Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm 138
Revelation 12:7-12a
John 1:45-51
In the premier work of Anglican theology – the Chronicles of Narnia – there is a scene where our adventurers land on an island far out in the uncharted ocean. They meet a certain figure who introduces themselves as a retired star. “In our world, stars are a huge ball of flaming gas”, remarks one of the children. “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of” comes the reply.
Chesterton, that other pillar of English Christian enchantment, commented once that “fairy tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found out they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.”
There is a sense that we may have lost some of the enchantment of the human experience in our current age. We look at a thing and decide we know enough and then stop thinking about it. Thomas Goodwin, a Puritan writer, wrote a little pamphlet on our thoughts and how to sanctify them. He makes the point that the holy thinker will look at the world around himself and always be drawn to thoughts of God, even at things and situations that might otherwise seem banal.
When we turn our minds to the radically supernatural – of St Michael and the angels of heaven – we may find it easy to “switch off”. Christianity is the most materialist religion, or so someone once said. We say that the invisible God who is spirit entered into his material creation so as to resurrect it. Our Lord gives us stories of the world behind the world using parables involving dirt, plants, animals and mountains. And yet all this is only to help us see the world behind the world. We humans are incarnate spirits, who can only grasp at the true and full reality in bits and pieces because of our sin that blinds us.
And so on this day in which we praise God in St Michael and all his angels, let us endeavour to live re-enchanted lives. Let us look to the Son of Man as Daniel saw him, rising above all things and receiving power and dominion and glory because of his death, passion and resurrection. Let us look to the armies of angels, whom God has sent forth to conquer the demonic forces of evil in his name. Let us look at the world around us with resurrected, sanctified, holy eyes, and look at how all things sing of the glory of the God who made them. For the word we use for “angel” comes from the ancient word for “messenger” – so let us look keenly for the messages God is sending us, the most wonderful message of all being that he became like one of us, so that he may re-enchant us, and see him clearly for who he is.