Happy Reformation Day. Today is an important day. It is the perfect day to talk about Freedom. As this current election closes in, we are blessed to have the freedom to cast a vote for the person we would like to be our leader. But the sad truth is, in this country, and in many others, there are people who are free when it comes to their state, but slaves when it comes to their souls. Our lessons today tell us about the most important freedom; spiritual freedom. My prayer for all of us this Reformation Sunday is simply that God’s Word would touch our hearts, and that we would leave here with a deeper appreciation for the joy of being free in Christ.
This is precisely the kind of freedom Christ himself talks about in our reading from John. Here we meet up with Jesus as he is surrounded by a large group of people who are challenging his authority. These people were slaves. They were slaves not only to the Roman authorities, but more importantly, they were slaves to their sin, to their traditions, to their empty self righteousness. In our reading, we hear Jesus give these spiritual slaves the key to loosen the chains that bind them. Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
This was the simple truth, but the trouble is, it was too simple. It was too much for these Pharisees, these big-shots in the Jewish faith to accept that Jesus was the answer; that Jesus was the way the truth and the life. It was too much for them to admit that they; the crowd; the self-righteous; the pure blooded Jews; were not themselves, the answer. Their response to Jesus was one rooted in denial. 33They answered him, "We are Abraham’s descendants[2] and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?"
If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny. Here the Jews are denying they have ever been slaves. They denied the reality of the Roman oppression. They denied the very history of their people who had been slaves in Egypt and Babylonia. But most of all, they denied their own slavery to sin. They blindly tried to believe that their own choices, their own actions, their own merit could save them.
They were in denial because the truth hurts. Yes, it is Good News that we truly free through the cross of Christ. But, in order to reach that Good News, we have to accept the reality, that without the cross, we would be truly bound, truly condemned, truly hopeless. They truth requires us to venture into a very dark place. Ironically, this is a day that we thank our Lord, celebrate, and sing praises, because the Holy Spirit led one man into this dark valley, into this tunnel of chaos, into this pit of despair.
Martin Luther, the brave, confident, vibrant leader faith; a man who is considered to be one of the most influential people in history, a man who God used to change our understanding of God’s Word, who tenaciously pursued the truth, who renewed the proclamation of the Gospel. He came to this by way of fear. Martin Luther, like the Pharisees from the reading, did all the right things. He devoted himself to the study of God’s Work, he took monastic orders and became a model monk, he made trips to adore the holy relics, he confessed his sins with forthrightness and a burning passion.
By human standards, he had earned every right to feel secure, to feel free, maybe even to be a little smug. The church at the time even told him so. They freely pointed him to all the rules he followed, they lauded him for the life he chose, the told him to find peace because of who he was and what he did. Martin Luther should have been relaxed, and very comfortable with himself. But he wasn’t.
In all these things that he did, Luther realized he was not free. In fact, he was as bound, as hopeless, as despairing as he ever was. He tried even harder; he fell even shorter. There would never be enough holy relics to see to ease his heart. His vows would never be kept perfectly enough to rest his soul. There would never be enough study to ease his worry. He could never deny himself enough pleasures to cleanse his body. There would never be enough time to confess all his sins.
Taught to rely on his own works for his freedom; he found it was never enough. His sin was like quicksand; the harder he fought with his own strength, the deeper he sank. The more he tried to rely on himself, the tighter he could feel Satan’s spiny grip on his soul. Luther was tortured by his own conscience, paralyzed by his own sins. Luther found himself in the predicament all people eventually find themselves in when forced to confront the reality of God’s Holiness, and the reality of our own frailty. We all have to face the truth, the truth unsheathed, the truth made plain, the truth unavoidable. God has standards we cannot attain. God has rules we cannot follow. God has demands we cannot meet.
