September 29, 2013
MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS DAY

This last week there was a clergy meeting of the Japan Lutheran Church. We have this meeting every three years. We are not a big Lutheran group, there were 22 in attendance. This time we met in the area of Northeast Japan where the big tsunami hit two and half years ago, March 11, 2011.

On the second day of the meeting, we took a bus tour and got a first hand view of the present situation of that devastated area. We saw the area in the towns of Minami Sanriku and Kesen Numa. After two years the mountain of debris and rubble have been removed: the splintered houses, the tiles, the plumbing, the flood soaked furniture, the bodies. All that remain are the foundations of the houses. From the harbor to the mountains, the 30 foot tidal wave destroyed everything in its path. It is forbidden to build new homes in the flood plain. Mountain sides have been leveled off to build new homes, but many people are still living in temporary shelters, adequate but small. The harbor which sank 3 feet because of the earthquake, has been restored and the fishing business is booming again. But thousands of lives were lost, the dead and missing are over 19,000.

At our opening devotion on the first day, Rev. Shitan read from a book written by a Christian from the town of Kesen Numa which suffered from the disaster. The author says that Christians often ask “why.” He said that Buddhists and Japanese Shintoists never ask why, they just accept things. Christians ask why God allows disasters and accidents and evil to happen. “Jesus why did my loved one have to suffer and die?” etc. Buddhists never ask Amida Buddha to explain anything. The author of the book did not say anything about Islam, but I feel that Islam just accepts everything, even disasters, to be part of the Allah’s plan that cannot be questioned.

After hearing Pastor Shitan read from the book, it struck me that Christians really do always ask “why.” Even in the Old Testament, the Psalmist says, “Psalm 10:1, Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” “Psalm 22:1, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent. ”

Christianity is a religion where we believe in the mercy and love and grace of God. John 3:16, Psalm 23, The Good Shepherd, and so forth. We believe that God wants to help us and protect us and heal us. Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry. We know he can do the same for us. And so we have hope and confidence in our prayers.

And so when a disaster comes, we ask、“God, why?” We believe that God wants to protect us, and so when danger comes, we do not understand why God is not helping us. Natural disasters, man-made disasters, accidents, sickness, epidemics, arguments, fighting, disappointments, failure, broken hearts, and everyday stress. “Why, God? Why me? Why that person?”

Today is St. Michael and All Angles Day. Angels are to protect us and help us. And I am sure that my guardian angel has protected me many times, especially when I am driving. I have had a few near-misses where I can only thank God for giving me protection. But sometimes I wonder if my guardian angel might be off-duty on a particular day? Why does not God send his angels to protect this world? Why didn’t God send an army brigade to hold back the tsunami water that flooded those coastal towns?

Christians ask why because we cannot understand evil. We Christians cannot understand evil because we believe in a loving, gracious God. There are evil people. Natural disasters are evil. Sin is evil. Ultimately, the Bible says that all evil and all death is the result of sin. This is the sin we commit, and the sinfulness of the world in general. It is because the world has rejected God.

Why did God send the tsunami? Or why did God permit the tsunami? We do not know. Were the people there worse sinners than us or worse than the people in various disasters around the world? No, they were not. Sometimes preachers will say that the disaster was the result of the wrath of God upon some certain sin of a particular group of people. It is never good to judge others, so we have to be careful of explaining why something happens. God’s ways are far beyond our understanding.

But the basic reason is sin. And the greatest disaster will be when God destroys the world at the end of time. He will destroy sin and all sinners.

But Jesus said that before that happens, God will send his angels. Mark 13: 26, “At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”

But the real problem is sin. Angels are powerful. They can do miracles. They can protect us, but they cannot forgive sin. And so, God did not send an angel to save us. Forgiveness is the act of God. Salvation can be done only by Jesus, the Son of God who became a sacrifice for us. It was the way to defeat the devil, not through war, but through love and resurrection.

For our salvation, God did not send an angel. God did not send a servant or an administrator or an accountant. God sent his Son. And therefore the death of Jesus on the cross has power to forgive and to give new life. The job of angels is to announce this salvation. Therefore God sent the angels at Christmas and Easter. The word “angel” is the Greek word for “messenger.” The messengers who preach and teach and witness the Word of God are the pastors and teachers and Christians who are doing the work of angels, and their words have power because it is the Word of God.

Today we remember Michael and all the angels. Because angels are spirits, it is hard for humans who have a physical body to understand angels, but we understand the love of God and so we thank God for the angels who are his servants to bring us to faith and to keep us in the faith and to protect us in our journey in life.

Amen.

PRAYER OF THE DAY

Everlasting God, you have wonderfully established the ministries of angels and mortals. Mercifully grant that as Michael and the angels contend against the cosmic forces of evil, so by your direction they may help and defend us here on earth, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God whom we worship and praise with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, now and forever. Amen.

Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church

Sermon Index