Reformation
Day Observed – October 29th and 30th, 2016 –
John 8:31-36
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
Contradicting
Jesus is never a good thing. Really, it's not. That's pretty close
to lesson 1 that we learn – the meaning to the first commandment is
“We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” If we
are to trust God, then we certainly ought to trust His Word, let His
Word stand, let His Word tell us how things are and how they are
going to be. And yet, this is the core of what our sinful nature is
– it is an inherent distrust and disdain of God's Word – and so
as we observe Reformation Day today, we will give thanks to God that
He doesn't just let our sinfulness run amuck, but rather continues to
speak His Word of life to us, continues to grant us His Holy Spirit
that we would believe and have life and freedom in Him.
We see
an example of how human sinfulness works in today's Gospel lesson.
Our Gospel lesson really is a turning point in the Gospel of John –
it is the point where Jesus says something that is so “offensive”
and scandalous, that people decide that He must be killed. Listen to
the first verse again - “So Jesus said to the Jews who had
believed in Him...”
Do you see how John describes them? They had believed. They had
seen the signs and healings and believed in Christ. They had seen
the Feeding of the Five Thousand, and they believed. They even hung
around after He had said that He was the bread of life – when lots
of people left. Earlier in John 8, Jesus had talked about how He was
the Light of the World – these folks are good with that, they like
that. But then, Jesus says something that they just can't abide.
“If you abide in My Word, you are truly My
disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you
free.”
Doesn't seem so bad.... Here Jesus lays the groundwork for how the
Church is supposed to operate until He returns – we are to abide,
to live in, His Word. When we gather, when we discuss and study and
talk and plan and pray – all of that is to be centered in Christ's
good and gracious Word. And that Word is God's own truth, and that
Word sets us free. Free from sin, free from Satan, free from death
even. There shouldn't be any problem with this, right?
The
Jews who had believed, well, many of them had a problem. “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?'''
Fear,
love, and trust God above all things. Well, the problem is these
folks loved themselves quite a bit, they were full of pride and ego
and were just so sure of themselves. And so they protest – we're
not slaves, in fact we've never been slaves to anyone! Which may be
one of the dumbest things ever said in the Bible. First of all, they
are conquered people, controlled by Rome. So, yeah, don't get all
uppity about how free you are now. Second of all – they are Jewish
folks – they celebrate the Passover, which is what? The
celebration of God freeing them from slavery in Egypt. And besides
Egypt, don't forget the Babylonian captivity – where God's
deliverance leads to the festival of Purim. Or even you have
Hannakuh, which dealt with God's deliverance from the hands of a
Greek conqueror who had profaned the temple. Yes, the children of
Abraham have often been enslaved. Of course, there was the big one –
Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. The day where their sin was taken
away, where they were freed from sin. In fact, pretty much every
holiday that they had was a commemoration of being freed by God. And
Christ has come to be the true fulfillment of all of these holidays –
the true passover, the true gift given to the poor, the true feast,
the true light in the true temple, the true Lamb who takes away the
sin of the world. And yet, even with this history and worship so
focused upon God's deliverance, they instead are filled with pride
and arrogance. How dare Christ say that they need to be delivered!
So now, how do we hear today read this text? What do
we take from the story so far? Do we shake our heads at how terribly
they blew it? Do we jump to the times 500 years ago and shake our
heads at how terrible the medieval church had gotten (because as
anyone whose been in bible study the past few weeks while we are
looking at the history of the Reformation knows, it was a bit messed
up)? Do we in our own pride echo their Words and say, “Well, we've
never been that messed up”? Do we echo the words of the Pharisee
from the parable - “I thank God that I've never been so messed up
like these people.” We certainly ought not. Reformation is not
the celebration of “we're right and they are wrong” - it is the
day where we give thanks to God that He continually reforms us by His
Word, reforming and reshaping us in our own lives.
Consider
yourselves, my friends in Christ. Consider the world around us, the
day and age in which we live. Are we not surrounded by all sorts of
strange teachings and all sorts of wickedness? Was there pride and
ego in Christ's day – it's got nothing on the pride and ego we see
today! Was there bizarre teaching on the eve of the Reformation –
we've got bookstores full of crazy teaching! And all of this, and
our wealth, and our power, and our greed and passions and lust are
all swirling around us, all calling out to us to just forget Christ
Jesus, to ignore church and the hearing of God's Word, to just go off
and do other things. We are Americans, and we are well off and
comfortable – and often slaves to wealth, work, stuff, and trends.
Those are the idols the world pumps into our ears and our eyes
incessantly. If you don't believe me, simply look, listen – see
what it is that you get fed by the world this week. And we are
constantly battered by this.
“Jesus
answered 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.'”
Jesus is one to call a spade and spade. If you sin, then you are a
slave to sin. This is the sad and simple fact. And guess what?
Each and every one of you here has sinned, and as long as you are in
this life, you will still keep on sinning. Not that this is good,
not that this is okay. Not that we are to just go with the sinful
flow. No, we are called to fight against our sin, to struggle
against it. But here's the sad, harsh reality. I could preach til
I'm blue in the face, and you and I'd still be sinful folks who fall
into sin. We could try our hardest not to sin, and we might even get
one bad habit licked – but then something else would just pop up.
Do you see how stuck we are, how enslaved we are to sin. And the
reality is that at some point you are going to pause, look at
yourself and say, “I can't believe I did that... again.” That's
just how it is.
So
what do we do? Do we just ignore our sin and talk about our strong
points. Eliminate the negative and accentuate the positive? Well,
that doesn't really get rid of sin. Or do we try to do extra work on
the side to make our sin up to God? That's just digging ourselves in
deeper and deeper. That's why we sing, “With might of ours could
naught be done, soon were our loss effected.” No, it cannot hinge
upon us – rather, it must hinge upon Christ, and thanks be to God,
it does. Jesus says, “So if the Son sets you
free, you will be free indeed.”
As you go through your life, my friends, and as you see your sin pop
up and out in new and aggravating ways – don't hide from it, don't
pretend it's not sin, don't abandon all sense of right or wrong.
Rather this – look to Christ Jesus.
If
the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Consider this. At
your baptism, Christ Jesus made a promise to you. He declared that
all that He has done – His righteous life, His perfect obedience to
the Father – all that is yours. When the Father sees you, He sees
Christ's righteousness – in Christ you are good with God. He
doesn't see your sin, He only sees a Christian, a little Christ. And
yet, Christ Jesus knew that you would still be dealing with sin, with
death, tangling with Satan. And so Jesus went to the cross and died
and rose – and again, at your baptism He made another promise to
you. His death would be your death, and His resurrection would be
your resurrection. He promised that the day would come when He would
indeed set you free from sin – and when you are raised from the
dead, which you will be, for Christ has promised you this, you will
then be utterly and totally and completely free from sin. No ifs
ands or buts about it. And this truth, this promise of God is the
center and key thing in the Church. It's why at the end of Matthew
we hear Jesus say, “Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
It's the main thing – that all that Christ has done is poured out
upon us in Holy Baptism, and we live our lives as the Baptized – as
those forgiven by Christ, as heirs of the promise of freedom from all
our sin.
Yet
the world still batters us, sin still warps us, and Satan still
hounds us. We are like a knife that gets abused and made dull and
worn – and we lose our ability to cut through all the junk we see
through in this life. And so Christ reforms us. He reshapes us,
hones us, sharpens us, by His Word and Spirit. He gathers us here to
His house, and rather than forgetting who we are, He makes us to
remember that we are the baptized. Everything here revolves around
everything Christ has given you in your baptism. We begin the
service, remembering our baptism. We confess our sins – and Luther
notes in the Large Catechism that our repentance is nothing other
than a continual return
to baptism
– remembering who again Christ has made us. And we live in this –
we live lives of repentance. We live lives defiant against sin and
the world and death – proclaiming that Christ Jesus has lived and
died for us. We proclaim this in our hymns, our preaching, in the
Lord's own Supper. We sing as the baptized, we hear the Scriptures
and the Sermon as the baptized, we come to the altar as the baptized.
As Luther again says in the Large Catechism, “Therefore every
Christian has enough in Baptism to learn and to practise all his
life; for he has always enough to do to believe firmly what it
promises and brings: victory over death and the devil, forgiveness of
sin, the grace of God, the entire Christ, and the Holy Ghost with His
gifts.” Over and over we are restored by God unto our baptism,
made anew in Christ, pulled away from sin and death, even until He
comes again.
So therefore, my friends, let us this Reformation Day
once again give heed to Christ Jesus and His Word – and let us
believe what His Word says of us, especially the promise He made to
us in the Water and His Word in our baptism . We are indeed sinners
through and through, but He is good and gracious and wins us the
victory over sin and death, and because of Him we shall be free
indeed. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit +