Brothers and sisters,
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and
our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
What is Reformation Sunday all about? One word that
is frequently associated with the Reformation is freedom. But the freedom
associated with the reformation of the church is not the kind of freedom that
you might be thinking. You see in American public life we do like to celebrate
freedom, but it’s a freedom for yourself; a freedom to do what you want, to
pursue your vision of the American Dream, or what have you. But the freedom
that defined not only the reformation, but really our life as Christians is
freedom from ourselves; freed from the law, freed from sin, freed from our
complete inability to be righteous.
We cannot
properly appreciate this freedom separated from what our Lord Jesus says of the
human heart: For out of
the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false
witness, slander. The spirit
of the reformation can be heard not, first and foremost, in a quote from Martin
Luther but in something Paul wrote in the lesson from Romans for today For by works of the law no human being will
be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. In this passage Paul is declaring to us that
our only source of and hope for righteousness is Christ, and the immediate
basis for this claim from Paul comes right before this passage where Paul cites
Psalm 14 which says “None
is righteous, no, not one; 11
no
one understands;
no one seeks for God.
And so since our only hope for
righteousness is Christ then the law does nothing to make us righteous. Jesus
is the only One who has ever fulfilled the law perfectly. Our only hope for
righteousness is His righteousness. The law does not show us how to be
righteous, it shows us how righteous we are not; as Paul writes in Romans 7… Yet if it had not been for the
law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet
if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
At the
time of the reformation there were false-gospels that professed a
false-righteousness. Rather than properly pointing to Christ these false
gospels do what all false gospels ultimately do; just bring sinners back to
their sinful selves. One such false gospel was taught by a man named Erasmus
who taught that sinners can choose to believe through the power of their will;
which would be a denial and rejection of our sinful nature and the reality that
we are born dead in our trespasses and sin. It is only by the power of the Holy
Spirit who comes to us in the Word of Christ that we are able to believe. You
see when you think that faith comes through the power of your sinful will then
what do you do when you experience doubt and unbelief? You try to will yourself to believe, so you would
look for faith in your self, in your heart. But we know from the words of our
Lord Jesus that out of the heart comes all sorts of sin, so going deeper within
yourself just leads you away from Christ and toward unbelief and despair.
Another
false-gospel came from John Tetzel who was an indulgence preacher. An
indulgence was said to be a remission of temporal punishment due to sin. An indulgence
was obtained by giving money to the church. And in Luther’s time it was taught
that by purchasing indulgences one could reduce the amount of time in purgatory
for yourself or a loved one. It was a form of works-righteousness but with
money; and like all forms of works-righteousness, a complete denial of our
sinful nature.
And today we see these same sorts of
false-teaching re-packaged in different forms but every bit as futile and
deadly. People are taught that sinners can save themselves by saying a certain
prayer or going through a certain ritual. Others reject the purpose of the law
to reveal our sin by essentially denying the reality of sin. We see this in the
emergent post-modern movement which essentially teaches various forms of
universalism-the false gospel that all will be saved regardless of what they
believe. Both of these are rejections of the Word of Christ and are simply
re-packaging of the same false-gospels and heresies that the church has always
contended with-during Luther’s time and before, and they all drive sinners away
from Christ and back into themselves.
But God
calls sinners away from ourselves in repentance to acknowledge our sin and to
live our whole life humbly in repentance. In the first of his 95 theses Luther
wrote When our Lord and Master, Jesus
Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of believers to
be one of repentance. When you look to Christ in repentance you see the One
who has taken your sins from you and bestowed unto you His righteousness which
you receive in faith. So Peter writes that Christ is
patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should
reach repentance.
Daily
repentance is daily turning from yourself and your sinful nature and turning to
Christ and His righteousness. Remembering the reformation is celebrating the
gift of God’s righteousness given to you by the sacrificial death of Christ
Jesus for you. Jesus does not merely tell you how to be saved but He is your
salvation, He is the One put forward on your behalf to show you God’s
righteousness that you would receive it by faith.
Both the
old and the new testaments bear witness to this. And you can see that it is the
will of God that you continually hear and cling to this promise in the words of
our Lord Jesus who promises that if you abide in His Word you are truly His
disciples and the truth will set you free. Jesus is not making abiding in His
Word a work here, rather He is making a promise. It is as if He is a doctor
prescribing a medicine. The medicine is of no use if you don’t consume it.
And so the
Word of Christ; the law and the prophets are just words in a book if you do not
abide in them. And so how do you “abide” in the Word? For one thing, this is
why we have Christian education; Sunday School, confirmation, bible-studies.
You also abide in His Word through regular worship attendance. And of course
you can abide in His Word by spending time in the Word, reading the scriptures
yourself. This is not new. You have heard about the importance of all of these
things before, but what you need to know today is that all of this stuff;
worship attendance, Bible-studies, confirmation is not just about keeping our
doors open but rather they are given to each Christian for their spiritual
survival.
Abiding in
the Word is the exact opposite of abiding in yourself. Abiding in the Word is
abiding in the truth; the truth that you are a sinner and that Christ Jesus is
your Savior. Abiding in yourself is to abide in futile attempts to strive
toward your own righteousness. To abide in truth is to confess your sins and
count on Christ Jesus for forgiveness and salvation. To abide in yourself is to
abide in bondage to sin, death and the devil. To abide in truth is to abide in
the Savior who knows you and shapes you and forms you and frees you to your
neighbor and creation. Abiding in yourself is to abide in the devil who wants
to take your life. Abiding in the truth is to abide in Christ Jesus who gives
you eternal life by giving Himself unreservedly and abundantly.
The
reformation was not a re-invention of the church or Christianity. It was a
re-discovery and restoration of the faith once for all delivered to the saints
built on the truth that sets sinners free. And the knowledge of your sinfulness
is an important part of this truth for it declares that you cannot free
yourself from what you are. Jesus says that the sinner-which is you and me and
all of us- is a slave, bound to our sinful natures. Slaves cannot free
themselves. They can only be freed by someone else.
Jesus declares Himself to be the way and the truth and the life. The
truth that frees sinners is not a theory nor a philosophy it is the incarnate
Son of God as the fulfillment of God’s final and saving and freeing promise to
you. The promise is nothing less than true and eternal life in God’s Kingdom;
the promise of being in the constant and joyous presence of our Savior and
Lord. And what do you do to earn this?
You don’t. If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. And the
Son has set you free. By His death on the cross for your sins, you are free
indeed!
Today on reformation Sunday we do not celebrate a sinful person, though
we would do well to thank God for His servant Martin Luther. Today we thank and
praise our Lord Jesus for redeeming us from sin, death and the devil; for
giving us everything for nothing, for taking us from captivity to ourselves and
into the glorious and spiritual freedom of the children and heirs of God.
With no merit on your part Jesus declares
you free and loose from sin through the words of absolution, you hear the
Gospel of salvation in Christ and you are freed, and soon you will witness the
power of the Word of Christ, making ordinary bread and wine the bearers of
nothing less than the body and blood of our Lord Jesus. God’s righteousness
given to you in Christ is the essence of what the reformation is about. The
redemption you receive from Christ brings God’s righteousness. Christ Jesus is
the object of our faith and the earner of grace. Look to Him, trust in Him,
Abide in Him, and be free.
Amen
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