The Lord is a man of war

Sunday after Ascension

“The Lord is a man of war.”

So Moses proclaims in the victory song of Exodus 15.3, rejoicing in the defeat of Pharoah and the Egyptians who enslaved his people.

We tend to gloss over the more martial parts of the Old Testament, if we read them in church at all. This is a mistake. It diminishes the power of the Bible’s message, which is one of victory in a long war, hard fought: the victory of Christ, Crucified and Risen, over the Devil, sin and death.

The Bible is the story of this war. We proclaim our part in this war every Sunday, when we sing the words called the Trisagion, or “thrice-holy,” which the prophet Isaiah heard the angels sing in his vision of heaven:

What are these “hosts” – in Hebrew, Sabaoth? They are armies! That’s what the word means. Modern liturgies again downplay this, translating it as “Lord of power and might,” but the literal sense is “Lord of armies.” The reason behind this softening of the original meaning is presumably the same reason why Onward Christian Soldiers and Lift High the Cross are not sung so often any more (Onward was effectively banned in Tokyo Diocese, to the consternation of the laity). People want to avoid militarism. But it is there, clear as day, in Scripture: so clear, in fact, that the phrase “Lord of Hosts” appears over 200 times in the Old Testament.

And armies of what, exactly? Isaiah sees them, as he reports in Isaiah 6. They are armies of angels. The angels he sees are among the highest, the seraphim. Seraph, in Hebrew, means a fiery serpent, and these are portrayed as bolts of snaking lightning, singing with the voice of thunder that shakes the heavens. Such is the deafening, blinding power of God’s angelic hosts, their rumble deeper than any warplane.

The war the angels fight began long ago, in the events of Genesis 3. For there, we find in the garden of Eden an unexpected guest: a serpent, though the biblical word could equally mean “dragon.” He comes out to tempt Adam and Eve not to obey God, and wait on His command, but to take their future into their own hands, in the form of forbidden fruit. And why is this serpent here? Because he fell from the heavens. He is one of those seraphim. But, sacred tradition tells us, out of pride, he fell to earth. That is the primal sin. The devil fell because he could not bear, as a Son of God and a creature of light and spirit, to bow down to Man, a hybrid thing of spirit and earth. Man, made of earth, in Latin humus, was made for humility, that is, to be down-to-earth; pride is the sin which opposes humility. And so it was a just punishment that the snake should be humiliated, forced to slither in the dust on its belly and eat the dirt.

But as we know, the humiliated serpent did not give up its fight. It and its kin would continue to assail and provoke humanity. It would provoke Cain with wrath. Its fellow demons, fallen angels, would teach secret arts to his children. It would provoke Lamech with lust and greed. Those same fallen angels would, through dark rituals, couple with the daughters of men to breed demonic offspring. They in turn would sacrifice humans, even their own children, to the fallen angels they called gods. So God erased them with the flood; and when, after that, the fallen angels continued to corrupt the land with their blasphemous worship and evil sacrifices, God sent His people Israel to convert them to His worship, and if all else failed, to destroy them. This is the story of the Exodus, the judges and the kings of Israel: the story of a war against the demons and those who serve them.

But there was also a prophecy about the end of the war. When God cursed the serpent, He said that one would come who would crush its head beneath his heel – though not without the heel being bitten. And it is on the Cross of Christ that this prophecy came true. On the Cross, He crushed the head of the Devil. “It is finished,” He said: the war is over. And yet – the heel was bitten, too. Our Lord in His humanity experienced the poison of death. And it remains with us, as do the demons. The war against death and the demons is finished, the victory is sure, but we are still trapped here to skirmish behind enemy lines.

Our Lord prophesied as much in today’s Gospel, John 15.26-16:

“They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”

And that time did come. St Paul was party to it at the stoning to death of St Stephen. The Roman Emperors, who still worshipped the old demons, were party to it. More recently, the instigators of the French Revolution and the 20^th century Communists were party to it, executing Christians in their thousands. There are those party to it today, as Christians are killed still in many parts of the world. And there are the more subtle demons who, like their Father the serpent, the Father of Lies, continue the work he did with Eve, and try to destroy the Church by whispering falsehoods and half-truths into any ear that will listen. Make no mistake, we still have battles to fight.

But, Our Lord teaches us, we do not do it alone. We are not left comfortless, as the Collect puts it. We have the hosts of angels around us. And better still, we the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God Himself, who descended definitively on the Church at Whitsun, Pentecost, which we celebrate next Sunday. We are filled in our sacraments with the flaming glory and power of God, which outshines even the seraphim.

So what are we to do with it, to follow Our Lord in vanquishing the foe? The Epistle, as ever, gives us practical commands. Through St Peter (1 Peter 4:7-), Our Lord commands two things: “watch unto prayer” and “have fervent charity among yourselves.”

First, then, be watchful. The watchman, the sentry, is vital for defence. We must stand watch over our own hearts, which is the primary battlefield of angels and demons. Armed with the Sword of Truth, we must not let the serpents in, especially the serpent of Pride, which is the root of all other sins. In the stillness of prayer, we must look carefully, watch our hearts, and so grow in humility, the chief weapon against pride.

Second, that humility shows itself in the greatest weapon of the Christian arsenal, the weapon by which Christ Himself conquered on the Cross: the weapon of charity, or, in modern English, love. Hospitality, giving of gifts, putting the other before oneself: this is the love which breeds humility, the stone which sharpens its blade.

We foster that charity by doing as St Peter exhorts us: “if any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.” That is, the Sacred Scriptures of the Bible. If we make the Word of God our daily bread, mark, learn and inwardly digest it, become what we eat, then His words will become our words, our mind will become the Mind of Christ, our actions His actions, His love our love.

So this is the spiritual war we fight, and these are some of the strongest weapons: humility and charity. We may not look like much of an army. We may not be many or much in the eyes of the world. But we are surrounded by the invisible hosts of saints and angels who serve the Lord our God. So let us receive Him, in Word, in Body and in Blood: and let us ever join their battle song:

“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts – glory be to thee O Lord most high.”