Sermon manuscript:
This Sunday of the Church Year is a little different from
what we normally concern ourselves with on the other Sundays. On the other
Sundays we are mainly concerned with something that happened with Jesus—his
birth, his baptism, his death and resurrection, his teachings, his miracles,
and so on. This puts our mind back in biblical times. With Reformation Sunday,
however, we are dealing with things that happened in the 1500s and the times
since then in the Lutheran Church. It can seem a little inappropriate to talk
about the Reformation or the Lutheran Church in a worship service. Shouldn’t we
be talking about the Bible instead?
But this is an incorrect way of looking at being a
Christian. We are not a Bible appreciation society where we celebrate all
things bible merely for the sake of being about the bible. The Bible was never
intended to be something for its own sake. It has always been for the purpose
of faith in God, with love that follows after by the Holy Spirit’s healing of
the sinful heart. This happened when God spoke to Adam and Eve before there
even was a Bible. The earliest books of the Bible were written by Moses
thousands of years after Adam and Eve lived. But between Adam and Eve and Moses
there were generation upon generation of people who believed in Christ even
though they did not have any of the books of the Bible that we have today.
And so you can see that the story of there being Christians is
larger than the portion of that that the Bible records. The plot of this story
is the way that the Word of God fares among a people. God’s Laws and promises
are either known or unknown, believed in or rejected, and thereby people either
believe in Jesus Christ or they do not. This story was in effect from the
beginning. It also continues on after the death of the apostles when the last
of the Scriptures were written.
This story has to do with the Christian Church as a whole as
well as with individuals. Therefore this story includes the controversies in
the early church about the two natures in Christ that resulted in the Nicene
Creed. It includes the rise to power of the Roman bishop, also known as the
pope. It includes the way that God fashioned a German monk named Martin Luther to
be an instrument for reforming his Church. Therefore it is not inappropriate to
talk about the history of the Reformation in Church. It is God’s church that
was reformed in the Reformation.
And we could also speak of more recent history, the history
that brings us up to our present time. Not long after the Reformation the European
churches were corrupted and suppressed by the governments in Europe. Some
energetic and godly Lutheran men and women left Europe and settled in America
in the 1800s. They made use of the freedom of religion afforded them at that
time. They worked hard and sacrificed, developing and funding parochial schools
to galvanize our people in the rediscovered truths of the Lutheran Confessions.
But this has not been maintained. Our people have lost their zeal. Our
parochial schools have closed. We have been going after other gods such. We are
in need of repentance and renewal.
And finally this story comes right down to each of us
personally. How has the Word of God fared with each one of us? Have we let it
have its way with us so that we love it, speak of it, promote it and defend it
against all nay-sayers? Or have we let it go in one ear and out the other? Have
we become hard and calloused to it so that we neither fear God’s threats nor
are comforted by his promises? Will we pluck up the courage to help our nearest
and dearest to continue to believe in Christ? Will we denounce and speak
against our nearest and dearest when they live in rebellion against God’s Laws
and promises and are thereby plunging headlong into hell?
The answer to these rhetorical questions, unfortunately, is
that things are not good with us. It is as Jesus says, that we have lost our
saltiness. And if we have lost our saltiness, then we are good for nothing. We
should be thrown out on the manure pile. We are good for nothing, because the
purpose of life is not to have the most fun or make the most money. These
things rot and disintegrate in the use of them. The treasure in heaven is to
know the love of God that surpasses understanding in the crucified and
resurrected Jesus, who is God’s own Son.
And so the story of God’s people is much larger in scope
than the Bible. All history is sacred history. Each individual life is a story
of God’s Word being either taken to heart or rejected. Each congregation is a
story of the lives of those individuals brought together into a community. So
it is also with a larger church body, such as a district or a Synod. What we do
individually and what we do together as a Church body have eternal
consequences, for our grasp on God’s Word always is either getting stronger or
weaker. We are either growing in our love for the world, and becoming
embarrassed by what God says; or we are growing in our conviction of God’s
wisdom being right, no matter whether someone might call us names like fool or
bigot or misogynist.
The vast history of Israel that is recorded for us in the
Old Testament is very instructive in this regard. Reading this history is very
dull unless you understand yourself to be just like them. Then you can
understand why the Israelites were tempted to follow after idols, to bow to
human powers rather than believing in what God had said, and all the other
foibles that afflict us every day if only we would open our eyes to see them.
God punishes disobedience and sin, even though it seems to
us like our lives are better or easier if we forsake God’s Word. God blesses
obedience to his Word, even though almost always that blessing is under the
cross so that it looks like we are dying, but behold we live. The weakness of
God is stronger than the strength of men. God’s foolishness is wiser than the
wisdom of men.
