Reformation Day Observed –
John 8:31-36 – October 28th, 2013
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
Ah, Reformation Day! The day where we celebrate the fact that we are Lutherans and we have it right. The day where we can say, “I’m Lutheran born and Lutheran bred and when I die I’ll be Lutheran dead!” We can be tempted to treat this day like it’s a pep rally, a celebration of our most excellent heritage and our superior culture. And when we do, it’s a good thing Luther is dead, because he would be shocked and ashamed of this type of approach. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a wonderful thing to be Lutheran… but not because we happen to be Lutheran, not because we were baptized at this particular font or because long ago at Confirmation we answered some questions and did some memory work that we have long since forgotten. No, what is the heart of being a Lutheran is the turning away from pride in ourselves, our heritage, our own worthiness, and rather being focused upon the Truth, Christ Jesus, the Son of God. And this plays out in our text for this morning.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
Ah, Reformation Day! The day where we celebrate the fact that we are Lutherans and we have it right. The day where we can say, “I’m Lutheran born and Lutheran bred and when I die I’ll be Lutheran dead!” We can be tempted to treat this day like it’s a pep rally, a celebration of our most excellent heritage and our superior culture. And when we do, it’s a good thing Luther is dead, because he would be shocked and ashamed of this type of approach. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a wonderful thing to be Lutheran… but not because we happen to be Lutheran, not because we were baptized at this particular font or because long ago at Confirmation we answered some questions and did some memory work that we have long since forgotten. No, what is the heart of being a Lutheran is the turning away from pride in ourselves, our heritage, our own worthiness, and rather being focused upon the Truth, Christ Jesus, the Son of God. And this plays out in our text for this morning.
“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.” So here’s
the set up. Jesus has been preaching, He
has just in the verses before this declared He is the light of the world, that
belief in Him will rescue people from dying in their sins. Great stuff.
And people believe that – oh, isn’t that nice and wonderful. And then Jesus adds this. If you abide, should you abide in My Word –
then you are truly a disciple… and you will know the Truth, and the Truth will
set us free. Now, as we have the rest of
the Gospel, we know where Jesus is going.
Jesus declares a few chapters later, “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the
Life – no man cometh to the Father but by Me.” Christ is pointing to Himself – He is saying,
“Listen to the Word, listen to what I preach.
I will teach you, I will train you, I will give you Myself, and I Myself
will free you from sin and death and the power of the grave.” And this is what He had just preached – I am
the light of the world – listen to My Word and you will be enlightened. You will not die in your sins – you will be
free from them.
But there’s a problem.
Jesus has done something – He is no longer speaking abstractly about
light or life or death… things that are abstract, or distant. No, now He has turned things to people
directly – you will be set free. Yes,
you, right here – you are in sin and bondage and you need to be set free. And this is when the indignation sets
in. “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?’” This is one of those statements in the
Scriptures where if you think about it, you just want to go nuts. This is one of the dumbest things ever
uttered in the scriptures, this even tops Cain saying, “Am I my brother’s
keeper.” These are Jews saying
this. Now, first thing about the present
day for them – they are in Jerusalem…
a conquered city. You have tons of
revolutionary movements promising to free them, to drive the Romans out. I mean, it would be one thing if you were a
Jew and heard Jesus promise to free you and you thought it would be the
glorious revolution where Rome
would get theirs. But nope – pride kicks
in, ignoring the present reality.
But it’s worse than that – it’s not just denial about the
here and now. It’s a denial of the
past. If you go to Exodus 20, where God
gives the 10 Commandments, the Law that basically defines what a Jew is, how
does it start? God declares, “I AM
the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery.”
Who are you, O Jew? What is your
identity? You are not just a child of
Abraham, but you are the children of Abraham whom God rescued from
slavery! When Jesus says that He, the
Truth, will set you free, this is Jesus pointing to the wonder and mystery that
He is God, the same Lord God who freed them from temporal bondage in Egypt, the God
who has come to free them from bondage to sin and death and give them
everlasting life. And instead of hearing
this and rejoicing – these folks get their dander up. What’s this about me being a slave – um,
forget you Jesus, we ain’t never been slaves to nobody no how, no Sir-ee! And suddenly, the entirety of the Old Testament
from Exodus onwards is tossed out. Over
and over God is identified as the one who brought His children out of Egypt – that’s
the heart of celebrating the Passover, that’s the heart of all the Old
Testament celebrations. But nope – not
us.
Do you see how big of a disconnect this is, how glaring it
is? And yet, the purpose here is not
merely to see how far off these folks are, but let us be warned of the same
thing today. The Jews in the text had
begun to make assumptions about themselves.
They were from the right family, the right people, they did all the
right things – surely that means everything was hunky dory. But what had they abandoned? The Word.
