“Michael!” the angel called. “Michael, where are you?”

 

Michael paused in his drill, his sword halted in mid-swing. “What is it, Gabriel?”

 

“It’s Jesus, Michael. You have to come see.”

 

Michael sighed and put up his sword. He didn’t have to physically put it away, but the archangel found it such a satisfying feeling to put away his sword after working out. He knew it was a strange affectation, like the humans would do, since all he had to do was visualize his sword where he wanted it, and it would be there. But still, the ching that the sword made sliding into its scabbard, and the solidity as he hung it on the wall, always comforted him. “I’m coming!”

Gabriel was standing at the gateway to the Kingdom, and his mouth was gaping. “Brother, you look like a fish,” said Michael. “What on earth is wrong?”

 

 

“I knew Jesus was getting people all riled up in Jerusalem,” Gabriel began. “But I didn’t know it had gone this far. Look, there, hiding in the crowd.” The archangel pointed at a man slinking through the throngs of people gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

Michael laughed. “Why, that’s none but Judas. You know, the Iscariot. He’s been with Jesus for years now.”

 

“I know that, Michael. But he’s not with Jesus now.”

 

“Oh, go back to your harp, you silly musician. He’s fine. Probably just buying more wine for the supper.”

“Michael, Jesus and the others are already at supper. He just told them that one of them would betray him, and then he sent Judas away. Watch, brother!”

Michael watched as Judas slipped into the house of the chief priest’s son. He heard the words, “Meet me in the garden. I will kiss the man, and this will tell you which one to arrest.” He saw Judas slide a small pouch into his robes before slinking back out into the crowds. The angel’s face began to glow, and then to burn fiercely as Michael’s anger turned to righteous wrath.

Gabriel watched Michael’s anger grow with increasing trepidation, until the fiery sword appeared in the archangel’s hands. “There is nothing we can do.”

“Why would say a foolish thing like that, brother?” Michael bit off the word.

“Jesus is God’s son. He is God. And you know we cannot act against God’s will.”

Michael laughed at this. “And you think it is God’s will for the son to be arrested by those blind idiots? They are not worthy for Jesus to so much as walk on their backs, and you want me to let them take him? They are blind and deaf and stupid, and I will cure them of all three!”

Gabriel gaped at his fellow archangel. “But brother,” he stammered. “You can’t.”

Michael’s voice turned soft. Low. Deadly. “Watch me, brother.” His sword flashed brilliantly, and the archangel had disappeared.

***

The sun had set over the streets of Jerusalem, and most of the Jews rested full and happy in houses. They had gathered to feast, and now they reveled in the joy, the togetherness with friends and family who rarely traveled to the city. The streets were mostly empty now as Michael strode through them, remembering once again how much more difficult human cities were to navigate from the ground than they looked from the Kingdom. None of the people who saw him make his way recognized him. Some saw him as a temple guard. To others, he appeared as a Roman centurion. Their feeble minds and blind eyes could not comprehend what was in their midst. An angel of God. An archangel, in fact. Defender of the Kingdom. And he was mad.

Michael heard a commotion ahead, several voices, some of them raised in argument. And though he could not hear Jesus with his ears, the words of the son were written on his mind and heart as soon as they were spoken. He quickened his pace, though a close observer might notice that only rarely did the archangel’s feet touch the ground.

“Go ahead, Judas. Just do what you’ve come to do.”

Michael rounded the corner to see Judas - that viper! - greet Jesus with an embrace and a kiss. Suddenly, the temple guards surrounded Jesus and grabbed him roughly by the arms. He drew his flaming sword and broke into a run, using the earth under his feet to propel himself to the son who needed him. He drew close and swung his sword, neatly severing the ear of one guard. The sword was so hot it cauterized the wound as it severed.

Jesus spoke words of command, “Stop this.” The fiery sword swung to a halt, and Michael could not raise it again.

“But, Jesus…”

Jesus shook his head at Michael, his steady gaze proof to the angel that Jesus recognized him for who and what he was. “This is not the way, my friend.” Michael gaped as Jesus picked up the guard’s ear from the ground and touched it to the side of the man’s head. The ear rejoined as if it had never been cut, healed perfectly by the power of the son of God. “My friends,” Jesus said. “I have been among you every day, teaching in the temple. Why do you come for me now, in the middle of the night? Why must you take me away with force, with swords and clubs? You should know that I will come with you wherever you ask.” And with great dignity, Jesus stepped forward, the guards settling in behind him, sensing his authority but not daring to leave him.

Michael found himself able to move again as Jesus walked away with his captors. He sheathed his sword, amazed at what he had seen. Then his eyes detected movement, and he saw the traitor Judas trying to slip away through the crowd. “JUDAS!” he roared, and followed the man.