Having this perspective, where the kingdom of God is the
real substance of all history, is necessary for correctly understanding the
Reformation. There are a lot of interpretations of the Reformation that are out
there. Some make Martin Luther out to be a genius. Some see him as a forerunner
to democracy or modern thought. Some see him as breaking the political power of
the pope. Martin Luther himself would have been totally uninterested in all of
these things. He saw himself as none of these things. Luther’s concern was
quite simple: He wanted to be a child of God. As a child fo God he wanted to be
faithful to what God had revealed. With God’s name being hallowed, God’s
kingdom would be furthered. People would repent of their sins and believe in
Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Repentance and faith in Christ was Luther’s main, indeed,
his only concern. Whatever else might have happened intellectually or
politically or socially was all incidental or in service to this concern for
people’s souls. All the other talk that might happen in regards to the
Reformation is trivial, even though the whole world was thrown into turmoil by
Luther. For even if all aspects of human life were changed by the Reformation,
it doesn’t matter in the end. The earth will melt as it burns together with all
that is on it. Only human beings, made in the image of God, are eternal. All
people and each individual will either live under God’s curse and punishment in
hell, or under God’s blessing for the sake of Christ the crucified.
As the church that is named after Martin Luther, repentance
and faith in Christ must remain our sole concern. This sets us at odds with
almost everybody around us, for the modern world has moved on to what they
imagine to be greater concerns. It is thought that we have outgrown this
mythical worldview where God’s only-begotten Son could become incarnate or
redeem anybody by his sacrifice on the cross. Instead, so-called “progress” is
striven after in all areas of human life. It is believed that we can advance
ourselves by our own cleverness, our own compassion or tolerance, to bring
about a new day. Anybody who has their eyes open to the stupidity and meanness
that every day confronts us should be able to see the foolhardiness of this,
but it is without doubt what almost everybody believes regardless.
This opposing view, that believes in human goodness and
progress, is certainly not limited to secularists, atheists, agnostics. This
viewpoint is found within the organization of the church as well. The
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the ELCA, shares the name “Lutheran,”
but only continues to endorse more and more wickedness. Whatsoever the world
should find objectionable, you can count on the ELCA to endorse it. This church
body will no longer even say that salvation is through Christ alone, according
to the resolution that was passed at its last convention by over 90% of the
delegates. It is the pressure from the unbelieving world that has brought them
to this point.
For a long time the Roman Catholic Church has been our
friend when it comes to moral and social issues. They have stuck by many of the
old biblical teachings while the modern world has come to fight them. However,
just this past week, it has been discovered that pope Francis supports the
formation of so-called “families” with civil unions for homosexuals. This
obviously is just the first step in fully endorsing this lifestyle that the
Bible calls abominable, but which modern society celebrates in fulfillment of
the Apostle Paul’s prophecy at the end of Romans chapter 1.
With all the opposition from within and without it appears
that the future of those Christians who continue to work for repentance and
faith in Christ will be lonelier and more violent—not that the violence will be
done by Christians, but rather that they will be punished for their views that
are regarded as antiquated. If we are not prepared for this future, then we
will at best be silent, not wanting to make waves, or at worst, we will go
along with the rest of the world in celebrating wickedness.
Although we must be prepared for the cross that we must now
endure, and although it appears that it will only become heavier and more
severe, we also have no need to fear. As Paul says, “the weapons of our
warfare are not of the flesh but have the power of God to tear down strongholds.”
Every high and exalted thing will be brought into subjection to Christ. It is
like Luther says in his hymn, “A Might Fortress,” although the world should be
filled with demons, and Satan himself should fume and rage against us, the
victory has been won, the kingdom ours remaineth, for Christ is by us on the
plain with his good gifts and Spirit.
The world believes in itself and its own solutions, but, at
best, they only work in part. God has given us his grace that actually does
work. The world works day and night to undo the curse of death and all that
leads up to it. Drugs and plans and technologies are developed, but they all
fail. We have the resurrection from the dead in Christ. One day we will live
and never die.
Or the world falls all over itself to justify every fault,
even sinful inclination. Everybody says that everybody’s okay because that was
the way that they were born. Greed, disobedience towards parents, parents
antagonizing their children, meanness, lust, homosexuality, bestiality,
fornication, divorce—all these things that you have been guilty of—the world
can say all together every moment of every day that all of this is just fine.
They can celebrate it until the cows come home. None of it is thereby
justified. There is only one justification that does that—and that is the
divine justification God’s own Son worked for us. Everybody else is lying. He
alone speaks the truth. Nobody’s sins are forgiven otherwise. Only faith in
Christ justifies.
We do not hate people when we tell them that they are
sinning. We do not hate people when we warn them that unless they repent, they
will be punished by God now and eternally. This is the loving thing to do. It
is the helpful thing to do. The world tells them lies. Everybody’s flesh,
including our flesh as Christians, find these lies comforting. The only problem
is that have no power to save. We have the true words that have the power to
make people children of God and to give them the Holy Spirit.
This is our fight today. Luther had his fight in his day where
people were prevented from repenting and believing in Christ. We have our own
today, and it is no less hard or important. Luther taught us in his catechism
to pray that God’s Name would be hallowed and that his kingdom would come. We
must pray these petitions today just like he did. Then we may see the same
power of God that brought about goodness 500 years ago bring about goodness
also among us today.
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