Angelic hosts celebrating

The apocalyptic visions that come out of the scriptures can be somewhat overpowering and leave the modern person with a question "What on earth were these people smoking?" to give them such stupendous visions (Ezekiel 1.4-12; Rev. 12.7-12; Dan 7.9-10, 13-14). Most likely younger generations may want to find a similar experience through the use of what we now fear synthetic and man made drugs. Some may even be driven towards more natural substances such as marijuana, peyote, etc. All of these natural substances have cropped up in religious induced ecstasies of one sort or another through out history. So the question with regards the visions of the scriptures is not such a poor one after all. Can we afford to dismiss these as the ravings of a drug induced mind or are they something that we need to pay attention to and celebrate?

In esoteric literature through out the Western world and indeed with variations through out the world there is an understanding of the fight against the good and the evil. Even when we look at books that are grounded in fiction many of them that deal with the esoteric borrow and expand on this suppressed mythos. We can perhaps see it in the Star Wars franchise or even in the books of people such as Katherine Kurtz  and others. The whole perspective is shifted into a glorious technicolor vision of the unending battle that we as humans participate in at one level or another. In the scriptures it is the glorified Son of Man who is the hero or the Archangel Michael and his angelic host who is celebrated in the Church's calendar. In typifying the hero we are able to raise our hopes towards the eradication of evil and evil intent within our lives. Our goal is not apocalyptic destruction of the earth but rather the apocalyptic destruction of evil and its consequences. We are shown the archetype in the lost heroes of mythology and cinematic glory but it is we who need to personify that archetype in the conduct of our lives.

In the absence of God we descend into instant gratification and chaos

What we term evil / corruption etc. is our understanding of how we should behave towards others. Christ is our path towards refining our own lives to live them in harmony with the understanding of good and evil. The rampage of  "evil" is allowed because we enable it in the way we live our lives in jealousy, hatred, etc. The visions that we read of in the scriptures is the undoing of this thinking. Their apocalyptic nature is a result of the apocalyptic devastation that occurs when we turn away from these darker aspects of our own lives. The explosion of emotion and turmoil that results in our lives as we turn towards or away from the darker aspects is enormous and impacts on the lives of those around us. As Christ followers we need to become aware of the enormous positive backlash that comes when a person changes their outlook from a negative one to a positive one. It is almost as if we are always on the search for the opposite and celebrate that each day. Our news headlines and our social media are always concerned about the negative not the positive.

Our lives should be like the prophets of old who had these visions. They took them as signs of the positive involvement of God in our midst. When the youth and not so young turn to the psychedelic dreams of synthetic drugs they close their minds to the reality of God's blessedness in their lives. In our chasing of the new or the vibrant in modern society we encourage others to devolve into our cultures happiness pill rather than to seek the glory of God. We celebrate Michael and the archetypal angelic host as they overcome the temptations to follow the short term highs of mortal synthetic hope for the longer term and greater high of God's presence in our lives. It is not the quick release but the longer effervescence of the Spirit's presence. This is more work for greater gain rather than the modern quick fix for an immediate but short high. Only when we realise that it is through constant contact with God that we find our greatest delights will we be able to put aside our short term solutions for a long term challenge.