Revelation 14:6-7; Romans 3:19-28; St Matthew 11:12-19
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Elijah hid in a cave, afraid for his life. St John languished in prison, waiting to be beheaded by Herod. Martin Luther was squirreled away in the Warburg Castle, a fugitive of the Emperor. Viewed from their political viability, from their cultural relevance, or worldly success, none of these men’s lives was worth a nickel. And if nothing else the lives of these three men show us that reformations are bloody affairs.
But we have a tendency to romanticize them. We sing hymns such as Ein Feste Burg and we fanaticize about the glory and grandeur of the Reformation. Of sticking it to the Pope. Of having a beer with Luther. Of buying our first copy of the Bible, which we likely wouldn’t have been able to afford, and even more likely would have been unable to read.
We conjure up images of castles and keeps, moats and draw bridges. And repeat some Latin phrases we can’t really pronounce, but hey, we’re 21st Century westerners, we like short-hand slogans and catch-phrases.
But Lutheran theology can’t fit into sound bites or onto bumper stickers. Hoisting a stein and singing “A Mighty Fortress” like its a rally cry to rush headlong into battle doesn’t define Lutheranism. A term Luther himself viciously despised.
So because of distance and time and culture and a host of other reasons, we forget some things that ought not be forgotten. Sacrifice. Truth. Fidelity. Reverence.
But today we are reminded, once again. Luther - 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. Because the Church of the Lutheran Reformation is always struggling for her existence, she has “no form or comeliness that we should” admire her. She has “no beauty that we should desire” her.
The Church of the Lutheran Reformation stands out as obscene and vulgar in a world preaching tolerance and immorality. Not because she is, mind you. In fact, she, the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church is truly a lady, proper and reverent, chaste and decent; some have eyes to see it. But this generation, like every generation, are like petulant children, demanding that the Church step in line; that she dance to their tune, where they want and when they want.
And the sad reality of the violence inflicted upon the Church is that it is often internal. She does acquiesce to the demands of the children of this world. She does dance and sing to their tune. And they have fun with her for a little while, but as with all objects of lust and gratification, the world quickly gets bored with her and moves on.
This is why the preaching of John the Baptist still makes us uncomfortable. We have compromised. We have made accommodations to gain the favor of others. And if we ever wake up from our malaise, all we feel the next morning is used. The devil is real, dear Lutherans. And he has slithered his way into the Church with antinomian homilies and Gospel reductionistic Bible studies, through arrogance and irreverence.
But the message of St John to us is that what God requires of us is more important than what other people think of us. He knew that moths soon devour our 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 St John and Elijah and Luther is that if God means anything than everything else means nothing. Luther said the same thing in “A Mighty Fortress.” If they take away our lives, our stuff, our reputation, and even the lives of our family members, still they gain nothing. Sola gratia. Justification by grace is simply another way of saying that what we do counts for nothing. God the Father, His Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Word, the Cross, our Lord’s shed Blood, the bath of Holy Baptism, blessed Absolution - these count for everything.
To a world that values tolerance and autonomy over everything else, saints like Elijah and John and Luther must be silenced and expelled from the public sqaure. 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 after Luther died, the emperor stood on his tomb. We can run away from the Reformation, we can try to ignore it, amp it up for Quincentenaries, sloganeer it, and forget it the next year, but its martyrs keep coming back. The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord endures forever (1 Pt 1:24-25).
And as St Peter writes, This Word is the good news preached to you. 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. There is no distinction. Celebrating the Reformation doesn’t give you a pass. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all have inflicted violence upon the kingdom of God. In our acquiesce, in our despising of the Lord’s sacred Word, in our apathy to gladly hear and learn it, in our laziness to catechize our children. Our own flesh has done violence to the kingdom.
But thanks be to God that He has sent His angels to proclaim His eternal Gospel to every nation and tribe and language and people.
At his funeral, Luther’s pastor, Johannes Bugenhagen, preached on our first reading from the Revelation to St John. He interpreted the angel flying directly overhead as a reference to Luther, who, by God’s grace, rediscovered the enteral Gospel, which he proclaimed with a loud voice, heard around the world as his books and sermons and even the Augsburg Confession were translated into numerous languages. Valerius Herberger notes that the first words of Luther’s Small Catechism were, “Fear God,” as the text says of the angel (GWG: Exodus, 211). He goes on to exegete the rest of the text in light of the children’s catechism.
Now I am not one to question the exegesis of a man such as Johannes Bugenhagen, for in a sense he is correct. Luther is the angel of Revelation 14:6. But so is John the Baptist and even Elijah and every prophet and apostle, and every faithful pastor who stands in his pulpit and delivers the Lord’s preaching. Proclaiming God’s Law, which speaks to every arrogant heart and mouth, making the whole world, even Lutherans, accountable. But also delivering the sweetness of the Gospel and the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
There was another Latin phrase common during the Reformation: Crux sola nostra theologica. The Cross alone is our Theology. For the Cross embodies both Law and Gospel in the most powerful ways. On the Law side, we have an accurate depiction of the horrific load of sin which infects us all, and of the just punishment which it deserves. When we complain of [violence inflicted upon the Church] we would prefer to make it an external or political discussion, rather than an internal, personal problem that blinds us to its reality. Like a street urchin recruited into a terrorist militia, we are conceived in iniquity (Ps 51:5) and our complicity with [violence] prevents us from seeing it clearly . . .
“Yet on the Gospel side, we see that Christ is not here to punish us but to affirm His solidarity with fallen mankind” (Menuge, 162). Christ Jesus is the Word of the Lord which endures forever, the Word made flesh, the very instantiation of the kingdom of heaven. He suffered wholly undeserved, unjustified, gratuitous, horrendous violence. If John the Baptist is Elijah who is to come, then Jesus is certainly the Messiah, who has ushered in the great and awesome day of His atoning sacrifice; of His being offered up as the Mercy-Seat sacrifice for sin, whom God put forward in His righteousness, to be received by faith. He is your one Mediator and only Redeemer.
Luther understood this and rejoiced in it. As did Elijah and all the prophets. So did St John, who was not a Baptist; don’t let the moniker fool you. He was really a Lutheran. And though the devil, the world, and even our own sinful flesh which clings to our bones until we die, mock and deride and reject this eternal Gospel, try to repackage and market it, attempt to silence and expel it, wisdom is justified by her deeds.
Which is to say, the Word of the Lord endures forever. Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum. More Latin. VDMA within the quadrants of a Latin Cross. Frederick the Wise and his successors had is emblazoned on sheds and sword hilts, royal banners and military uniforms. It was the true rally cry of the army of the German lands. That even if the Holy Roman Empire or the Turks overran them, if their economy was ruined, their homes burned, their people slaughtered or subjugated, still, Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum, the Word of the Lord endures forever.
This Word is your great heritage. It is your armor and sword in the very real on-going battle of the Reformation. Not against flesh and blood, not against the government, foreign or domestic, not against Muslims or atheists, but against the principalities and powers of Satan and his demonic horde. Against the false doctrine that would seek to enslave you. Against the guilty conscience that would imprison you. Against the temptation of the devil, the world, and our lurid flesh that wants to be tantalized, tickled and entertained.
The Reformation is not an event we commemorate way back when. The Reformation continues each Lord’s Day in reverence and fidelity to God’s Word and promises. In the liturgy, but the Word and Sacraments which not only steal you for the fight, but prepare you for death when that day comes.
The Reformation continues every day, in the drowning anew of your old Adam and the rising to life in the new man through repentance and faith. Thus we do not boast in being Lutheran. But our soul makes its boast in the Lord who has given us ears to hear, and through the continuation of the Reformation, has brought to us faithful messengers who proclaim the forgiveness of sins in Jesus name.
This is our treasure, my friends. Don’t trade it for anything. Don’t celebrate it merely one day a year. Rejoice in it everyday. For this central truth of our Christian faith is more important than any gold and glitter the world may bring: through faith in Christ you are righteous in God’s sight. He belongs to you and you to Him. His kingdom comes to you and is yours, even now in His Body given and His Blood shed for the forgiveness of your sins. This preaching and the confession of this kingdom of heaven will endure on this earth until the end. The kingdom ours remaineth and the Word of the Lord endures forever.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Elijah hid in a cave, afraid for his life. St John languished in prison, waiting to be beheaded by Herod. Martin Luther was squirreled away in the Warburg Castle, a fugitive of the Emperor. Viewed from their political viability, from their cultural relevance, or worldly success, none of these men’s lives was worth a nickel. And if nothing else the lives of these three men show us that reformations are bloody affairs.
But we have a tendency to romanticize them. We sing hymns such as Ein Feste Burg and we fanaticize about the glory and grandeur of the Reformation. Of sticking it to the Pope. Of having a beer with Luther. Of buying our first copy of the Bible, which we likely wouldn’t have been able to afford, and even more likely would have been unable to read.
We conjure up images of castles and keeps, moats and draw bridges. And repeat some Latin phrases we can’t really pronounce, but hey, we’re 21st Century westerners, we like short-hand slogans and catch-phrases.
But Lutheran theology can’t fit into sound bites or onto bumper stickers. Hoisting a stein and singing “A Mighty Fortress” like its a rally cry to rush headlong into battle doesn’t define Lutheranism. A term Luther himself viciously despised.
So because of distance and time and culture and a host of other reasons, we forget some things that ought not be forgotten. Sacrifice. Truth. Fidelity. Reverence.
But today we are reminded, once again. Luther - 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. Because the Church of the Lutheran Reformation is always struggling for her existence, she has “no form or comeliness that we should” admire her. She has “no beauty that we should desire” her.
The Church of the Lutheran Reformation stands out as obscene and vulgar in a world preaching tolerance and immorality. Not because she is, mind you. In fact, she, the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church is truly a lady, proper and reverent, chaste and decent; some have eyes to see it. But this generation, like every generation, are like petulant children, demanding that the Church step in line; that she dance to their tune, where they want and when they want.
And the sad reality of the violence inflicted upon the Church is that it is often internal. She does acquiesce to the demands of the children of this world. She does dance and sing to their tune. And they have fun with her for a little while, but as with all objects of lust and gratification, the world quickly gets bored with her and moves on.
This is why the preaching of John the Baptist still makes us uncomfortable. We have compromised. We have made accommodations to gain the favor of others. And if we ever wake up from our malaise, all we feel the next morning is used. The devil is real, dear Lutherans. And he has slithered his way into the Church with antinomian homilies and Gospel reductionistic Bible studies, through arrogance and irreverence.
But the message of St John to us is that what God requires of us is more important than what other people think of us. He knew that moths soon devour our 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 St John and Elijah and Luther is that if God means anything than everything else means nothing. Luther said the same thing in “A Mighty Fortress.” If they take away our lives, our stuff, our reputation, and even the lives of our family members, still they gain nothing. Sola gratia. Justification by grace is simply another way of saying that what we do counts for nothing. God the Father, His Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Word, the Cross, our Lord’s shed Blood, the bath of Holy Baptism, blessed Absolution - these count for everything.
To a world that values tolerance and autonomy over everything else, saints like Elijah and John and Luther must be silenced and expelled from the public sqaure. 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 after Luther died, the emperor stood on his tomb. We can run away from the Reformation, we can try to ignore it, amp it up for Quincentenaries, sloganeer it, and forget it the next year, but its martyrs keep coming back. The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord endures forever (1 Pt 1:24-25).
And as St Peter writes, This Word is the good news preached to you. 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. There is no distinction. Celebrating the Reformation doesn’t give you a pass. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all have inflicted violence upon the kingdom of God. In our acquiesce, in our despising of the Lord’s sacred Word, in our apathy to gladly hear and learn it, in our laziness to catechize our children. Our own flesh has done violence to the kingdom.
But thanks be to God that He has sent His angels to proclaim His eternal Gospel to every nation and tribe and language and people.
At his funeral, Luther’s pastor, Johannes Bugenhagen, preached on our first reading from the Revelation to St John. He interpreted the angel flying directly overhead as a reference to Luther, who, by God’s grace, rediscovered the enteral Gospel, which he proclaimed with a loud voice, heard around the world as his books and sermons and even the Augsburg Confession were translated into numerous languages. Valerius Herberger notes that the first words of Luther’s Small Catechism were, “Fear God,” as the text says of the angel (GWG: Exodus, 211). He goes on to exegete the rest of the text in light of the children’s catechism.
Now I am not one to question the exegesis of a man such as Johannes Bugenhagen, for in a sense he is correct. Luther is the angel of Revelation 14:6. But so is John the Baptist and even Elijah and every prophet and apostle, and every faithful pastor who stands in his pulpit and delivers the Lord’s preaching. Proclaiming God’s Law, which speaks to every arrogant heart and mouth, making the whole world, even Lutherans, accountable. But also delivering the sweetness of the Gospel and the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
There was another Latin phrase common during the Reformation: Crux sola nostra theologica. The Cross alone is our Theology. For the Cross embodies both Law and Gospel in the most powerful ways. On the Law side, we have an accurate depiction of the horrific load of sin which infects us all, and of the just punishment which it deserves. When we complain of [violence inflicted upon the Church] we would prefer to make it an external or political discussion, rather than an internal, personal problem that blinds us to its reality. Like a street urchin recruited into a terrorist militia, we are conceived in iniquity (Ps 51:5) and our complicity with [violence] prevents us from seeing it clearly . . .
“Yet on the Gospel side, we see that Christ is not here to punish us but to affirm His solidarity with fallen mankind” (Menuge, 162). Christ Jesus is the Word of the Lord which endures forever, the Word made flesh, the very instantiation of the kingdom of heaven. He suffered wholly undeserved, unjustified, gratuitous, horrendous violence. If John the Baptist is Elijah who is to come, then Jesus is certainly the Messiah, who has ushered in the great and awesome day of His atoning sacrifice; of His being offered up as the Mercy-Seat sacrifice for sin, whom God put forward in His righteousness, to be received by faith. He is your one Mediator and only Redeemer.
Luther understood this and rejoiced in it. As did Elijah and all the prophets. So did St John, who was not a Baptist; don’t let the moniker fool you. He was really a Lutheran. And though the devil, the world, and even our own sinful flesh which clings to our bones until we die, mock and deride and reject this eternal Gospel, try to repackage and market it, attempt to silence and expel it, wisdom is justified by her deeds.
Which is to say, the Word of the Lord endures forever. Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum. More Latin. VDMA within the quadrants of a Latin Cross. Frederick the Wise and his successors had is emblazoned on sheds and sword hilts, royal banners and military uniforms. It was the true rally cry of the army of the German lands. That even if the Holy Roman Empire or the Turks overran them, if their economy was ruined, their homes burned, their people slaughtered or subjugated, still, Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum, the Word of the Lord endures forever.
This Word is your great heritage. It is your armor and sword in the very real on-going battle of the Reformation. Not against flesh and blood, not against the government, foreign or domestic, not against Muslims or atheists, but against the principalities and powers of Satan and his demonic horde. Against the false doctrine that would seek to enslave you. Against the guilty conscience that would imprison you. Against the temptation of the devil, the world, and our lurid flesh that wants to be tantalized, tickled and entertained.
The Reformation is not an event we commemorate way back when. The Reformation continues each Lord’s Day in reverence and fidelity to God’s Word and promises. In the liturgy, but the Word and Sacraments which not only steal you for the fight, but prepare you for death when that day comes.
The Reformation continues every day, in the drowning anew of your old Adam and the rising to life in the new man through repentance and faith. Thus we do not boast in being Lutheran. But our soul makes its boast in the Lord who has given us ears to hear, and through the continuation of the Reformation, has brought to us faithful messengers who proclaim the forgiveness of sins in Jesus name.
This is our treasure, my friends. Don’t trade it for anything. Don’t celebrate it merely one day a year. Rejoice in it everyday. For this central truth of our Christian faith is more important than any gold and glitter the world may bring: through faith in Christ you are righteous in God’s sight. He belongs to you and you to Him. His kingdom comes to you and is yours, even now in His Body given and His Blood shed for the forgiveness of your sins. This preaching and the confession of this kingdom of heaven will endure on this earth until the end. The kingdom ours remaineth and the Word of the Lord endures forever.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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