The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 52 - The Heavenly Harvest - A Journey Through Seasonal Rites
Embark on an enlightening journey with PJ from the Global Church History Project as we probe the enigmatic realms of archangels and their integral role in literature and theology. This episode promises to enrich your understanding of the angelic influence in church history and the celebration of Michaelmas, while also venturing into the mythological tapestries woven by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
Discover the rare mention of female angels in scripture and the celestial intricacies of Middle-earth, where even the concept of angelic marriages is contemplated.
Feel the awe and reverence as we discuss the dual nature of angels through the lens of sacred hymns and the looming specter of Judgment Day. PJ illuminates the paradoxical existence of these divine messengers, embodying both tenderness and terror, and interprets how figures like Tolkien's Sauron fail to comprehend the essence of selfless love.
We traverse the cultural landscape of Michaelmas, unearthing the symbolism of dragons and destruction in C.S. Lewis's 'The Last Battle,' and how these narratives reflect a longing for new beginnings.
Our conversation culminates with a reflection on the spiritual significance of the seasons, drawing parallels between the natural cycles of agriculture and the biblical imagery of harvest. We ponder the deep connection between physical labour and divine understanding, contrasting this with the modern disengagement from life's natural rhythms.
The episode wraps up by examining the profound implications of harvest festivals like Michaelmas, emphasizing the resonance they hold with themes of judgment, resurrection, and the divine choreography of existence. Join us for a thought-provoking session that might just alter the way you perceive the angelic and the eternal cycle of life and death.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. And I'm still joined with PJ from the Global Church History Project. And do pick up his book. That's on the theme that we're exploring Michaelmas, down through church history, and you can subscribe to get on Facebook short daily church history meditations, but if you become a patron you get much more and there's whole books for free then. But he's going to help us.
Speaker 1:This is our last episode dealing with the archangels and then we're going to move on to the subject of language and the theology of language. But we want to pull it together, this business of archangels, really thinking about how it shows up in the church year and different ways that people celebrate Michaelmas and what's it all about. What is Michaelmas and how is that celebrated? But I also, just before we do that, um, jrr tolkien and cs lewis are quite big angel people. They they have stuff on angels and archangels and um, I'd like us to just spend a few moments on that, because Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings, middle Earth, hobbit, all that stuff and there's games like Lord of the Rings online and people get immensely into it and the lore, the background of it and the films. There's new films being made, tv series, all this stuff. So it's immensely wide audience. And yet in those stories is it true to say that he does have quite a thought through, particularly now that the series are beginning to? The TV series, the new TV series is touching on things that are more from like Silmarillion style stuff, this backstory and the cosmos stuff.
Speaker 1:Is it true to say Tolkien has quite a worked-out view of archangels? And how does that work? Pj, tell us about that, tell us where they show up in the Tolkien mythology. So Tolkien has seven archangels and he has them created before the universe. So they are creatures, but then they're older than kind of creation. More generally and we thought about that before how that philo thinks about that a bit um, so he has that as quite core and he has them. He calls them the Valar and again we thought about how in Jubilees and everything they're expected to be chaste but maybe not necessarily celibate. So Tolkien actually has them as married and they've got wives. So the archangels in the Tolkien mythology are literally married. So they're a male and female, female like archangelic level beings. Yeah, just don't. Oh well, I'll come back to them in a minute. You carry on telling us about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so he had in early versions of his silmarillion. He never got it published in his lifetime, he was always reworking it. Uh, in earlier versions he has the maya, who are like angels, like gandalf, so like lower level. Yeah, so they're valar archangels. Maya are angels. He has the angels as the children of the archangels, um. So gandalf is basically a cousin of sauron, um, and so sauron's a Maiar, yeah, yeah, and is Saruman, yeah, they're all part of a family. Radagast yeah, yeah, they're all Maiar, those characters and you get the blue wizards and you have interesting and then this character. If you watch Rings of Power, they've got potentially a new Maiar there as well. They're all like cousins of each other and it's an interesting idea to have it very kind of familial and a very different view of things.
Speaker 1:So Sauron is technically the same level of being as Gandalf. He's not like a A valar is like a higher one, because Sauron seems like super powerful but he's actually Gandalf level. But he makes, of course, that ring which multiplies power. So hobbits aren't that corrupted because they're very little power. But then Gandalf would be just as bad as Sauron if he took the ring. So he has this power multiplier, which is an interesting idea and that's why the eagles can't take them to Mordor, because they'll be corrupted by the ring and they're very powerful, so it would be terrible if they are maya as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, the eagles are maya. Yeah, yeah, okay, and that goes back to that idea of eagles having this sort of angelic symbolism in the bible. And then tolkien picks that up. Then yeah, wow, he does, and he um. So in the end he felt, uh, I think his priest wasn't happy with the ideas that Amos can marry. Tolkien's priest wasn't happy with this. Yeah, with their marriage and everything. So then he said in the end oh, maybe even the eagles aren't Maya and everything. But when he did his final revision he said, actually, the eagles are Maya and they get married and they have kids and everything. So he went back to his original draft, which is great that he stuck with his convictions.
Speaker 1:And, as we've been thinking, there's a very different way to view all this cosmology and everything and Tolkien. So often, what we're describing as things that seem to have only came to light after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and they're translated, and even in the decades since, tolkien just seems to kind of know this stuff just from his own Bible reading, which is quite interesting. Yeah, I mean, he is bang on on so many things when you dig deep. So the Valar there's Mr and Mrs Valar in that system. Let me just ask, while we're passing through that are there female angels or are they all blokes? There is, of course, as we thought. Zechariah tells us some of the most interesting things about angels. There are, of course, in zechariah 5, 9, I lifted up my eyes and saw and behold, there came forth two women and the wind. The wind was in their wings and they oh, wow, that sounds like two angels. Yeah, yeah. So there is that. That maybe tolkien's got a point there. And then we thought it was well.
Speaker 1:When abraham is circumcised, he's not committed to a life of celibacy. Yeah, he's still with sarah. He's just gotta commit himself to a life of chastity. He can, can't be having any more concubines, he can't be having anything like that. He has to be monogamous and chaste.
Speaker 1:But then, so when the angels make that vow and that is the angelic estate to be chaste, does it necessarily mean total celibacy? Does it mean there are no wives? And he thinks of this as well with the Ents? How he has them? They seem to be all male and everything. But then there are also the Ent wives and this whole idea where he feels like there should be a female half for things that seem all male. And you get this in scripture. So, zechariah 5, there definitely seems to be female angels there, those two, and then there's possibly another one in seven who is sitting in the midst of the measure and all this kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So that's true and that that fits with the whole idea of them originally committing themselves to chastity at the very beginning, and also how and how some of the angels turn away from their chastity and go for immorality with human beings, and one that explains how it's possible, but also the whininess of it, that they kind of become dissatisfied with angelic wives and go for. And then also I know this opens up a whole thing but we're not going to explore it now but when Jesus says that in the new creation we will not be given in marriage, and then marriage as we understand it now is something that ends in death and so on. But he says it won't be like that in the new creation. Rather we'll be like the angels who do not die. Um were equal to the angels who do not die, and that means it doesn't mean necessarily there will be no such thing as marriage, but there won't be marriage as we know it which ends in death. Um, there'll be something else. And now people are given and taken in marriage. It won't be that giving and taking marriage, it'll be some other kind of marriage. It won't be that giving and taking marriage, it'll be some other kind of marriage, maybe the sort of marriage that the angels have had. But Tolkien, anyway, let's not get too distracted by that. It's interesting. Zechariah 5 really does seem to have female angels there, and then Tolkien had written that into his mythology with a happily married Valar who produced the Maiar, lovely.
Speaker 1:What about CS Lewis? Does he have anything to say about angels? He does, but a lot of the stuff he has to say is more tied into, I think, the overall theme of this episode, which will be about Judgment Day and all of how that all connects. Because he has so, because some angels, as we saw in revelation, look quite sinister and like wormwood, seems quite terrifying. But he's got a point and so wesley thinks um, john wesley now we're talking about, yeah, from the 18th century, the founder of Methodism, and his brother, charles Wesley, who also writes hymns that often refer to angels and archangels and firstborn seraph and things like that. But, yeah, john Wesley, yeah, go on, he had Well, there's a few things actually just before I forget, because connecting with Tolkien that he has this idea that the devil was kind of older than all the other angels, and that appears in Tolkien, because Melkor is also older.
Speaker 1:And in Psalm 110, I think it is, the father says to the son you have dominion over everything, because I begot you before Lucifer, because I begot you before lucifer. So, uh, and it is when you see, in the septuagint, it's aos for us, which is, um, you know, lucifer is that word we see in isaiah, uh, so it's just interesting that connection, that um. So wesley and tolkien have this idea that michael and satan are kind of brothers. So wesley often uses the same kind of terminology to talk about Michael and Satan, but he has this very clever double meaning. So he has this thing where, like in vain yeah, this is Charles Wesley from his hymn, john Wesley also has this stuff. Yeah, yeah, you'll know the Charles Wesley verse better that in vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine, so that you have this idea, but then he has it. It could apply to Michael or Satan. So both John and Charles have that thing, because he could have Michael when it's like he's one of the most holy and most loving kind of Christians out there, but he can't love as much as Jesus, and so that's true. That's one meaning.
Speaker 1:The other thing is that satan doesn't understand what jesus is doing until it's too late. It's another idea tolkien picks up on because, like tolkien has it that sauron can't understand why anyone would want to destroy the ring. It's like no, you just want to serve yourself, you don't want to serve others, so you'll want to hold on to the ring. He can't understand that kind of love, and so they can just sneak the ring in and then destroy, and the ring is kind of like sin. Um, they can just destroy it because sauron can't imagine anyone doing that. And satan's the same way. And some people have this idea.
Speaker 1:This is in um, that Hellion translation of the Gospels into Old Saxon. It suggests that Satan is the one that tells Pilate's wife about Jesus being the son of God and everything. Because it suddenly thinks I know what he's trying to do now he's trying to destroy my power, my power, that is death. He's trying to destroy it. So then he's saying to Pilate so then he's like he's saying to pilot's wife. He's like, no, look, you've gotta. So it's like satan. Until the last minute he couldn't understand. And there's sometimes jesus, when he's trying to keep everything quiet and everything, and he says if the evil principalities knew what I'm doing, they'd try to stop me. Um, yeah, he says so cool isn't it to think of it that way, like mythologically, and how, yeah, like he can't, he can't, don't, tell people about this, because they'll figure out. My like, in the hellions, the chief's uh military strategy. He has a deeper strategy. Yeah, it's very cool.
Speaker 1:So you have that idea in tolkien and the wesley brothers have that idea. But there's one that one other idea that the Wesley brothers uh share with CS Lewis, which is that you do have a lot of stuff about the angels that seems quite scary or even seems sinister, um, at first light. But then when you really understand what revelation's about and everything, then you start to see how good it is. And so, like the Wesley brothers, I believe they thought that Wormwood is actually a very good angel, possibly one of the most holy angels, but he seems so scary in Revelation and he brings all this judgment on earth and he does all this, you know, and poisons all this water and everything. But that's all a part of getting rid of the old world. He's got to be a part of shaking everything. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken to make way for the new creation. And so cs lewis has this way. He has all these dragons and these very sinister looking creatures, but they're a part of getting rid of the old narnia that had, like, fallen astray, and he talks about this in the last battle, the final narnia book, and so the old Narnia kind of falls astray and everything, and then he's got to get rid of it. But he's got a new Narnia which is even better, and then he describes all these dragons and giant lizards and so on and they're very scary things but they're a part of this getting rid of the old world. And he used this very interesting analogy where he says it's like they were picking up trees and crunching them like rhubarb, because one of the things that happened with this kind of rhubarb craze, that happened around the time. So this is getting into the way. People kind of celebrate Michaelmas, isn't it? And there's a rhubarb craze. Go on, explain that craze. Go and explain that. Yeah, so the rhubarb craze was a way in which people who were living in cities could kind of reconnect with the cycles of farming that god has really intended for us.
Speaker 1:Because we do see in the scripture farmers and sailors and so on, people who have practical jobs that change with the seasons. They know god in a certain way that and god can appeal to knowledge they have. And we see paul as a sailor. He gives advice to the centurion julius and luke covers for him, says he still is a very wise guy and paul nearly, you know, he nearly listened to paul and there was a totally reasonable. You know, luke does all this but, um, paul knows better than this centurion because he's a sailor. He knows these seasonal things and farmers are like this as well the seasons and the weather.
Speaker 1:So to live and think according to the seasons, to follow the natural rhythms of the sun, the moon, the stars, nature's cycles, that makes you closer to the God who created all these things and that, when we live in an overly urban environment, that makes you closer to the God who created all these things and that when we live in an overly urban environment and we switch our lights on and control our environment through heating, lighting, and in a way disconnect ourselves from the cycle of seasons, and we do it with our food as well, where we'll just have exactly the same food all the year round. Doing that alienates us from the living god of of creation. That is true and that's why we see in ezekiel when he describes the city of heaven, it's very rural, where people have like lots of space and lots of trees and there's a massive river and people are like wading in and have to pull up their trousers and everything because they're wading in and they catch fish. Then the lord keeps a bit of swamp so there's a bit of salt so you can fry the fish and it's all like very and the the tree. In in revelation, in the new creation, which is for the healing of nations, it bears, it's got even more seasons. It's like more season, doesn't it? There's like, um, every every month it's got a new crop, as if to say, well, surely you want to be even more seasonal, not less so. And it's so amazing that the way so Jesus does like cities in some sense, but the way he designs them is so much more rural, in a way, garden cities, aren't they? And Nebuchadnezzzzar, when he has this incredible experience of the lord and he becomes a prophet, uh, he ends up turning babylon from this evil most urban city into this garden city, hanging gardens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the wonders. Yeah, the great, one of the greatest wonders of the whole world. He turned his entire entire city into a wonder by modelling it off of the heaven he saw, which is an incredible thing to do. So that is the kind of reality of things when we're trying to understand so much about what Jesus is saying. He really is basing things on a seasonal thing, and so he loves sailors. So many soldiers also came to see him, but they were like sailing around a lot of the time, and that psalm does say like those that go out to sea see the wonders of the lord, and it's like when they've been through a storm and they come back, they're full of like wonder and knowledge of god. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. These seasonal kind of jobs and everything. They're so important to God, and I think Jesus is depending on people having this kind of knowledge, and so his parables will be given at certain times in the year, and so the festival of trumpets. Just on that before we go on there.
Speaker 1:I've had this happen to me twice in my ministry that when I was getting excited about having a harvest festival, on two occasions a person said to me you shouldn't do that because it's pagan. Why did they say that? And what's going on that? Because I was shocked when both of them said it and they were sincere. They were almost angry that I was doing a harvest festival because they felt it was pagan. What's that about?
Speaker 1:It is so much Christian stuff has been co-opted by paganism because there's so little in terms of Celtic and Germanic paganism that has genuinely survived. So some people think like, oh well, beowulf might have been originally, but you can see all throughout it it's a christian guy telling the story about like a pre-christian past and so on. We just don't have accurate records about how the celts and the germanics and so on celebrated their times, so loads of stuff that was that christians did. But people felt like, oh, that's a bit rural. So then they said, oh, that's a bit pagan, and it's such a massive leap of logic. So they literally think because they're city dwellers and christians worship. Obviously we are deeply appreciative of creation, nature, because we worship the god who created everything and holds it all together. The Bible's just rammed full of celebration of animals, plants, trees, mountains, weather, everything like that. But they have become so disconnected from it that when they see that they're like that's a bit different. We're not used to that, that's probably pagan and it's actually real Christianity arriving and they're sort of freaked out by real christianity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because moses, he sets up several harvest festivals and the first one that happens, um, through moses, because it's the lord who actually yeah, that's true, the lord, yeah, he's set up all the times and everything except the stars for telling the time. So there was always his intention to have this, but he has, like, starting with the feast of first fruits, so that is easter, and that one the very first things he harvests. So as soon as there's anything ripe, you bring that, and then you say, look, the harvest is coming soon. Then, 50 days later, you have pentecost and that's the real first harvest. You're properly gathering in the the first lot of uh crops, and then there's a continued cycles up until you get to michaelmas or the festival of trumpets, um, and that is the final one.
Speaker 1:And so then the idea is winter's coming and if you've seen like israel and like especially jerusalem, you can get quite thick snow, like you can google, like pictures of jerusalem in the snow, although we see loads at christmas, you know, yeah, so we're familiar with the image. You like there's little you can grow, you can imagine in that thick snow and everything. Oh, yeah, and like we literally know when jesus is born in december, you know snow would fall on snow, on snow. Yeah, it's well established in the carols, and you couldn't grow anything because earth stood hard as iron. Yeah, exactly, I mean, no one's going to argue with Christmas carols Well, no one who's serious. Yeah, but yeah, carry on. So this is all well known about how Israel is. It can become a very snowy place, and that does mean when it's the festival of trumpets and Moses says now, this will be the last harvest festival and so until the start of the next year, which is in April, then nothing can grow. Moses is given that impression at least. So that does mean we've got this idea, then, of how Jesus sees the year.
Speaker 1:So you plant things at the start of the year and then you, then it will be grown, and then you're ready to harvest it at Easter, and then the first, yeah, an initial harvest, yeah, and that's just the very first thing. So it'll be. As soon as you see a red apple or something you know, then you grab that and then you're like, look, there's some stuff already ready. But then it takes 50 more days until you've really got stuff you can harvest. That's how we seize it. And then you have months pass, so quite a long time passes, and then you have this final one and then.
Speaker 1:So then we see as well, very interesting things where at that first harvest you're meant to share as much as possible. Then and you know you've got to make sure as many people are involved and you're getting as much and you share it all. Then in this final one you have this like where you're gleaning. So you're not allowed to glean at pentacost. That's a wrong thing to do. But then you do have people gleaning at michaelmas or the, the festival of trumpets. So there's an initial first harvest where you just get a sense that hey, look, there is going to be a harvest then at pentacost, that's when you're getting like a lot of stuff in. Then there's like a lot, and then you mustn't glee, you mustn't like grab every last little bit, because it's got to be shared out with people. And that's the meaning of Pentecost they sold everything to make sure everyone were there, was no needy.
Speaker 1:But then there comes, once we get to the autumn, a point where it's like now, okay, that's it, now let's gather everything in. Yeah, and that has this sense when you see the angels in judgment day and they've got to gather everyone up and, as we said, like there's nothing that can escape the empire of heaven's gaze and his eyes, revelation. And zechariah says, are the archangels. And so they, they lead this, investigating, they overturn everything on earth and they see what's really going on and they say right, we've got to do judgment. And in the parables, jesus says the angels do the judgment, and in a lot of those parables about judgment, he has it all about taking place in farmlands. So he has the angels as farmers who are like going through fields and gleaning. So at that point, at this point, we're saying everyone get involved and then you can just feed, and that's great. But then, on this final day, there's a sense in which it's like now everything's got to be found out. And so, bringing it back to what started us down, this was this idea of rhubarb in the last battle.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you were telling us why does CS Lewis introduce the concept of rhubarb? So these city people were having rhubarb to get themselves involved with rural life, even if you're in the middle of the city, because it's a very seasonal product. Yeah, and then what can happen is you won't know whether rhubarb is good or bad until this final day of harvest and then, when it's bad, all you can do is crunch it up and throw it away. And the good stuff you're meant to put in a barn away. And then you give it some more time and then it's ready. And so these parables you have of Jesus, where good stuff gets put in a barn, bad stuff gets burnt or crunched and thrown away, he has these scary kind of creatures, creatures like dragons. They are destroying things and he says they crunch it up like rhubarb. Cs lewis has the, the dragons crunching stuff up, yeah, yeah, like rhubarb. And he uses that image because that's one.
Speaker 1:So even if you're in the city, you could try and grow rhubarb, and at the time people were doing to keep in line with the stuff. And so then you start to notice what it's like on judgment day, where there's some stuff that's worth giving another chance. And there's some stuff that's totally good and you can store it away. But then you have to be quite harsh and there'll be people who'll be quite kind of uh, used to thinking, no, we can just like, save everyone and everything. And then they find out you can have bad rubarb and all it's good for is to crush it and throw it away, and that is what judgment day will be like. So you have some people you know that, and we get that where it's like they escape through the fire. And there's some rhubarb that's like it's damaged but you can still make good of it. But totally damaged rhubarb though, it can release some kind of poisons and stuff. It can be very bad. So you cannot have that in your barn in case someone eats it. Yeah, so you've got to be ruthless. And they got people to understand that, connected to this before we sort of get just quickly this notion then that there's a kind of knowledge of reality and the cosmos and theology that is much more accessible to the farmer and the fisherman and the sailor and the person who's retaining a proper kind of connection and awareness of the seasons than the person who's only thinking theoretically and abstractly, is kind of damaged, almost intellectually. They can't know as well as the farmer or the sailor can. Yeah, and this is a very important thing.
Speaker 1:In the New Testament we see Jesus' foster father is called a techne, which is so. It often gets translated as like a carpenter, and he probably was a carpenter. Some early Christians attest to that. But it uses this other word, techne, so just a technical person. Um, so, and that that means that can mean all sorts of things. It can mean architects, it can mean like, uh, yeah, it can mean carpenters, it can mean anyone who does anything technical with a hand and like in britain, like a farmer, yeah, sailor, and yeah, in britain we often have the term like white van man as a sort of thing, as like a techne, and it's like people who aren't necessarily like into the academic world there plenty are actually but, um, not necessarily into that, but they've got this technical knowledge and that's what that's all about. So he is called and then in uh, I think it's in matthew, no, it's not in matthew, it's in mark.
Speaker 1:Jesus is called a techne. Um, so his, the knowledge he values isn't gnosis, which is that theoretical knowledge, abstract. Yeah, yeah, he calls himself the son of the techne and he is a techne. He's someone who's technical, who has practical knowledge um, no nonsense sort of stuff, whereas all this gnostic stuff where it is just nonsense, where you just come up with ideas, theoretical and there's some people who think they get to a truth. You can just think hard enough with theoretical ideas, you can get to a truth. He's saying that is nonsense and he's no nonsense, he just likes technical, practical stuff. I love that. And so there's a kind of knowledge about the harvest, like to bring it to this. Uh, we, I mean I want to now want to do more about the technical knowledge versus gnosis and things, and we might. We have touched on that in the past, but let's focus just as we come to the conclusion.
Speaker 1:Um, a harvest festival and michaelmas comes at this time of harvest because angels are so associated with the harvest and so how does this festival show up in church life? So a lot of people have harvest festivals and they'll just call it a harvest festival at this time of the year. But there have been at times in history where you have a bit that old testament stuff. We have some trumpets and everything and you do some michael imagery and I think it's one of the great ways where we make sure no one is falling into gnosis by having like and so a lot of people do, I think, especially in Britain and probably in other countries as well you get loads of food and you put it into the church.
Speaker 1:So when Jesus makes this, these kind of parallels, where he says like, you are like grain and you'll have to be gathered into this barn, which is like the church, people see it. So they see all this food and people put it in the church and it brings it home these realities, so that we start to understand Jesus' parables quite practically and we understand what time we're in, in like a cosmic scale, that we are between that first harvest, pentecost, and that last harvest where everything will have to be picked up and gleaned and looked at in detail. We're in the middle of that. We're in that sort of time and if we start to have these harvest festivals, as the lord commanded, um, we do understand the parables and jesus when he's very practical and he's often like preaching in a field or on a mountain. So when he says, look at the fields and how people are harvesting, he's probably pointing, yeah, people doing it. And so he said look at that, so a harvest festival.
Speaker 1:So many churches feel it's necessary to have people bring in all this food that's being harvested into the church to make this point clear. So if anyone's getting lost in gnosis and they're not doing enough practical, real work they can, this is a chance for them to tap into real knowledge. Yeah, and that's why it's probably good when we do harvest festivals to have seasonal foods and flowers and things like that to help emphasize that idea and that there's a kind of finality to harvest as well. And that so often when people do harvest festivals, I've noticed in recent years the theme has become like, uh, creation or ecology or things like that, whereas really it should be preparing us for advent, like the, the doom, the end of the world stuff. It's really about how there is a final, a final harvest and it should be kind of sobering.
Speaker 1:And the, the great hymns of harvest, very much have this idea of being gathered in to the barns of God or not and then thrown out and burned. And there's a finality to that. And often now I've often hear people say, oh, a person might be thrown into the fires of hell but later they may be redeemed from that and you're like, well, you couldn't possibly say that if you were a farmer. Like it's done, the harvest is done, the crops, what wasn't gathered into the barn, is dispensed with it, so that's the end of it. There's a finality to harvest in the real world and only a person who's become abstracted could even go oh no, but maybe there's other harvests later or something. You're like no, no, that's not how the seasons work.
