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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Last month I had the privilege of sitting down to dinner across the table from the Rev. Dr. Timothy Wengert, who is arguably one of the foremost Reformation scholars of our day: he was, for example, the co‑editor of one of the more‑recent English editions of The Book of Concord, the Lutheran Confessions to which all genuine Lutherans unconditionally subscribe because they are in accord with the Word of God. Dr. Wengert was in the Metroplex to lecture on the Reformation, and over dinner before his lecture I asked him, if he could have picked any date to observe as the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation, which date he would have picked. Dr. Wengert laughed and said that, although the question was moot, he would probably not have picked October 31st, 20‑17, because, he said, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther probably had not yet fully rediscovered the Gospel when he posted and/or mailed his Ninety-Five Theses against the Preachers of Indulgences on that date 500 years earlier, and I agreed! Of course, the precise dates of Luther’s rediscovery of the Gospel and of the Reformation are ultimately of minor importance, for, as tonight’s First Reading reminded us, the Gospel proclaimed to those who dwell on earth is eternal. As we reflect on that First Reading tonight, we do so under the theme, “The Eternal Gospel and our response to it”.
Apparently as early as 15‑22, some among Luther’s supporters were identifying the angel flying directly overhead in the First Reading with Luther himself, but the identification was drawn most-famously in 15-46 by Luther’s own pastor, Johannes Bugenhagen, preaching to a capacity crowd at Luther’s funeral (Egger, CPR 27:4 citing Kolb, Images, 30-32, and Hendel, 17, 19), and so the tradition under which some lines of Lutheranism use the Revelation passage as a reading when celebrating Reformation Day. Without granting that Luther was the first, last, or only fulfillment of the vision the Lord gave to St. John, tonight we can consider what Revelation records the angel saying with a loud voice to every nation and tribe and language and people: “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him Who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
We do well to note in the angel’s statement the three imperatives or commands: fear, give glory, and worship. The Gospel in its wide sense certainly includes commands that we normally think of as belonging to the law in its narrow sense. Tonight’s Epistle Reading (Romans 3:19‑28) rightly speaks of how that law gives us knowledge of sin and so stops (or “silences”) every mouth and holds the whole world accountable to God—no matter an individual’s age, every person is held accountable to God. For, St. Paul goes on by Divine inspiration to say, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all need to fear God’s judgment and wrath that we by nature and on account of our sins deserve now in time and in hell for eternity. We all need to give glory to God by confessing our sin, and we all need to worship God by seeking and receiving in faith His forgiveness for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. Such repentance is not just a one time thing, but, as Luther made clear in the first of his Ninety-Five Theses, our Lord wills that our entire lives be those of such repentance. And, God not only calls for such fearing, giving glory, and worshipping of repentance, but God also enables us to so repent.
When I checked Google News today while I was eating lunch, the only story connected to the Reformation on this 500th anniversary had to do with a claim that the Reformation affected how beer was made in the land we know of as Germany. Let me assure you, whatever tenuous, tangential connection there may be between the Reformation and formulas for beer, beer is not what the Reformation is all about. As the Missouri Synod’s focus has been in this 500th anniversary year, “It’s still all about Jesus”, and not about Jesus alone to the exclusion of others, but about what Jesus did on the cross for you and for me. We heard that Gospel in its narrow sense in the Gospel Reading: if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:31-36). And, likewise we heard it in the Epistle Reading: the righteousness of God for all who believe and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation (a sacrifice that satisfies wrath) by His blood, to be received by faith. We are not forgiven on the basis of our works, indulgences, relics, the merits of the saints or of the Blessed Virgin Mother, or anything else but by the grace of God for the sake of Christ through faith in Him. He was slain but now is raised and by His blood ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation (Revelation 5:9). When we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, then God truly does forgive our sin, whatever our sin might be. We thank and praise God for salvation through Christ and for the proclamation of that eternal Gospel through not only Luther but also through every faithful messenger who reads and otherwise proclaims it to each one of us.
Like each one of us who has been washed with water and the Word, Luther likely first received forgiveness in the waters of Holy Baptism, though for many years he struggled to fully appreciate the full benefits of that Baptism. In private Confession and individual Absolution, the exercise of Christ’s Keys (Revelation 1:18), Luther came to realize better how the Gospel applied to him, and in one place he credits his father confessor Johannes von Staupitz with the Reformation. Lutherans faithful to their confessions retain private absolution and do not allow it to fall into disuse (Augsburg Confession XI:1), and Lutherans faithful to their confessions celebrate the Lord’s Supper every Sunday and on other festivals (Apology XXIV:1), receiving with bread and wine Christ’s Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
As saving faith naturally leads to good works, Luther, in the words of the Introit appointed for Reformation Day, spoke of God’s testimonies before kings and was not put to shame (Psalm 34:1-2, 11, 22; antiphon Psalm 119:46). Others did likewise, and so do we. In the words of the appointed Gradual, we tell the next generation (Psalm 48:1-a, 12-14a)—those of every nation and tribe and language and people. Yet people and even individual congregations come and go, but the Gospel, as we heard in the First Reading, is eternal: it has been, is now, and always will be. There was opposition to the eternal Gospel in the days of St. John, but the eternal Gospel endured. There was opposition to the eternal Gospel in the days of Luther, but the eternal Gospel endured. There is opposition to the eternal Gospel now in our time, but the eternal Gospel will endure. The Lord of the Church Himself has promised that the gates of hell do not prevail against His Church (Matthew 16:18), which means that the Kingdom of His Church prevails over all the forces rallied against it. And, it is in that Kingdom of His Church, through His Word and Sacraments, that He answers our prayers, as in the Collect tonight, for His saving peace.
Whether or not tonight is the “right” date, at some point some 500 years ago, the Holy Spirit led Luther to rediscover the eternal Gospel, what Luther said the best teachers of the Church had known all along, and the Holy Spirit worked through Luther to reestablish it in Christ’s Church. Such work of restoration in the Church had taken place before and has taken place since. To St. Augustine, one of Luther’s theological forefathers, is attributed the statement Ecclesia semper reformanda est: that is, the Church always needs to be reformed. Christ, Luther reportedly said, is the real reformer, and He has reformed us. Rest assured that as God has seen to the proclamation of “The Eternal Gospel and our response to it”, so He will see to the preservation of His Church until it is gathered before Him in its fullness for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +