Reformation Day Observed –
October 26th, 2014 – John 8:31-36
In the Name of Christ Jesus +
In the Name of Christ Jesus +
What defines a Lutheran?
Here we are on Reformation Sunday, remembering how almost 500 years ago
Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg – it’s a time
for reflection, so what defines you?
What makes a Lutheran a Lutheran?
What makes this congregation different from all those other ones out
there? Is it merely that this is where
your grandma and grandpa went? Is it
merely that you’ve got a lot of German blood in your veins and they used to do
things here auf deutsch? Or do you even
think sometimes that you are a Lutheran because we Lutherans got it right,
unlike all those other folks? No. None of that is what defines a Lutheran. What shapes a Lutheran, what shapes you is
this: you not only can be, but often are wrong, and you know it. What shapes a Lutheran is the knowledge that
we need to repent, that we need to be reformed and reshaped by God.
Consider our text.
Here in the Gospel of John we have Jesus having a discussion with some
pious Jews who believe in Him – and yet, there comes a hiccup. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed
in Him, “If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know
the truth, and the truth will set you free.” A great statement, a famous one – the truth
will set you free. And yet, the reaction
of these folks is… off. They
answered Him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to
anyone. How is it that you say, ’You
will become free’?” And here the
trouble comes in. As a question – how
did you define a Jew? What made a Jew a
Jew? Too often they viewed things in
terms of their birth – we are children of Abraham. Sort of like saying “we’re good Germans”. They viewed their family lineage with pride –
same thing can happen today. But they
missed the point, they forgot who they were.
In fact, what they say here is utterly foolish. What’s their complaint? “We have never been enslaved to anyone!” They forgot who they were.
Think back to Exodus 20, where God gives the Ten
Commandments at Sinai. He doesn’t just
start with the first commandment – rather this is what God says to the Jewish
people: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery. You shall
have no other gods before Me.”
Who are you, Jewish people?
You’re the people that God rescued from slavery in Egypt – that’s
how you are defined. That’s your
identity, that’s why you celebrate Passover.
You are the people whom God rescued… rescued from slavery in Egypt, rescued from the Philistines by the hand
of judges and finally by David the King, rescued from exile in Babylon.
The Jewish people were constantly getting enslaved – in fact, even as
they speak these defiant words to Jesus, they were basically conquered and
enslaved to the Romans. And they should
have had no problem admitting they were enslaved – because they were the people
of the God who frees the slaves, who rescues them.
When Jesus brings up the idea of being set free, this isn’t
anything new. It’s all over the place in
the scriptures, it’s one of the major themes of the Old Testament. To “redeem” someone in the old testament was
to buy them out of slavery and set them free.
For a Jew to say “we’ve never been slaves to anyone” is as idiotic and
bizarre as an American on the 4th of July saying, “Independence?
Bah, we’ve never been under anyone’s thumb.” It is utterly stupid – I would say it makes
no sense… but it does. Just a very sad
sense. The Jews there who were talking
to Jesus forgot who they were in relation to God. Rather than seeing themselves as poor people
who often get into trouble but are rescued by God, they puffed themselves up,
they elevated themselves. We don’t need
God, we don’t need this truth to set us free, because we are great and good and
wonderful and don’t need any help from anyone, thank you very much.
Jesus responds to them.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house
forever; the son remains forever. So if
the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” No, you are slaves, you are slaves to
sin. And the same can be said of
us. I used to think when I was little
that if I just tried hard enough, maybe I could go a whole day without sinning. Yeah.
No, not going to happen.
Especially when you don’t define sin as just the big, gross bad
stuff. No, when we consider sin the way
the Scriptures do, when we consider that we are to be perfect as our Father in
Heaven is perfect – and not just perfect in what we do, but perfect in thought,
in word, as well as in deed. No, every
moment of every day, we are sinful, we are full of sin. Even this morning, sitting here in Church –
have we done this perfectly? No,
wondering minds, callous and cruel thoughts flittering in and out, distraction
and disdain. We see our sin. We know that we are sinful. And we know that this sin is something we
will have to struggle and fight against our entire lives – that’s Thesis number
1 of the 95 – “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent",
He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
That’s where we start.
The acknowledgement not just that we have happened to do some bad things
(but we’re better now), not just that we sometimes sin; rather, we are sinful,
full of it, and that as long as we live, every minute of every day, our entire
lives, we need to repent. That we, left
to our own devices, are wrong. We take sin,
our sin seriously. And that’s what
shapes and defines Lutherans. Our Roman
friends – The Church is never wrong, when the Pope makes the official decree
from the seat of Peter it cannot be wrong.
