Sermon for the Feast of Michaelmas 2025

Revelation 12:7-12

“The Empire never ended.” So say Philip K. Dick, a notable science fiction author of the latter half of the 20th century, in his novel “VALIS.” In VALIS, a character experiences something loosely based on Dick’s own strange quasi-spiritual experience. In the book, he is exposed to a pink, laser-like light of some kind, and it allows him to see the true nature of things, to perceive beyond the obvious settings of our world what is really going on, under the surface, behind the curtain, in front of us but never seen by us. The line, “the Empire never ended,” is referring to the Roman Empire, seen by the character as the true nature of the society around him in the 1970’s. The empire never ended, with its violence, its oppression, its slavery, its hate; no, it didn’t end, it just changed, and learned how to hide itself behind the surface niceties of modern life.

Now, I want to be careful to point out here that this is a fiction book, that PKD did a lot of psychedelic drugs, and was clinically schizophrenic. So, I don’t want anyone hearing this and diving down the conspiracy theory internet hole, where above the door it says “abandon all hope, you who enter here.” No, I use this to say that there is a veil over the world around us, there is something hidden behind the niceties of life, and that yes, the empire never did completely end. But what is behind the veil is not vast government conspiracies, deep-state secrets, and secret faceless entities running things; no, it is the existence of the spiritual entities that both oppose and defend us as we make our pilgrimage through this world of beauty but also horror, of celebration and of struggle.

I like using VALIS to talk about John’s Apocalypse, because John is doing something so very clever. Revelation is apocalyptic literature, an ancient literary genre that uses dramatic, cryptic, and cosmic language to reveal truths about the world but without coming right out and saying it. Apocalypse simply means “to reveal,” or “a thing revealed,” and in John’s, he is interested in speaking about the way the world really is. One of the ways John does this is by moving back and forth between the past, the present, and the future, a sort of cyclical movement, that ultimately is more about encouraging the Church of his day and the days to come than it is about describing the end of all things, which is really only addressed at the end.

So we come to Revelation 12, and St. Michael the Archangel. Right before this chpt. 12 says that there is a woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” She is in the pains of labor, giving birth to a Son who would rule all the nations. But a dragon is poised, waiting to devour that Son. Now I think this passage has a dual meaning, but the one I am interested in today is that of the Blessed Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus, and what follows is the failed attempted coup by Satan and the dark forces that follow him to wrest control of the world from God.

This is the nativity, the incarnation, the coming of Christ, and the response of the demonic powers occurs because the Devil “knows his time is short.” The birth of Christ marks the defeat of Satanic powers that rule over the world. And at the vanguard of the great angelic host that accomplishes the casting of the demons from the heavenly dimension is Michael, the Archangel, defender of Israel and guardian of the dead. 

Kids, there is a world that is invisible to us. Like the fairy tales I grew up reading, there is more to the world than meets the eye. We don’t fully understand it, but it is there, and there are these spiritual beings who are charged with our care and protection. Like Peter Pan, there is an ongoing conflict between good and evil there, except it is angels instead of lost boys and demons instead of pirates. That is what our hope is, not that this life will never be hard, or that we won’t struggle, but that as we keep going through life towards our home with God, we can be brave and carry on even when it is hardest, because God and his angels are with us always, and while we will still have battles to fight in our lives, God has already won the war.

Thrilling stuff, no? And difficult for us to accept sometimes, because the immaterial and spiritual realm is by definition not a part of our sensed experience. Added to that, we actually know precious little about that world, about the activities of angels, why God created and uses them, how demonic forces seek to harm us, and how we are protected. All quite mysterious, and I would urge you to be careful listening to anyone who speaks too confidently about the details of these matters. What we do know is this: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down.” Satan accuses, to defeat us with shame, by leading us to sin, by offering destruction concealed as appealing greed, pride, and power. But God’s hosts are more than equal to the task, and that is before Christ even enters the field. Satan is no match for the Archangel, and Satan continues to be defeated every day when we too “conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.” We can face with courage the sufferings of this life because, while the enemy still thrashes about, we know his back is broken, and the hosts of heaven are present with us. How, and why, and what they protect us from we really don’t yet know. But we do know that by God’s power and authority we are not alone.

The Empire never ended, it just put on a more appealing mask. But what lies behind that is the dragon that sought to devour the Christ-child but couldn’t, because in that infant body was the Son of God. What lies behind is a victorious host of spiritual beings, Michael being the foremost, who though not themselves God act as his agents, who secured the defeat of the one who accuses us. And we, filled with God’s own Holy Spirit, walk free of the devil’s power every day, every moment, that we choose to walk in humility, in self-sacrifice, in peace, and in love. Amen.