I am so incredibly thankful that God led Martin Luther here. Because here, in this desperate position, the Holy Spirit led Luther to seek the truth, the plain truth of God’s Word. God gave Luther the courage to look past the man-made rules, the invented human tradition, the flawed teachings of much of the church to see what God really had to say to sinners in His Word. In the Bible, Luther sought and found the truth, the truth about a different kind of righteousness. A righteousness that comes not from us, from doing the right things, or from being the right kind of person. Luther rediscovered a righteousness that comes from faith, that comes through Christ, that comes through Jesus suffering and death on the cross. There was joy in discovering that the simple truth that Jesus suffered and died to pay the price we cannot pay, he righted the wrongs we cannot right, He cleansed the stains on our souls we cannot clean.
It was in God’s Word that Martin Luther looked up from the shadow of the valley of death and felt the warm light of the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Salvation, upon his face. He discovered freedom, the true freedom of knowing righteousness, purity, a holiness that comes from God to us through Jesus Christ. Imagine hearing these words of truth for the first time. Imaging the salve the words were to a wounded soul.
21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 28For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.
Martin Luther was no longer a slave to sin 35Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. He was now free 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. And in his newfound freedom, Luther found a mission to tell the world the truth. The truth found in God’s Word. He had a newfound love and appreciation of Scripture. In the FREEDOM OF A CHRISTIAN he writes There is no more terrible a disaster with which the wrath of God can afflict men than a famine of the hearing of His Word.
The Great News is that this same freedom that sent Martin Luther’s soul soaring is the same freedom we have in the Gospel here today. It is a message that is still alive, that is still relevant, that we still need to hear week after week, day after day, hour after hour. Satan is still as hard at work as he ever has been. Satan is still trying to grab our ankles and pull us into the quicksand of self-righteousness, societal expectations and self-reliance. We have been freed from Satan’s hellish shackles, and yet, unwittingly, and unknowingly, we try to reach down and try to fasten them on once again. Too often we look to our own righteousness and are satisfied to trade truth for shallow denial.
We lean on ourselves instead of the truth. It is too easy to pat ourselves on the back for all the great things we’ve done. To shower praises on us and those like us. Hold so fast to our own deeds that we look down upon others who don’t act like us, who we don’t think are as good as us. All the while we play the fool, reaching out to grasp the fleeting mist of our own works, and neglect the solid strong substance of the cross.
We bind ourselves with societal expectations. We demand a God that conforms to our ideas, not one that transforms our lives. We desire gratification, not grace. We chase after moral relativity, not divine revelation. We demand God fit into our schedule, not that our scheduled fit his plan. We want God to occupy no more than 60 minutes every week and yet we cheer when the Astro’s game goes to 12 innings.
Too often we would rather be comfortable than free. Denial is just as easy for us as it was for the people in Jesus’ day. We choose to think that we don’t really need Christ. We place our hope in our heritage instead of our faith. We hold up the things of this world, and we hide our faith in Christ, even from people who need to know Him. This list could go on and on. And we should fall deeper and deeper into despair.
So today, as everyday, we have a reason to celebrate. We celebrate the truth that we are free. Free by Christ, Free through Christ, Free in Christ. The same rays of the Gospel light that shone on Martin Luther’s troubled faith are the same rays of hope and life that warms our hearts and souls today. We are lifted out the pit, we are rescued from the fires of hell, we are released from the chains of darkness because we have been made new in Christ. Our death sentence – overturned. Our heavy souls – made light. Our guilt – removed. Christ has made us new. Christ has made us worthy. Christ has made us free. Listen to more of Martin Luther’s words from his writing, THE FREEDOM OF A CHRISTIAN…
Whoever, therefore, does not wish to go astray with those blind men must look beyond work, and beyond laws and doctrines about works. Turning his eyes from works, he must look upon the person and ask how he is justified. For the person is justified and saved, not by works or laws, but by the Word of God, that is, by the promise of his grace, and by faith, that the glory may remain God’s, who saved us not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by virtue of his mercy by the word of his grace when we believed.
So if the Son has set you free, you will be free indeed!
Let HIS freedom ring!
Amen
Works cited:
John Dillenberger, Martin Luther – Selections from His Writings, Anchor Books, New York, 1962, pp. 42-85.
