REFORMATION DAY “Hope in The Loving Father”
October 27, 2024 Luke 15:20
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
When Lutherans think of the Reformation, they think of Martin Luther ~our church father. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, of Germany around the year 1500, is well known for his many writings, His sermons, letters, & Bible commentaries, which fill over 55 volumes & are referenced by every denomination of Christians. In the last 500 years, thousands of books have been written about him, & some movies depict his life & work.
He was a humble Augustinian monk who faced the power of local church & gov’t leaders, as well as the Pope & Emperor of the time. He was armed only with Scripture, and with a conscience that would accept nothing less than The Truth.
He was not trying to change the world; he started only with the intention to have a serious discussion with his fellow monks & priests about how sinners are forgiven by a gracious God in Christ. One author describes it like this: ‘Luther was like a man in the darkness, climbing a winding staircase in the steeple of a cathedral. In the blackness,
he reached out to steady himself, and his hand laid hold of a rope. In grabbing that rope,
he was startled to hear the clanging of bell;’ … a bell that woke up a lot of people.
Martin Luther was a man who translated the Bible from the original Hebrew & Greek into German, so that the people could have the Bible in their own language. His zeal for this also led him to begin a rebirth in public education for all, and a standardization of the German language, so that the peasants & laymen could learn to read the new German Bible.
Luther’s simple understanding of the clear Gospel message fired up the faith of a whole continent; and this reform of the church impacted the politics of Europe to affect the whole world. More locally, he re-introduced congregational singing, using hymns as a teaching tool; making musicians & poets a big part of the church.
And even after all of this, he remained a humble parish pastor, a devoted husband & father, and a sinner-made-a-saint thru faith in Jesus Christ; just as the Apostle Paul identified ALL believers in Christ as ‘saints’. This sounds like the praising of a mere man; but in pointing out these good things, we’re really pointing out things that only God could accomplish for His Church & kingdom.
God chose to use this man for renewing the Apostolic Faith based in Holy Scripture alone when the church had wandered away from it. Whether by prophets, apostles, or church fathers, we can celebrate how God has always overcome the crafty deceptions of the devil, and the ignorant errors of sinful men throughout history. +
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In any reading of the life of Martin Luther, we learn of a question that constantly troubled him; and in searching for the answer, he did all those things I listed. This question caused him fear & despair. It was this: How can I, a terribly sinful, mortal human have fellowship with the majestic, high & holy God of the universe? It’s a very honest & realistic question. Luther rightly feared God, and rightly measured himself. Honestly, *what would God want with him? He knew he & his sins deserved nothing but God’s anger & punishment.
Have WE ever wondered ~ why would the Holy-God want to connect with sinners like us? Now, there is a ‘gospel answer’, but at the time, Luther didn’t know it. So, the Reformation started within a man who only wanted mercy & hope & peace with God for himself. And when that Spirit-filled Gospel found him, he shared it with others and it changed the whole world.
The OT prophet Isaiah was taken into the majestic presence of God thru a vision, & it was
a terrifying thing. Isaiah cries out: ‘Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; I’m doomed! For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!’ In that vision, Isaiah felt the full holiness of God, and He couldn’t hide the sinner he was & the condemnation he deserved. The same with Luther. Being a monk in the Augustinian Order gave him no relief. Even with all the strict discipline, with numerous daily prayers, fasting, study, & punishing his body, he didn’t deserve to approach God. To be ‘honest with God’, Luther could see no hope.
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In our day, it seems that the modern Christian mind often doesn’t feel this kind of fear of Isaiah or Luther; too many are taught that God is not so fussy, or that we are not so bad. In many places, Christianity is shallow & immature, thinking that God is more ‘human’ than holy; that His rules are flexible; or that He just wants us to feel good about whatever we do.
A careless or lazy attitude toward spiritual truth and obedience is not Biblical reality == it’s a fantasy. This is one reason why God has let /trouble, /pain, /sorrow /& death remain in the world, and affect our lives. For a sinful creature not to fear the holy Creator is a delusion. So, for our eternal good, God uses the real effects of sin to shake us awake. In the time of sickness, pain, or loss, we will feel afraid & hopeless; we might blame God or doubt His love. That’s because our fallen nature is very tough, so that only a very dark time will force us look to God for light.
An author, Pastor Kretzmann, once wrote, ‘The hour of the husks has come…the prodigal will return only when the application of the divine law has brought him to the realization that he and the swine are eating the same food.’ The ‘hour of the husks’ is an image of the Reformation. It’s that ‘rock bottom’ idea; an honest sinner was looking for a merciful God and the church-of-the-day couldn’t help.
Pr.Kretzmann was talking about the Prodigal son (of Luke 15) who rebelled against his father & ran away; and now his sin had made him equal to the pigs. He was longing to eat pig food, and only then was he brought to his senses. The ‘hour of the husks’ is the reality of sin as compared to holiness. It’s an image of how far away from God we are.
Death is a separation from life; likewise, sin is separation from God. Sinners are criminals against God’s laws for life. The penalty of our crimes is death & hell. The soul that sins against the Holy God is condemned. God’s Word says that we have all sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God. This honesty brings fear & desperation. The ‘hour of the husks’ is the reality of the punishment of God’s Law against sinners.
