Tag Archives: martyr

St. Michael and the Dragon: Victory in Heaven

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The war in heaven depicted in “Las Huelgas Apocalypse,” Spain AD 1220; the commentary of Beatus of Liebana.

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back and he did not prevail…. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world…. (Apocalypse 12:7-9)

The Archangel Michael (Jude 9) is the captain of God’s armies and the champion of the Chosen People (Daniel 10:21, 12:1); in the Old Testament, he is the most powerful figure, second only to God. Although Satan does occasionally appear in heaven (Job 1), he is definitively cast down and overthrown here.

The dragon is identified both with the serpent who tempted Eve and with the adversary, the accuser who demanded that God allow him to test the sincerity of both Job and the Apostle Peter (Luke 22:31). Satan wanted to ruin them both but did not succeed. Satan, the dragon, wants to ruin the human race. He wants to ruin the entire creation. His jealousy goads him to want to destroy everything (Wisdom 1-2) but in the end, his jealousy destroys only himself.

Often the spear that St. Michael uses to fight the dragon with is a wooden lance; it is by the wood of the Cross that the dragon is overthrown. The archangel Michael’s victory is the heavenly and symbolic counterpart of Jesus hanging-dying on the Cross. The martyrs, as members of the Body of Christ, who testify-witness about the victory of the Cross, share in this victory but the victory is demonstrated by their dying as Christ died on the Cross. The events described in chapter 12 of the Apocalypse—the woman clothed with the sun, the dragon, the war in heaven—are the central events of the Apocalypse, around which everything else revolves, because they are the representation of the central events of earthly history.

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” says Jesus (Luke 10:18); therefore the apostles are able to cast out devils who possess humans. The Lamb, “who was slain from the foundation of the world,” is both eternally the victor and the one who wins the victory at a particular time-place in the world. Both the eternal victory and the victory in time are true; neither victory cancels or outweighs the other.

The dragon is not simply THE Devil, a single angelic personality. The dragon is all the enemies of God at once; in Ezekiel 29:3 and 32:2-3, we read that the Pharaoh of the Exodus is “like a dragon in the sea,” a great water monster who attempts to devour the Chosen People. The dragon is the Roman system which attempts to eradicate the Church. The dragon is everything and everyone who attempts to deny the victory of the Cross.

“A great multitude, which no one could number….”

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After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands…. (Apocalypse 7:9)

The book of the Apocalypse is built on a series of sevens–seven letters, seven seals, seven bowls, seven trumpets, etc. Often there is a pause or intermission between the sixth and seventh event in each series and the seer describes another vision or event that interrupts the series-of-seven. This vision of the great multitude comes as such a pause between the sixth and the seventh seals which the Lamb is opening. This vision of the multitude has two aspects: the seer beholds the 144,000 redeemed from the tribes of Israel and then he beholds the great multitude from all the nations and languages.

The 144,000 is symbolic of all Israel; it is the 12 tribes x 12 apostles x 1,000. It is complete. Full. It is a vast throng of believers, too many to actually count. Modern readers often see the 144,000 as the Jewish-Christian version of the “great multitude” of Gentile-Christians which the seer also beholds. But the original intent of the author was unlikely to distinguish Jewish and Gentile believers. One of the important concerns of the Gospel-Epistles-Apocalypse of St. John is who the authentic heirs of Abraham are; who are the “real Jews” is an issue in all the texts attributed to St. John and the answer is always, “Those who accept Jesus as the Messiah, whether they are biological descendants of Abraham or not, are the true Israel.”

The 144,000 have been marked with the seal of the Lamb–a common description of the anointing with oil/chrism following baptism. Having been sealed with chrism, the 144,000 make their confession, i.e. are slain because they acclaim Jesus as the Messiah. Martyrs for the true faith much as the Maccabees were martyred for refusing to compromise the faith to accommodate with the Greco-Syrian culture prevalent in their society.

The great multitude robed in white with palm branches are also martyrs. (Some readers suggest the 144,000 are the saints on earth and the great multitude are those same saints in heaven.) The palm branches, always indications of victory (1 Maccabees 13:51, 2 Maccabees 10:7), also suggest the feast of Tabernacles (Succoth), which is celebrated in the autumn. Succoth involved processions with palm branches and the building of booths for the people to live in for 8 days (Leviticus 23:33-36, Nehemiah 8:13-18). It was the celebration of God’s care for Israel in the wilderness after the exodus; it was also understood as a celebration which anticipated the Messiah (Zechariah 14:16-19). In both cases, it is God dwelling with his people which is the focus of the celebration.

There are Christian celebrations of Passover-Easter and Shavuot-Pentecost but no Christian equivalent of Succoth; the Church herself is the ongoing feast of Succoth. The Church is the company of those “who shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall smite them, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water [he] will guide them” (Isaiah 49:10). It is in the New Jerusalem that Tabernacles is fulfilled, when God will provide “water from the spring of the water of life” (Apoc. 21:6) and wipe away all tears (Apoc. 21:4).

The Seven Seals

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The Lamb of God and the book/scroll sealed with the seven seals, a popular motif embroidered on a variety of vestments and altar linens. Note that most depict the seven seals still unbroken although occasionally the seals are already open.

I watched as the Lamb broke the first of the seven seals and …. as I watched, there was a pale horse. Its riders name was Death and Hades followed with him. (Apocalypse 6:1-8)

The book/scroll with the seven seals is among the most well-known images from the Apocalypse. Even if people don’t know the biblical source of the image, they at least know about the last, the Seventh Seal, from the famous movie by Ingmar Bergman. The seals and the riders or other visions that are revealed as each seal is broken have appeared many times in books and movies, whether in Agatha Christie mysteries or horror-fantasies or even comedies.

The seals reveal aspects of the liturgy–such as the relics of the martyrs contained in the altars on which the Eucharist is celebrated–as well as aspects of life that are judged by liturgical participation throughout history. Famine, plague, pestilence, and misery are constants throughout human experience. Many expect these to become especially intense just before the world ends; because of this, when these experiences have become intense in the past, many people expected that the world was about to come to an end.

Everyone loves to calculate and predict when exactly the End will come. Even St. Augustine has to tell his congregation, “Give your fingers a rest!” when they spend too much time and energy doing complicated math problems, trying to figure out when exactly the apocalypse will come. (Full disclosure: I still depend on my fingers to do even simple math problems!)

But it has not yet come to an end.

But the world does come to an end each time we celebrate the Eucharist and take our places in the eternal Kingdom of God. The apocalypse happens every time we proclaim, “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

The apocalypse happens every time we lift up our hearts.

The apocalypse happens every time we ask the Father to send down the Holy Spirit on us and on these Holy Gifts of bread and wine.

The apocalypse happens every time we say, “Our Father… thy kingdom come.”

The apocalypse happens every time because the Holy Spirit lifts us up from earth to heaven to see Christ revealed in all his glory.

When will the seals be broken? They are always being broken, throughout time (during what we call “secular” history) and eternally (in the celebration of the Eucharist).