diocese of Louisiana, formerly the rector of Mount Olivet Church, New Orleans.

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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:

The Diocese of Ideato – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
St. Andrew’s Church, Wellesley, Massachusetts