The Scriptures. And so when
Christ points to the Scriptures, points to Himself as the fulfillment of the
Scriptures, they become indignant. This,
dear friends, in the same danger that confronts us today. How easy is it for us Lutherans today to
become complacent, to rest on our laurels, as it were. Good family, was baptized, was even confirmed
– hooray me. And then we will run with
our own thoughts and ideas, no matter how strange or crazy they are, and think
that they must be good and right. It’s
not a far cry to go from saying, “We’ve never been slaves to anyone” to saying,
“We’ve never done it that way before.”
We can fall prey to the assumption that what we do is right simply
because *we* are the ones doing it, and we are the good people after all. And suddenly, our focus is no longer upon the
Word, no longer upon Christ, no longer constantly studying and listening to
Him. Instead, we have put up a new God –
ME. And that is whom we follow.
That is what is going on in this text, and that’s why
Christ comes back hard here. “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.’” So, not a slave? Well, clearly you are perfect and never fail
then – right? That’s where the rubber
meets the road. Do you sin? Still?
And don’t do the comparison thing – don’t do the “Well, at least I’m
better than so and so” – being better than the Gentiles or the jerks out there
doesn’t mean squat. Do you still
sin? If so, you are a slave to sin – and
you know what that means? On your own –
you are stuck outside the house – outside the kingdom. Period.
Only the Son gets to stay inside the Kingdom.
This, of course, drives to the heart of the matter. It drives to repentance. Reformation Day is not the day where we
celebrate that we are right, or that Luther got it right, or that because we
are in this Church, surely we have it right.
My family is all ELCA, and let me tell you, I have seen where the “Well,
we are Lutheran, we must be right” leads when the Scriptures are ignored. It ain’t pretty. But I say that not to congratulate ourselves
on having been right 40 years ago – I say it as a warning that we too must take
heed lest we fall. And that is the point
of this day, it is Thesis number 1. When
Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church
on October 31st, 1517 – he wasn’t trying to build some new Church or
denomination. He wasn’t trying to shout
out how he was right and everyone must listen to him. Nope – here is Thesis number 1 – “When our Lord and Master,
Jesus Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of
believers to be one of repentance.” Not
rest on your laurels, not assume you are okay – whether it’s because you are a
good little Jew, or today a good little Lutheran, or back then because you
bought a nice little indulgence from the peddler. No, as a Christian, you have been called by
Christ Jesus to repent. To see in your
own life sin rearing its ugly head. To
see and know that you, in and of yourself are a slave to sin – that you sinned
last week, and you know what – Next Sunday even though I’ll be on vacation,
Pastor Roggow will be here/at Zion and there will be confession and absolution
and it won’t be wasted because you’ll need it, and I’ll need to hear it from
Pastor Brennan up in Denver too. Because
our lives are ones of repentance – because we are stuck in sin that we can’t
deal with.
But Christ can and does. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be
free indeed.” And Jesus Christ
frees you. His Word of forgiveness,
which His death and resurrection for your sins give Him the right to declare,
frees you. And you are free – when you
die you will rise to life in Him. The
problem is our own sinful flesh rebels against this. We are baptized, we are not slaves but sons
of God, co-heirs with Christ…but our sinful flesh wants to keep running out
into the muck and mire of sin. And so
Christ comes, and He calls us to repentance, to turn away from our sin unto
Him, to be His disciples, to hear not our own thoughts and plans but His Word
of truth and life, to be conformed to Him, to be forgiven and set free by
Him. And so He calls us out of darkness
into His marvelous light – over and over and over again. Even as the world, even as Satan, even as
your own sinful flesh try to make you in your pride and arrogance forget Him,
Christ comes to you again, and He brings you to repentance, and He brings you
forgiveness, and He sets you free again.
Dear friends, now is not yet the time
for the celebration of how wonderful we are.
We are still sinners in the sinful world. We are those in the Church Militant. We still fight daily against sin and
temptation. We still must lead lives of
repentance, lives where we do not trumpet our own works, but rather confess
that even our most righteous seeming deeds are but filthy rags, that all our
boasting must be excluded. Until we die
and are raised at His return, we are to repent and place our trust solely in
Christ. And Christ is faithful and just
to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, all thanks be to
Him. Lord, Keep us Steadfast in Thy Word! In the Name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit + Amen.
1 comment:
I too have seen firsthand where one can end up when God's Word is thrown overboard.
And I have also seen where one can end up when they adhere to a Southern Baptist doctrine of the Word.
Neither case is very pretty and they lead away from Christ and into 'the self' (license, or legalism).
"The entire life of the Christian is one of repentance."
So much for throwing out God's law...OR trying to use it to advance along the way of being Christian.
Thanks, Rev..
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