Gabriel's Story - 19 November 2019

I'm changing the reference format to a date since it looks like Gabriel's story is catching on interest and might run into the hundreds of parts. I hope you are enjoying our journey!

Abaddon’s laughter filled the church. Gabriel stood, knees weak, stomach churning at the revelation. The fear he felt in the purple room over a year ago crept back in. It started in his gut, grew to his chest as his heart began to pound and his breath was harder to catch. When it reaches his head his mind began to race and he felt like his head would explode. The dizziness hit him hard and he reached for the handle on the door to steady himself. Gabriel closed his eyes tight as the light seared his pupils.

“Don’t be afraid, Gabriel.” The voice was barely audible, but it was there. After a year of silence, making Gabriel question his own sanity and doubt if the voice was really real, it was there. Why now? Why here, with Abaddon the tormentor only an arm’s length away?

Gabriel opened his eyes and stared directly into Abaddon’s soul. The pain in his head subsided and with it the fear that caused it. It retreated down his spine, returning to Gabriel the balance and stability it had stolen. His knees regained their strength and his stomach stopped churning. Gabriel had to have imagined it, but he saw the fear leap from the pit of his own stomach into Abaddon and when it did, the demon’s face turned from loathing and ridicule to first shock and then terror.

Only then did Gabriel notice the angel standing beside him, sword drawn. He saw another emerge from the wall that divided the foyer from the sanctuary and a third come from the shadows beside the Sunday school classrooms. The light from their swords washed away all shadow from the foyer as the angels and their light closed in on Abaddon from all sides. Then he heard the voice again, “Don’t be afraid, Gabriel, because I am always with you, even when you don’t hear me I am here.”

Abaddon tried to escape by bounding through the roof, but he was rejected and landed in a heap at Gabriel’s feet. It was like the building itself came alive and fought back against the demon’s mere presence, blocking his exit and confining him in the small foyer. Gabriel felt the angel physically touch him, move him laterally away from the demon’s hulk and up against the foyer’s doors. The angel’s touch was all at once comforting in its coolness and painful in its firmness.

Gabriel looked at Sean who stood calmly, whispering a prayer that Gabriel couldn’t hear. He saw demons rush the church from the outside, but they couldn’t get past the outer doors. Rejected, dejected, they watched in horror as their master lay motionless on the floor of the church, alone. He had sent his minions out with the parishioners presumably because he saw no threat in the church.

He didn’t hear the voice, but he felt it’s urging. He looked outside and saw Cathy sitting in her car, head bowed, mouth moving. He prayed, “Father, I know you’re with me. I know you are God and you are good and nothing that comes against me shall prosper.”

At the sound of Gabriel’s prayer Abaddon screamed a blood curdling sound and jumped to his feet, lashing out at the angels and Gabriel all at once. Gabriel saw the immediate terror and remorse on the demon’s face when he realized he had tried to strike the man he was forbidden to touch. As he continued his prayer uninterrupted the melee that ensued between the three angels and the commander of legions erupted in a violent display of swords and stone. Abaddon parried each angel’s strike with an iron fist of his own, avoiding injury and causing each angel to individually avoid more than one slash from his massive talons. Seeing the whole thing in slow motion, Gabriel was in awe of the angel’s coordinated attack, their calm demeanor, and their ability to move away from the razor sharp knives at the end of Abaddon’s fingers. He was equally appalled at the demon’s ability to counter every stroke by all three angels simultaneously, moving his head so fast that Gabriel lost focus on Abaddon’s face. At once he was struck by the realization that the angels’ wings didn’t move, didn’t flap, didn’t flutter as they stepped to strike and dodged the demon’s blows. Instead the angels seemed to will themselves one way and then another effortlessly, as if nothing physical in the church, or frankly on Earth, constrained them.

After what seemed like an eternity in battle the beast’s razor sharp talons struck home on the wing of the angel who had stood by Gabriel, tearing at the flesh and breaking the circle that enshrouded him. Gabriel saw the breech at the same time as the demon and without thinking or hesitation; he stepped in Abaddon’s way to block his exit.

Risking his very existence, Abaddon dove for the door despite Gabriel’s filling the void. He careened off an angel, slammed into and bounced off of Gabriel, and fell through the door causing it to shudder like it has been shaken by an earthquake. Once outside, Abaddon bounded quickly away from the church, cursing and snarling as he retreated down the street, around the corner, and out of sight. He left a trail of sulfuric ooze that dissipated into the air slowly, taking with it any evidence that the demon had been there.

Gabriel saw Cathy still sitting in her car and realized that he too was still praying, even though he couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying. It all sounded like gibberish. He also noted that he saw Abaddon strike him and bounce off his leg like it was made of stone, but he felt nothing. His clothes hadn’t moved as he was struck, nor did he feel the demon as its rotting flesh folded under the weight of the impact with Gabriel’s leg. It was like the two hadn’t made contact at all, even though Gabriel saw the effects of the impact on the demon with his own eyes.

He looked at the angel who had been struck and saw him favoring his injured wing. His sword was sheathed and he was holding the wing with his strong hand. Gabriel reached up and touched the wing, partly out of curiosity and partly out of uncontrollable instinct. His prayer continued and the angel’s wing mended, returning the heavenly host’s unadulterated beauty.

The angel nodded and all three bolted through the ceiling accompanied by a host of other angels Gabriel hadn’t even noticed standing around the church.

“They hide well.” It was Sean, walking towards Gabriel with his hand out. He grabbed Gabriel’s elbow and guided him to the pew that sat along the wall dividing the foyer from the sanctuary. “Rest.”