Judas proved to be a slippery quarry, adept at finding groups of people to conceal himself in, and alleys and doorways that the angel knew nothing about. But Judas did not reckon with an archangel’s ability to find any human, anywhere. Michael had almost caught up with Judas at the doors to the temple, and he laughed to imagine the welcome Judas would receive in God’s house, after betraying God’s son to those snakes. But Judas did not even try to enter the temple. Instead, he leaned against the door, sobbing. Michael watched in growing frustration as Judas sagged and fell to the ground. He could not take retribution on this pathetic shell. What could he possibly do to Judas? He saw the traitor pull out the small pouch and dump the silver pieces into the box for the poor, and then run down the street. Michael closed his eyes. He knew what Judas planned, and he would not try to stop him. Instead, he had to find a way to get Jesus from the temple guards before they sent him to the Romans.

***

Gabriel watched his brother archangel with fascination. Michael was truly a wonder to behold, when he assumed his mantle as Defender. Gabriel did not know what was going to happen - none of the heavenly host had been able to predict what God was trying to accomplish with this son. It was so confusing to them. Bad enough that God had given humans the ability to make their own choices, the power to choose actions that were contrary to God’s will. But then God sent the son, and the son was God, but the son was also a human. The angels would argue incessantly about whether Jesus could choose an action that was contrary to God’s will. He never seemed to, but that did not mean he was not capable of making those choices. Gabriel had argued both sides, unable to remain decided one way or the other for very long, but had grown weary of the debate. Besides, he thought darkly, it wouldn’t be much longer before the son joined them in the Kingdom anyway. Unless Michael does something…

But Michael was finding himself frustrated at every turn. He found himself unable to reach Jesus. As the sun rose, the crowds thronged into the street, and the spectacle of a public trial and execution - right after the Passover - seemed to attract every last person in Jerusalem. Michael could feel that it was not God’s will for him to slice through the crowds of humans to get to the son. As if any human - any hundred humans! - could equal the worth of God’s son! Michael had never felt so constrained before. As the Defender, he was accustomed to straightforward battle. Demon? Meet sword. But this, this stymied him. How could he save the son, when all these others kept getting in his way?

What was worse, the archangel realized that he had not sensed the son’s words in hours. He feared the worst. Had the priests stoned him? Surely the agony of a stoning would have forced a cry from his lips, and Michael would have found him from it. Suddenly, he heard it. He heard Jesus say, “All of these words are yours, not mine. You say these things, but I do not. And yet, you condemn me for your own words.” Michael tried frantically to press through the crowd, but the people had joined as a mob, and even his angelic mien failed to intimidate them.

Just as he resolved to leave the ground and take wing to reach the son, he heard the man’s dramatic voice. “Fine! Take him then! But I wash my hands of this man’s blood. I will not take responsibility for his death. That belongs to you.” Michael saw the Roman wash and wipe his hands dramatically before re-entering his palace. The crowd roared all around him, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Michael felt their anger, and it filled him with wrath. He shouted, “Do you know what you are saying, you fools?” But the humans could not hear his voice. The mob had formed, and even the voice of an archangel - even the voice of the Defender of the Kingdom - could not be heard.

Then the Romans took the son and tied him to the post. There, they flogged him. Over and over, the soldiers struck him, jeering at him and calling him filthy names. Michael noted each soldier’s face, each soldier’s name. Oh, these men were marked for retribution! During all of this, Jesus did not make a sound. Michael well knew how weak the body of a human was, and he was astounded at how Jesus could endure this without any sound at all - not a scream, not a cry, not a whimper or moan. Many men died just from the flogging, but Michael already knew that worse was to come.

Soon enough, the soldiers cut Jesus down from the post and tied the cross to him. The march of the condemned prisoners began, the long walk up the hill so that everyone in Jerusalem could see how Rome repaid insurrection. Michael tried to take the cross from Jesus during the procession, but Jesus merely fell under its weight, hissing, “Leave me, Michael!”

“My Lord, I cannot,” Michael replied. “I know that this is not God’s will.”

“Is it not?” Jesus asked. “And how do you know?”

“Am I not here?” parried Michael. The guards knocked at Jesus with the butts of their spears, so Michael helped him back to his feet to continue the procession. “I will not leave you. You are the son. And I cannot allow these - these - vermin to crucify you!”

Jesus shook his head at the archangel. “Poor Michael. You still don’t know why I’m here, do you?”

Michael was taken aback by this. “Well, no. None of us do.”

“I’m here because I love these vermin. I love every one of them. And I’m making the death end now.”

“What? You can do that?”

