Revelation 14:6-7; Romans 3:12-19; St Matthew 11:12-19
Hymns: LSB 947, 656, 555, 645, 355, 569
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Some countries have institutionalized revolutions. The revolutionaries who overthrew the older governments have themselves become the establishment. Cuba is an obvious example. Castro dressed in the combat gear of a revolutionary, but he was really a dictator. Communism is generationally institutionalized there.
Of course, “institutionalized revolution” is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Water is not dry. Infants are not adults. Murderers are not humane. Thieves are not honest. So revolutions are not institutions. Revolution means overthrowing a government by force and then that’s it. Its over. The soldier lays down his arms and returns to his farming. The French Revolution was not the American. Russia and China had their own issues. No doubt you can discern for yourselves present-day examples.
As Lutherans, we cannot allow the Reformation to be institutionalized. We may be tempted to do this by stressing past grievances without facing present problems.
Lutherans are often labeled Protestants. Protestants are people who protest. Protest means that we are against something. You have to continually rehearse in your mind what your against. The mantra must be repeated like a creed. Shouted and sloganeered. But you then also have to make sure that those we dislike are still doing the things we dislike. Eventually a time will come when no one remembers what the protest was all about. Its like disliking a person, but not remembering why you dislike him.
Those who have read or are participating in our study of the Book of Concord are hopefully realizing that true Christianity is not simply a matter of what we are against, but primarily of what we believe, teach, and confess.
Being against something never brings people together for too long. After World War II one-time allies came enemies. After the statues were dismantled and the cities demolished, summer protestors quickly turned on each other. Revolutions are inevitably cannibalistic. Reformation Day must be more than an institutionalized revolution intended to relive old battles and refight old wars. The Lutheran Reformation requires an eternal vigilance. It cannot simply be defined as an opposition movement.
Today Luther reminds us again - well, really its Jesus - reminds us that the Reformation is not simply the celebration of a past event. On-going, ever present reformation is a necessity in the turmoil from which the Church can never extricate herself. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. The Church of the Lutheran Reformation is not a revolution, but she is counter-cultural. She is always struggling for her existence. She is always the minority. Always canceled as obscene and vulgar in a world preaching tolerance and immortality.
Its tempting and easy to shout back. To resort to equal malignity and hatred. Jesus reminds us that this generation, like every generation, are like petulant children, demanding the Church step in line. That she dance to the world’s tone. Where they want and when they want.
But on this Reformation Day we come together not to stand up as revolutionaries, shouting for change. More importantly, we come together, by the Spirit’s word, to affirm that Jesus Christ is the center of everything we do and say. We insist on Baptism because there Jesus makes us participants, gives us fellowship, in His atoning death and resurrection. By making the Lord’s Supper the heart and center of Christian worship, we are placing Jesus Christ where He belongs. Everything in our Lutheran faith - from creed and confession, Word and promise, liturgy and hymns - has its chief and only focus on Jesus Christ.
Simply put, Christianity is the Apostles’ Creed. But if this seems too narrow a definition for the Reformation, then define the Lutheran faith by the catechism. Next to the Creed place the Ten Commandments, the Our Father, Holy Baptism, Confession and Absolution, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Daily Prayers, Table of Duties and Christian Questions and Answers.
The Small Catechism isn’t our version of Rules for Radicals. Rather, it is your manual for the Christian life of faith and love. It is, as Luther called it, the lay person’s Bible. In these evil days, where violence and persecution are not just lurking on the horizon, but have already appeared, even among us, just praying and discussing the Small Catechism will keep every Christian busy and occupied until Christ returns in glory. Maranatha!
As the Church is bombarded with one program after another, promising one glory after another, the Small Catechism appears as the clearer path to heaven. As she offers mewling statements, acquiescing to earthly authorities who have abused their offices, the Small Catechism is a full throated confession of where we stand. Here I do not find what I must do. Here I find Jesus Christ who grasps me and by His Cross takes me to His God and Father. This is justification by grace through faith.
When the Lutheran Church began celebrating the Reformation it had to choose sections of the Bible to be read. Obviously Luther is not mentioned in the Bible. But the Lutherans saw three persons who, in their estimation, were like Luther.
The first was Josiah, a king of Judah and a descendant of David, who found the Books of Moses in the Temple basement and had them read to the people. So did Luther rummage around in the Church basement - the Scriptures and the Fathers. He pulled back the tarp on what he found there and behold it was the Sacraments and the promises!
Then there was Elijah. He minced no words in telling King Ahab that he had broken the laws of Moses in confiscating his subjects inherited property. Here was Martin Luther who stood at Worms, 500 years ago this year, and faced the emperor himself, refusing to back down on what he believed. “Unless I can be convinced from the Holy Scriptures and from sound reason, I shall not and will not recant. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.” God’s Word is our great heritage. It cannot be confiscated or stolen.