“Ok, what was that? And what’s going on?” Gabriel was truly confused. He hadn’t seen even the smallest hint of angels or demons since that first battle and now not only was he witness to one, but he felt the wind as the angels’ swords slashed through the air – and he’d been accosted by a demon no less. “I’m so confused.”

“At which part?” Sean looked again into Gabriel’s eyes, but his own face was a picture of confusion. He apparently wasn’t getting any help on this one.

Which part? What a great question. Gabriel didn’t himself know which part was the most confusing. Why today? Why not anytime over the last year? Why couldn’t he see them anytime, like now when he looked out the glass walls of the foyer into the neighborhood that he knew was populated by angels and demons? Why here? Why were they allowed to enter the church? Isn’t this holy ground? Where did he start?

Gabriel sat quietly as he gathered his thoughts. He was impressed by Sean’s patience with him. He ran though his list of questions and prioritized the ones he thought mattered and might help check off other questions. Once his list was populated, prioritized and ready, he asked what he thought was the most important question of the day.

“I forget where it says it, but I know the Bible says evil cannot be in God’s presence.”

Sean waited.

“So if the church is holy ground,” he used air quotes, “and if God is in His word that you preach from the pulpit, why are demons able to come into the church, sit in the pews and harass our congregants and not just blow up or dissolve or something?”

“That’s the most important question, isn’t it.” Sean nodded in agreement with Gabriel’s question and he tried not to chuckle at his depiction of demons blowing up like in a bad B movie. He also knew the answer.

“Gabriel, when you say, ‘holy ground,’ What do you mean?” He probed Gabriel’s understanding.

“Well,” he thought, “the church is supposed to be God’s home here on Earth, so, I guess I mean this building, the land owned by the church, and everything we have that we use to worship God.”

Sean’s shoulders slumped a little and he exhaled in what Gabriel thought was a sign of deep thought – or it could be deep disappointment. It was hard to tell. “What would you say if I told you your understanding of ‘holy ground’ was wrong?”

Gabriel thought about that for a moment. Could he really be wrong? Didn’t God tell Moses to take off his sandals because he was standing on holy ground and wasn’t that ground holy because God was there? If the church wasn’t holy ground, then what was? “Well, I guess I’d have to ask what made this place special if not for being holy?”

Sean didn’t answer right away. Instead he stared at the ground, breathed a couple of times, adjusted the prosthesis on his left leg, and then sat up straight. “Gabriel, there’s nothing special about this building or the land it sits on.” He waved his hands around signaling the entirety of the church’s property. “In fact, this building is no more significant to God than that bar across the street, except for…”

Gabriel snorted when he exhaled, then he thought about what Sean had just said. Abaddon ran down the street and around the corner, not straight into the bar across the street, which, in Gabriel’s opinion, was as close to hell on earth as the demon could have gotten. What made Gabriel think the house of God was holy ground except for…

“The people in it.” Sean and Gabriel said the words at the same time.

Gabriel looked out the window into the parking lot where Cathy had sat during the battle. She was gone now, but his memory of her praying remained. She was ‘people.’

“You hear me preach it a thousand times, but it doesn’t matter unless you understand it from the pit of your soul.” Sean stood and walked across the foyer as he spoke. “God’s church isn’t a place. It’s a people. Abaddon isn’t afraid of any place. He’s afraid of God’s people – and not because God’s people carry any significant skill or power,” when he turned Sean’s face was alight with enthusiasm, “but because God inhabits his people.”

He pointed to his chest – his heart.

Gabriel again thought back to what he saw during the church service and it started to make sense.

***~~~***

When he entered the foyer, Gabriel was stunned to find people milling about nonchalantly with demons and devils hand in hand. Some rode on parishioners’ shoulders while others hung from limbs. One stood at the door and blew smoke from his ethereal cigarette into the faces of men, women, and children as they walked into the sanctuary – the smoke billowed out and up on both sides of the divide. When he entered the sanctuary, he looked the demon in the eye, not understanding much of what he was seeing. The smoke burned his eyes and stunk of death.

The view from inside the sanctuary confused Gabriel even more. He saw angels standing in the corners and hovering close to the ceiling. A pair sat on the railing at the back of the church that separated the sound booth from the rest of the sanctuary. He could see their lips moving, but couldn’t hear their conversation. Two very large angels flanked the pulpit with their wings spread, touching in the middle and forming an echelon that made Gabriel think of the bullet proof barriers he’d seen at political speeches. Among the angels, demons mingled with the congregants. They didn’t address the angels and it didn’t seem to bother the angels that the demons were there. Gabriel frowned, thinking it was like the cartoon where Ralph the Wolf and Sam the Sheepdog clocked out after a day of work and walked home talking about the kids.

As Sean took his place behind the pulpit, centered on the protective angels, he started off with a prayer. Everyone in the room, angels, demons, and humans alike bowed their heads in reverence. How odd, Gabriel thought. When the prayer was over and the worship service began, the angels joined right in singing and clapping, but it was like a light switch for the demons who together, in unison, began screaming in parishioners’ ears, grabbing and pulling on clothes and poking at eyes and everywhere else. One young boy kept rubbing his ear every time the demon sitting next to him poked his long tendril-like finger into it. That got him admonished by first by his mother and then more sternly by his father. The demon looked at Gabriel and smiled.

But the scene wasn’t universal. A handful of parishioners sat unmolested. There were neither demons poking at them nor were there angels standing guard. They were just – alone.

“Not alone.” The voice inside spoke quietly. “Never alone.”