“Not as you think. Men and women will still be born, and will still go to sleep at the end of their lives. But I am embracing them all now. I am bringing them all into the Kingdom. All of them. No more lambs slaughtered for sacrifices. No more birds or animals or sons like Isaac. I am the last sacrifice.”

“But Jesus, why?”

But then, the crowd swept them apart, and Michael was unable to rejoin the son. He found his pace slowing, until finally he had stopped. The archangel found himself in a garden, and he saw a cave ahead of him, the kind the wealthier Jews used for burial. Michael closed his eyes, trying to make the sight of the son struggling under the weight of a cross disappear from his mind. When he opened them, he saw the garden before him, but he also saw another image of the garden. Two women were there, their eyes red and puffy from weeping, and they were carrying ointments and cloths toward the cave. But in his dual vision, Michael saw the cave both with the stone in front of the opening and with the stone rolled to the side. He saw the women hesitate before entering the open cave. Then he watched them running back out again, dropping the ointments and cloths as they ran. They were shouting, but Michael could only see, and not hear. He saw a man appear in the other-garden, dressed as a gardener but shining as brightly as the sun. He knew immediately that this man was Jesus, but the women did not seem to recognize him. Suddenly one of them hugged him tightly, and then fell to his feet to kiss them and wipe them with her hair. And that was when Michael saw the holes in the son’s feet, blazing with fire as his sword did, and the holes in the son’s hands, also blazing with heaven-fire. He was confused, and he shook his head and then closed his eyes again.

Michael did not know how long he stood there in the garden, eyes closed, saying nothing. Suddenly he felt the world go dark around him, and he knew without a doubt that the son had died. Jesus was gone. The humans had killed God. The archangel felt the lack of Jesus’ presence like a hole in his body. He had failed.

***

At the moment Jesus died, every angel in the Kingdom felt the death of God. Gabriel found himself on his hands and knees on the ground, gasping for breath. He had known this was coming, but it was still so hard to conceive. Gabriel had to admit that he’d really believed Michael would rescue Jesus, would tear the guards and the soldiers to ribbons with his sword, would make Jesus king in Jerusalem as the people had prayed for so long. But now, the earth was so dark, and Gabriel couldn’t find Michael anywhere. He could no longer sense his brother, and this troubled him greatly. Had Michael done the unthinkable? Had the Defender of the Kingdom tried to act against God’s will, and been nullified from existence?

Gabriel watched the women as they quickly tended to the empty shell that had been Jesus. They only had a short time before sunset, so they were not able to fully prepare his body for the tomb. The archangel saw their faces, twisted with grief, and heard their laments, and he was surprised to find wetness on his cheeks. It was the first time an angel had ever wept, and Gabriel gave in to the sorrow, holding his face in his hands as his shoulders shook.

***

Time passed on the earth. Though Michael had seen the vision of Jesus returning to the garden, he did not know about the many times Jesus returned to his friends, speaking with them and sharing meals again like they had for so long. He wandered aimlessly, formlessly, through the world. He felt empty, useless. He was supposed to be the Defender of the Kingdom, but he had not been able to defend the King’s own son from the rabble. How could he return to the Kingdom after this failure? How could he resume his mantle as Defender, as leader of the hosts of the Kingdom? What would the other angels think? And how must God feel about Michael’s failure?

Finally, without realizing it, the archangel arrived back in Jerusalem. He saw some of the son’s friends out in the marketplace. They were telling stories about Jesus, and Michael laughed bitterly that these friends would dare to teach in the son’s name after abandoning him to be arrested and flogged and killed. Then something happened. There was a charge in the air, and Michael felt the presence of the King. A mighty wind rushed through the marketplace, and as the wind passed over the son’s friends, Michael saw flames appear over their heads. The Spirit of the King was upon them, but they did not realize it. Michael saw the people in the market stop, suddenly hearing the friends’ words in their own languages.

The wind turned, after sweeping through the market, and swirled around the archangel. It rushed around his feet, swirled around his legs, up his entire body. Michael breathed in deeply, filled with the Spirit of the King. And in that moment, he knew. He was not a failure. Michael was still an archangel, still the Defender of the Kingdom. He exhaled, and breathed the Spirit in again. The wind continued to swirl around him, and his face began to shine with the light of the Kingdom. As he exhaled, Michael was fully renewed, and the fiery sword appeared in his hands again, for the first time since Jesus had been arrested in Gethsemane.

And Archangel Michael, the Defender, saw the humans around him as the son did, and he loved them. He smiled at the crowd around him, at the friends of the son, at the people who marveled at their teaching. And in a blazing flash of the King’s glory, Michael disappeared and returned to the Kingdom.