Speaker 1:So you're telling us, michaelmas is a time where we need to kind of root ourselves in the earth a bit and remember how God has actually created the world and how he governs the world and the cycles of a first harvest, a big harvest and then a final harvest, and what that's telling us theologically. And the angels are the harvesters. Is that true? Yeah, the archangels are the are in charge of the, the net or the. There's the net image as well. Isn't like the fishermen getting in a net and sorting the fish? Yeah, that is true. So that's especially the gospels and ezekiel like the whole fish element. But yeah, in zechariah, like, uh five, we have this will be in the septuagint.
Speaker 1:Um, if you can bring up like a online, you can get brenton's septuagint version for free and then in that he talks about a flying sickle. That represents judgment and justice and judgment and Judgment Day kind of in particular. And then we've seen Revelation and the archangels there's two of them and there's one of them comes out of the temple and he hurls the sickle. So this is Revelation 14. Verse 14, harvesting the earth and trampling the wine press. Yeah, yeah, all very harvest related stuff and it's sickles and, um, in fact, in this that time of the year in china there's all these different constellations that are very important to their timekeeping and loads of them are farming related and includes the farmhand as one constellation and that all, and the sickle is there as well, and that all gets used in revelation and a lot of the constellations are important revelation but we can't talk about that here, um, but it is true. And so you do have that sickle. We see, see it from Zechariah, we see it in Revelation. That represents Judgment Day and we see them hurl sickles around and this is symbolic of Judgment Day.
Speaker 1:And if we were more technical, this is stuff that would be very apparent to us. Great stuff, I mean, there's so much we could say. If you get his book you'll find out. There's all sorts of stuff in there about the celebration of michaelmas, but it's that strength of so we've thought a lot about angels and got our heads around the idea of the angelic, uh, the order of of angels and how the all the heavens are divided up and there's responsibilities given to the angels, but really we wanted to concentrate it on the feast of michaelmas, of the archangels is really very practical. So in a way we were thinking all over the place in the kind of trying to expand our vision to what the? The kind of vision that the bible contains within it and all that big vision of angels and the divine civilization and everything.
Speaker 1:But actually our church ancestors, when they created the concept of Michaelmas, it was very practical and trying to say to people listen, there is a harvest coming, just as year by year we harvest our crops coming, just as year by year we harvest our crops. And there's the lord is preaching to us through the seasons and jesus is saying see how a seed goes in, dies, rises and grows up to a resurrection body. And then he says now follow, there's more lessons to learn from plants, as that plant grows and then will give a harvest and then then it dies off and then that it can be thrown away and burned up, and all that. There's lessons to learn from seeds and plants all the way through to its harvest and even what happens to it after its harvest, and all that kind of thing. Or there's theological lessons, and it's very easy for people, if we only buy our food in cans and plastic packets, to be so disconnected from the reality of the world and the way the lord actually governs the world that we can fall into ridiculous theology and we don't even ever, we don't really think about the harvest all the time the way that Jesus does, the way the prophets do, that in the Bible there's a constant awareness that the day of the harvest is coming. So Michaelmas is there to drive that home to us and remind us that, these archangels to us, and remind us that these archangels, jesus has delegated responsibility to them, and he talks about these angels that will come and harvest or gather up the elect from the corners of the world, and so on. That day is real and it's coming. And I want to just end this time by just reading this little bit from Revelation 14.
Speaker 1:From Revelation 14, and it's from verse 15, where it says take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
Speaker 1:And then it's a kind of repeated that again there's another angel who had the charge of fire, and we know who that is. Who's that one again uriel, uriel, charge of fire. We think it's uriel, and he calls in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle. So there's another one who has the sickle. Take your sharp sickle and gather the cluster of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe. And then the angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great wine press of God's wrath. Wow, the intensity of this. I can see why many churches decide not to do Michaelmas, because they prefer an anemic kind of religion that has no judgment day, has no wrath of God, has no blood of atonement and all the rest of it. But we who are trying to be serious about a Christ-centered cosmic civilization? For us Michaelmas is a vital part of the church year.