Or our Eastern Orthodox friends – when the bishops gather in council and
agree, they can never be wrong. Or the
folks in the various protestant denominations who think that if they just keep
growing in the Spirit they’ll stop sinning – It’s sad how often I’ll hear people
say that they don’t sin anymore. All a
denial of reality, all a denial of the fundamental problem. We poor, miserable sinners. And we can’t fix it.
“If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know
the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
We can’t fix it, but Christ Jesus can and does. This too is part of your identity as a
Lutheran – you are a sinner, but you are one who hears the Word of God, who
strives to remain in the Word. Why? Because that Word makes us to know the Truth
– and when we hear Jesus say “the Truth”, He’s not just talking about facts
that are correct and accurate. He’s not
just talking about being able to win at bible trivia or what have you. Just a few chapters later, Jesus says, “I Am
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” Do you want, O Christian, to be set free from
sin, do you want your sin forgiven, do you want everlasting life? Then there is only One who can do that – and
that is Christ the Crucified. Christ
Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, who sheds
His Blood for you upon the Cross – He alone, Christ alone can set you free and
free indeed. But How does Christ set you
free? He, Christ Jesus, is the Truth - “If
you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth,
and the truth shall set you free.” The
Holy Spirit takes the Word, the proclamation of Christ Jesus and His death and
resurrection for you, and with that Word He makes you to know Christ, and He
sets you free from sin. It all happens
by the Word of God. Just as in the
beginning all things are created by the Word of God, so too, in your life now,
forgiveness and salvation and eternal life are given to you by the proclamation
of Christ and Him Crucified, and we look no place else. As Hebrews proclaims, Let us fix our eyes upon Christ Jesus, “the
founder and perfector of our faith.”
Christ Jesus, who starts it and finishes it, the Alpha and Omega as
Revelation puts it, the beginning and the end, the all in all. Everything drives to Christ. The Word points us to Christ.
And yet, again, so many care little for the Word of God,
for the Word that points to Christ. It’s
what we just sang, “The Word they still shall let remain, nor any thanks have
for it.” People will ignore the Word,
they will ignore Christ. They will look
to their traditions, or to their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own
hearts – and sadly they often blame the Holy Spirit for the junk they spew
forth. So be it. That’s the way things have gone since the
fall – since we were first tempted away from the Word… “did God really
say”? But here is the reality for
you. God has come to you by His Word. That Word has been preached and is being
preached to you right now. God took
water and tied it to His Word of Truth and Life and washed you in it in His
baptism. He will take His Word and tie
it to Bread and Wine and give you His own Body that was crucified and His own
blood that was shed for you – and why?
Because He knows your sin, He knows your struggle, and He will not
abandon you to sin and death. Luther’s
hymn continues, “He’s by our side upon the plain with His good gifts and
Spirit.” He is with us now in this
battle plain of life, this constant struggle against sin, with us by His Word, by
His Sacraments, by the Spirit that makes us to hear and believe- I cannot by my own reason or strength believe
in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him – of course not, for everyone who sins
is a slave to sin… but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened
with His gifts of baptism and preaching and absolution and the Supper,
sanctified and kept me in the true faith.
He is by our side, now, even in the midst of this fallen world. And you know what – this world is hard and
ugly, and we ourselves often act hard and ugly too. We need not deny it, or pretend
otherwise. Why? And take they our life, goods, fame, child
and wife – though these all be gone – though everything in this life fall to
pot, though we be shown to be the poorest and miserable of sinners – our
victory has been won, been won by Christ Jesus.
The Kingdom ours remaineth. When
you abide, remain in Christ’s Word – there is nothing that can be done to you
or by you or against you which changes this truth. Christ Jesus is King, His Word is truth, He
is Truth, and He says you are free and forgiven in Him. The world, the devil, our sinful flesh always
strive to distract us, to tempt us, to lead us away from this truth, but God in
His mercy and the power of His Word and Spirit continually calls us to
repentance, makes us to repent, dare I say reforms us. That is what we celebrate this Reformation
Day – that though we often are wrong, Christ Jesus is always right and pure and
holy for us, and He is faithful and just to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. All glory be to God
alone – in the Name of Christ Jesus.
Amen.
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