Finally there was John the Baptist, whom Jesus called the New Testament Elijah. His command to repent and believe the Gospel reminded people of the first of Luther’s 95 Theses that the life of the Christian should be one of continual repentance and faith. As the artwork in the undercroft chows, both John and Luther pointed to Christ as the Lamb of God who takes way the sin of the world.
And this is why we still need the Reformation as a call to return. Why the preaching of a man like St John still makes us uncomfortable. For though we adore the Lamb, that pointy finger of the baptizer scolds us. He reminds up that what God requires of us is more important than what other people think about us. He knew that moths soon devour the finest apparel, so he wore an untanned animal skin. Stomachs are destined for destruction, so don’t bother looking at the menu, stick with the locusts.
The message of preached and lived by men like St John and Elijah and Josiah is that if God means anything than everything else means nothing. Luther said the same in “A Mighty Fortress.” Its a great hymn, but its not a rally cry to revolution. Its the stark reminder that though grace is free to you, it isn’t cheap. Christ paid with His lifeblood. His Passion and Death. As Christians, we’ll bear some splinters of the Cross too. We’ll share in His suffering.
In other words, if they take away the lives of our family, take away our stuff, our reputation, even our own life, still they gain nothing.
Jezebel pursued Elijah’s life. Herod imprisoned John and took his head. Charles V extended the hunting season on Luther’s life for twenty-six years. The year that Luther died, the emperor stood on his tomb. We can try to run away from the Reformation, institutionalize it, ignore it, sloganeer it, but its martyrs keep coming back. Keep preaching to us of repentance and faith. Keep proclaiming not us, but this Word of the Lord which endures forever.
And that’s what its about. The enduring Word of the Lord. The Lutheran Reformation was more than the repetition of slogans. It was about Jesus Christ. The good news that your sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. The good news that the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law. A righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. This may sound radical. It is! But its not revolutionary.
If you look on the back of a dollar bill, you’ll see under the pyramid to the right these words in Latin, Novus ordo seculorum, “A New Order of the Ages.” The Reformation was not a new order of the ages. Luther was not a revolutionary. He did not claim any new discovery for himself. What was necessary for salvation was found in the Creed, which is as old as the Church itself.
He took the Creed seriously: for us men and for our salvation Jesus Christ came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
Luther only pointed to what was already there. We are to continually do the same. We conserve the old ways. We return to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The Reformation is not a mandate for change and protest and revolution. It is a command to retain the one, holy, Christian and apostolic faith, without which, as the Athanasian Creed says, we cannot be saved.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hymns: LSB 947, 656, 555, 645, 355, 569
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Some countries have institutionalized revolutions. The revolutionaries who overthrew the older governments have themselves become the establishment. Cuba is an obvious example. Castro dressed in the combat gear of a revolutionary, but he was really a dictator. Communism is generationally institutionalized there.
Of course, “institutionalized revolution” is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Water is not dry. Infants are not adults. Murderers are not humane. Thieves are not honest. So revolutions are not institutions. Revolution means overthrowing a government by force and then that’s it. Its over. The soldier lays down his arms and returns to his farming. The French Revolution was not the American. Russia and China had their own issues. No doubt you can discern for yourselves present-day examples.
As Lutherans, we cannot allow the Reformation to be institutionalized. We may be tempted to do this by stressing past grievances without facing present problems.
Lutherans are often labeled Protestants. Protestants are people who protest. Protest means that we are against something. You have to continually rehearse in your mind what your against. The mantra must be repeated like a creed. Shouted and sloganeered. But you then also have to make sure that those we dislike are still doing the things we dislike. Eventually a time will come when no one remembers what the protest was all about. Its like disliking a person, but not remembering why you dislike him.
Those who have read or are participating in our study of the Book of Concord are hopefully realizing that true Christianity is not simply a matter of what we are against, but primarily of what we believe, teach, and confess.
Being against something never brings people together for too long. After World War II one-time allies came enemies. After the statues were dismantled and the cities demolished, summer protestors quickly turned on each other. Revolutions are inevitably cannibalistic. Reformation Day must be more than an institutionalized revolution intended to relive old battles and refight old wars. The Lutheran Reformation requires an eternal vigilance. It cannot simply be defined as an opposition movement.
Today Luther reminds us again - well, really its Jesus - reminds us that the Reformation is not simply the celebration of a past event. On-going, ever present reformation is a necessity in the turmoil from which the Church can never extricate herself. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. The Church of the Lutheran Reformation is not a revolution, but she is counter-cultural. She is always struggling for her existence. She is always the minority. Always canceled as obscene and vulgar in a world preaching tolerance and immortality.
Its tempting and easy to shout back. To resort to equal malignity and hatred. Jesus reminds us that this generation, like every generation, are like petulant children, demanding the Church step in line. That she dance to the world’s tone. Where they want and when they want.
But on this Reformation Day we come together not to stand up as revolutionaries, shouting for change. More importantly, we come together, by the Spirit’s word, to affirm that Jesus Christ is the center of everything we do and say. We insist on Baptism because there Jesus makes us participants, gives us fellowship, in His atoning death and resurrection. By making the Lord’s Supper the heart and center of Christian worship, we are placing Jesus Christ where He belongs. Everything in our Lutheran faith - from creed and confession, Word and promise, liturgy and hymns - has its chief and only focus on Jesus Christ.
Simply put, Christianity is the Apostles’ Creed. But if this seems too narrow a definition for the Reformation, then define the Lutheran faith by the catechism. Next to the Creed place the Ten Commandments, the Our Father, Holy Baptism, Confession and Absolution, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Daily Prayers, Table of Duties and Christian Questions and Answers.
The Small Catechism isn’t our version of Rules for Radicals. Rather, it is your manual for the Christian life of faith and love. It is, as Luther called it, the lay person’s Bible. In these evil days, where violence and persecution are not just lurking on the horizon, but have already appeared, even among us, just praying and discussing the Small Catechism will keep every Christian busy and occupied until Christ returns in glory. Maranatha!
As the Church is bombarded with one program after another, promising one glory after another, the Small Catechism appears as the clearer path to heaven. As she offers mewling statements, acquiescing to earthly authorities who have abused their offices, the Small Catechism is a full throated confession of where we stand. Here I do not find what I must do. Here I find Jesus Christ who grasps me and by His Cross takes me to His God and Father. This is justification by grace through faith.
When the Lutheran Church began celebrating the Reformation it had to choose sections of the Bible to be read. Obviously Luther is not mentioned in the Bible. But the Lutherans saw three persons who, in their estimation, were like Luther.
The first was Josiah, a king of Judah and a descendant of David, who found the Books of Moses in the Temple basement and had them read to the people. So did Luther rummage around in the Church basement - the Scriptures and the Fathers. He pulled back the tarp on what he found there and behold it was the Sacraments and the promises!
Then there was Elijah. He minced no words in telling King Ahab that he had broken the laws of Moses in confiscating his subjects inherited property. Here was Martin Luther who stood at Worms, 500 years ago this year, and faced the emperor himself, refusing to back down on what he believed. “Unless I can be convinced from the Holy Scriptures and from sound reason, I shall not and will not recant. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.” God’s Word is our great heritage. It cannot be confiscated or stolen.
Finally there was John the Baptist, whom Jesus called the New Testament Elijah. His command to repent and believe the Gospel reminded people of the first of Luther’s 95 Theses that the life of the Christian should be one of continual repentance and faith. As the artwork in the undercroft chows, both John and Luther pointed to Christ as the Lamb of God who takes way the sin of the world.
And this is why we still need the Reformation as a call to return. Why the preaching of a man like St John still makes us uncomfortable. For though we adore the Lamb, that pointy finger of the baptizer scolds us. He reminds up that what God requires of us is more important than what other people think about us. He knew that moths soon devour the finest apparel, so he wore an untanned animal skin. Stomachs are destined for destruction, so don’t bother looking at the menu, stick with the locusts.
The message of preached and lived by men like St John and Elijah and Josiah is that if God means anything than everything else means nothing. Luther said the same in “A Mighty Fortress.” Its a great hymn, but its not a rally cry to revolution. Its the stark reminder that though grace is free to you, it isn’t cheap. Christ paid with His lifeblood. His Passion and Death. As Christians, we’ll bear some splinters of the Cross too. We’ll share in His suffering.
In other words, if they take away the lives of our family, take away our stuff, our reputation, even our own life, still they gain nothing.
Jezebel pursued Elijah’s life. Herod imprisoned John and took his head. Charles V extended the hunting season on Luther’s life for twenty-six years. The year that Luther died, the emperor stood on his tomb. We can try to run away from the Reformation, institutionalize it, ignore it, sloganeer it, but its martyrs keep coming back. Keep preaching to us of repentance and faith. Keep proclaiming not us, but this Word of the Lord which endures forever.
And that’s what its about. The enduring Word of the Lord. The Lutheran Reformation was more than the repetition of slogans. It was about Jesus Christ. The good news that your sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. The good news that the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law. A righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. This may sound radical. It is! But its not revolutionary.
If you look on the back of a dollar bill, you’ll see under the pyramid to the right these words in Latin, Novus ordo seculorum, “A New Order of the Ages.” The Reformation was not a new order of the ages. Luther was not a revolutionary. He did not claim any new discovery for himself. What was necessary for salvation was found in the Creed, which is as old as the Church itself.
He took the Creed seriously: for us men and for our salvation Jesus Christ came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
Luther only pointed to what was already there. We are to continually do the same. We conserve the old ways. We return to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The Reformation is not a mandate for change and protest and revolution. It is a command to retain the one, holy, Christian and apostolic faith, without which, as the Athanasian Creed says, we cannot be saved.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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