BUT, this hour has a purpose == so that the sinner will despair & turn away from sin, and seek any possible mercy from God; which sinners know we don’t deserve, but mercy is our only hope. Luther knew the terror of this spiritual reality. +
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We say that the start of the Reformation was Oct.31,1517; it was the day before All Saint’s Day.
That’s when Martin Luther posted on the doors of the Castle Church at Wittenberg 95 theses {or statements} intended for scholarly debate. These 95 theses focused on some of the errors & shameful practices of the Roman Church, which affected his own parishioners.
A priest named John Tetzel was selling indulgences with the approval of his archbishop & Pope Leo X. Indulgences were special certificates which promised the buyer {or their dead relatives} an official release from sins, from purgatory, and entrance into heaven. In other words, salvation was for sale = for money.
BUT, before 1517, God had been preparing Luther. While he searched for hope & peace, he studied the Scripture, he earned his doctorate, and became a professor at the university in Wittenberg & a parish pastor in town. Four yrs earlier, in the spring of 1513, while studying for a classroom lecture on Psalm 72, certain words grabbed him, ‘In Thy righteousness deliver me’. He couldn’t understand how God in His righteousness could ever deliver him. How could the righteous & holy God desire to put-up-with someone like Luther or any sinful human? And Martin also read Romans 1:17, which says, ‘The just shall live by faith.’
It was then that something clicked. Like a key opening a door, letting in the light of heavenly hope. How can I, a terribly sinful, mortal human have fellowship with the majestic, high & holy God of the universe? ‘Faith’. You see, faith is not something we do to make God love us. Faith is a spiritual gift brought to us to trust God in His promise of forgiveness by Jesus on the cross. God speaks to us promises of His mercy to believe; and trusting His words is faith. This gift of Faith is the connection of peace & hope between God and us.
By these words, Luther’s now saw God in a new way. God was not standing far off with arms folded in holy anger. Instead, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, God is the ‘running father.’ This is another Reformation picture. In the parable, Jesus pictures God seeing the wayward child in the distance, hearing the cry of repentance, caring with all of his heart, & so God runs down the road to meet the sinner, & hugs him in the arms of mercy & forgiveness.
The Gospel’s good news is that, at the right time =at the ‘time of the husks’= when we realize how dirty & low & doomed we are in sin, the news of Jesus Christ comes as our hope. In the person of Jesus, the holy God runs to us to cover us up with the forgiving robe of His crucified Son. This is ‘grace.’
In the unseen, spiritual realm, the blood of Jesus has cleansed us from all sins. This cannot be earned or purchased by us with anything earthly; God simply declares it freely to all people. The price is paid for all; it is finished; and it belongs to everyone who hears, believes, & is baptized into God’s Word of promise. God has declared us righteous & holy, and -therefore- we are in fellowship with Him for the sake of Jesus Christ, thru faith.
Luther realized that this was not a truth, but was the central truth. This truth finally set him free from his fear & despair; even tho speaking this truth made the Roman Church treat him like a heretic & criminal. He was excommunicated which, at that time, was a death sentence. But the truth of God’s love gave him more life than anything else could.
With ‘the hour of the husks’ and ‘the running God’ there is one more image of the Reformation for today, a modern parable: A man was a gifted florist, who made beautiful arrangements from some of the most exquisite flowers. One day, his young son came into the flower shop, and bashfully handed him a fistful of wilted dandelions that he had picked in a nearby field. The father gladly accepted them, & said they were beautiful. He put them in a small vase and placed it on the middle of the counter so that everybody who came in that day could see the gift that his boy had given. So, what was the real gift here, and who gave it?
The Reformation answer is this: the real gift was the ‘loving acceptance’ the father gave to his child. It is only because our heavenly Father is gracious toward us that we could ever think of approaching Him with our pitiful wilted life; and it’s only because of Jesus & His cross that we can believe that our Father is gracious. This is the gospel’s good news for all sinners.
The wonder of it is not that we bring our gifts to God, but that God so graciously accepts us, forgives, & renews us, and is able to use our lives for His good in His Church & for our neighbor.
Honestly, at times our lives don’t even compare to wilted dandelions. But the God who gave us life, and washes us with a new birth to live by faith in Christ Jesus, He graciously accepts us in Jesus’ name. He bears with our weakness, covers, & forgives our sins, and guides & trains us to live as His holy & obedient children. That’s the gift we receive.
So, Martin Luther asked: How can I, a terribly sinful, mortal human have fellowship with the majestic, high & holy God of the universe? The answer he found in Christ alone & faith alone; that answer reformed & restored Christianity.
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So, these are 3 pictures of the Reformation, brought to light by a humble but persistent Augustinian monk; and these truths restored the NT Church:
#1 = God allows the weight of sin to trouble us so that we experience ‘the hour of the husks’,
with the honest realization that our sin has cut us off from Him.
#2 = God then has located Himself in a place where, by His Word & Sacrament, He is
always running to meet us to give us His promise of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
and #3 = because of that Law and Gospel, we are now able to live under grace & by faith.
We bring our humble life to our Father, like a handful of wilted dandelions; which He accepts and arranges, as only a Perfect Florist could do. In that, we have hope & peace.
Amen