TITLE: “On the Freedom of the Christian”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for the Festival of the Reformation is from John chapter 8, with focus on the words, You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

The pope is declaring saints left and right, and showing how praying to and venerating them will get you in good with God. Bishops and church leaders abuse their power by preying upon the helpless and engaging in immoral acts with adults and others less able to defend themselves. Islam threatens the borders and offers both a spiritual challenge to the Christian and a military challenge to countries the world over. And Christians, in the name of freedom, believe they can make up their own laws about how to live and who to be, rather than hearing and staying connected to the Church of all Ages and the Word of God. There is a sense of fear in some, and blind ignorance in others of the dangers from within and without.

That is a description of two different times, five hundred years apart and yet strangely connected. It could be a description of the time of the Reformation almost five hundred years ago, when Martin Luther re-discovered the Gospel. He looked at the Pope’s use of indulgences and the so-called merits of the saints, and reckoned that the church had forgotten about Jesus and His work on the cross. He looked at the moral abuse in the clergy, that pastors the world over were mocked and ridiculed for their ignorance of the Scriptures and for their immoral lives. Luther saw the dangers facing Christendom in Islam, which was a threat to her very life as a church physically and spiritually. He also saw the Reformed and the radicals, with their denial of the Word of God alone and their own made-up spirituality, as threatening the very foundation of the faith itself.

But this could also be a description of today. Rather than looking to Christ and clinging to His Word of forgiveness, the Roman Church today looks to earthly leaders like the Pope or Mother Theresa as their source of strength and life. The Episcopal Church has openly homosexual bishops, and it is not far removed in places even closer to home, like the ELCA. Plus pop Christian churches all over try to present a Christianity lite, which doesn’t have all of that old talk like sin and forgiveness. We want a happy Christianity, not one that is bogged down with such old fashioned ideas.

Things, dear friends, are not so different today than they were so many years ago. But one point remains, when we talk about Reformation, that is often forgotten. When Luther nailed the Ninety Five Theses onto the door of the castle church at Wittenberg, he did so by critiquing his own church, not someone else’s. There is a great temptation on a day like Reformation Day to take pot-shots at other churches. We Lutherans can easily engaging in Catholic bashing, or reformed or Episcopal bashing, or whatever the other religion of the day might be. It’s tempting, it can even be cathartic or fun, but that, dear friends, is not what the Lutheran Reformation was all about. The first of Luther’s nine-five theses goes like this:

When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent",He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance (Theses one of the Ninety-Five Theses).

Reformation begins at home, always. Reformation begins right here, at Messiah Lutheran Church, right here, in your own heart. Reformation for us means Law and Gospel. It means looking at yourself through the eyes of the Law and seeing that you do not deserve God’s mercy. It means looking at yourself through the eyes of the Gospel and seeing that God forgives your sins and gives you His grace freely, out of love.

How do we at Messiah Lutheran Church need reformation? Well, that’s a very good question, and one worth considering. Let’s ask it a different way. In what ways do we in our common life together put the Law first and not the Gospel? It what ways and places do we forget Christ and His work of forgiving our sins, and put our own priorities and agendas first? In what ways do we forget that we are Lutheran and allow other concerns to become more important?

But perhaps even more importantly, how do you forget who you are and allow the things of this world distract you from Jesus? How is it that you personally are tempted to live by the Law and works rather than the Gospel and faith?

If we listen to St. Paul at all, his message is very clear that we are incapable of keeping God’s Law. That is what troubled Paul, that’s what troubled Luther, and that is what should trouble you. By the Law is the knowledge of sin. You should look at your sins and recognize that in them you are in great danger. For sin separates from God. Sin destroys. Satan is always at work, trying to draw you away from God and to his tyrannical clutches.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ Church is always in need of Reformation because we are always sinners. But Christ, in His mercy, continues to forgive your sins and give you His very body and blood as a seal and guarantee of His wondrous love. For Reformation, just like repentance, is actually Christ’s work, not yours or mine. That, more than anything else, is the gift of the Reformation.

What will the future hold for Christ’s Church militant, here on earth? We don’t know, of course. But you can be sure that Satan will continue to try to tear you away from Christ’s body and blood. But just as sure as that is, how much more sure is the love of God for you! He who spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things?

As you and I live our lives under the Gospel, struggle with how to raise our families, keep our jobs, and stay with our friends, it is so important that we cling to what is the most important first of all. Cling to Christ, dear friends! Perhaps our sermon hymn expresses it the best:

Since Christ has full atonement made And brought to us salvation,

Each Christian therefore may be glad And build on this foundation

Your grace alone, dear Lord, I plead, Your death is now my life indeed,

For you have paid my ransom (LW 355:4).

Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.