What IS Michaelmas (and why make a “Dragon Pie”)?

20 September 2024 All news and happenings, Upcoming events

September 29 is Michaelmas, more formally called “the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels.” This year, Michaelmas falls on a Sunday and — since any Sunday the 29th will alwas be a fifth Sunday — our worship will take the form of Hymns and Lessons. The archangel Michael is mentioned three times in the Bible: in Daniel, Jude, and Revelation. The last of these, Revelation, is an parable that depicts Christ’s victory over sin and death on our behalf as an epicbattle between heavenly forces of Righteousness, and corrupt forces of Evil. The readings for the Michaelmas Hymns and Lessons alternate back and forth between the allegory in Revelation, and the corresponding Gospel story of salvation. The Revelation readings end with Revelation 19:1-0, the victorious wedding supper of the Lamb. Correspondingly, the final Gospel reading is Matthew 28:16-20, proclaiming Christ’s authority in heaven and earth with which we are sent out on His Great Commission.

As always, everyone is invited to coffee and snacks after the service. There’s a special treat we make for Michaelmas: a pie in the shape of a dragon. In Revelation, the dragon is a metaphor for evil and temptation. It’s not just the forces of heaven that fight against evil. Christ’s people continually find themselves battling temptation, represented in Revelation by the dragon’s attacks following its fall to earth. On Michaelmas, we get to act out that battle with a delicious twist: battling the dragon with our forks and teeth.

Baking the Dragon, and decorating it with sliced-almond scales and candied-cherry eyes, is a fun activity that even quite small children can participate in. On Saturday 28 September at 10am, we’ll be gathering in the church kitchen to bake the dragon that will be served on Sunday. But you can also bake your own dragon. Our fellowship director, Pamela, will demonstrate the process, and will have extra ingredients on hand for you to try it. Or you can dl it at home. It’s surprisingly simple to create the basic dragon shape: you roll out a long triangle of pastry, pile apple-pie filling down the centre, fold up and pinch together the two long sides, and pinch along the bottom of the narrow filled triangle. Then use scissors to cut triangle spines along the centre seam, and decorate as you please. Fun family activities like this are an important part of helping young children grow up spiritually strong and scripturally literate. As you work together with your children, you can explain the meaning of the dragon and tell the stories from the Gospels of how Christ has conquered sin.

For more about St Michael and all angels, click here:

Michael appears three times in the Bible. In the prophecy of Daniel, we read:

At that moment Michael shall appear,
Michael the great captain,
who stands guard over your fellow-countrymen;
and there will be a time of distress
such as has never been
since they became a nation till that moment. (NEB)

In the letter of St. Jude we read:

when the archangel Michael was in debate with the devil, disputing the possession of Moses’s body, he did not presume to condemn him in insulting words, but said, ‘May the Lord rebuke you!’ (NEB)

And in Revelation, of course, we read the whole complex allegory of “War in the Heavenlies”, which includes the passage:

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels waged war upon the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they had not the strength to win, and no foothold was left them in heaven. 9 So the great dragon was thrown down, that serpent of old that led the whole world astray, whose name is Satan, or the Devil—thrown down to the earth, and his angels with him. (NEB)

So we know that Michael is an “archangel“. “Arch” means “over”, and “angel” means “messenger”. So Michael is a power that wields authority over God’s messengers. The name “Micha-El” means “Who is like God?”. The syllable “El”, which appears in many common names including “Rachael” and “Elizabeth”, is the singular form of the word “Elohim” that we find referring to God in the book of Genesis. Three other angels named in scripture are Gabriel (“My strength is God”), Raphael (“Healed by God”), and Uriel (“Illuminated by God”) — all ending with that distinctive “el”. For centuries, readers of scripture have speculated over the nature of angels and the precise role of archangels. Artists from mediaeval times to the present have invented fanciful depictions of angels, that have found a place in the popular imagination about what angels look like and what they are. But, it is important for us whose authority in all things spiritual is the Bible, to acknowledge that those depictions, lovely as they are, do not reflect any description from the Bible.

Biblical angels often look like ordinary people. At Jesus’ tomb, the women report seeing a “young man” sitting with the folded graveclothes. When Jesus ascends into heaven, the disciples see “two men in bright white robes.” In the story of Abraham entertaining three angels at his camp near the Oaks of Mamre, Abraham welcomes the angels as ordinary travellers and Sarah laughs at their unlikely blessing. Sarah certainly would not have laughed if they had appeared with wings and a halo, strumming on harps! In other places where the Bible describes angels with a supernatural, their appearance is far less ordinary than the medieaval depictions: Isaiah has a vision of angels with six wings; Ezekiel sees angels with four wings and four faces covered all over with eyes; and Daniel describes an angel with a translucent stone body and a face made of lightning.

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