“With angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, we praise your name and join their unending hymn.” With that introduction we sing, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of power and might.” Does it inspire you that we are worshiping God with the angels? Pretty exalted company.  
Our popular culture has some wrong ideas about angels– the most common being that people become angels after they die, like Clarence in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Nope. Angels are a different order of creation from human beings. They are spiritual beings who worship God (Isaiah 6:1-3). They also serve as messengers (Luke 1), they watch over the “little ones” (Matthew 18:10), and they rejoice when sinners repent (Luke 15:10). On the basis of Zechariah 1:12, Lutherans believe that the angels pray for us (Apology of the Augsburg Confession XXI, 8).

We often remember the angels during Advent, Christmas, and Easter and especially on today’s Festival of St. Michael and All Angels. The Archangel Michael (the name means “who is like God”) is mentioned in Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1, Jude 9 and Revelation 12:7-9.

The same Philipp Melanchton who contributed the Apology to the Lutheran Confessions wrote this hymn for St. Michael and All Angels.

They never rest nor sleep as we;

Their whole delight is but to be

With Thee, Lord Jesus, and to keep

Thy little flock, Thy lambs and sheep. 

So we pray as Martin Luther taught in the Small Catechism, “Let thy holy angels have charge over us that the Wicked One have no power over us.”

Read Psalm 148, and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally. 

Wayne

Today’s Reading: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+148&version=NRSV