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Grace, mercy and
peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
If
you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.
Prayer: Dear Lord
Jesus, send to all of us your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to
all of us that we may hear well. Amen.
Today we celebrate 498 anniversary of the
Lutheran Reformation. Before we get to our today’s Gospel reading we will take
a brief look at what the Reformation was and why would we still celebrate it
here is Australia even 500 years later.
Many Christians today are confused. Many
Lutherans are confused. However, one doesn’t need to look too far back in
history to see that this is a relatively recent thing. It is and always has
been a glorious thing when the path we walk is clearly marked—either you follow
it or you don’t. There have always been times throughout history when
Christians, and also we Lutherans, knew exactly what we had to believe and what
we had to do. Such times always come from a firm belief that the word of God is
clear. If we don’t believe God’s word is clear, then nothing is clear, faith is
unclear, and life is unclear. When we believe God’s word is unclear, then we
live in slavery—slavery to ourselves.
People often misunderstand what the
Reformation was. Some people think that since people are always getting smarter
and smarter, that the reformation was about something along the lines of
ever-continuing progress. This is not true.
Some people think that Martin Luther was some
kind of revolutionary, liberating people out of oppression of all those rich
hypocrites in the Catholic Church, so that people can do whatever they want.
This is not true.
One of the most dangerous misunderstanding of
the reformation is when some say that the Church needs to be reformed all the
time. What they mean is that the Church needs to change all the time, that
Christ’s Church needs to catch up with the times, to be on “the right side of
history”, to invent “new models of doing church”, to get rid of all the boring
stuff we don’t understand. This isn’t true either. There is only one Lord, one
faith, one baptism. There is only one truth—we either stick with it or we lose
it. Either we stick with God’s agenda for his church, or the devil’s. The
church can’t keep up with the times, because the church does not compete with
the pagan world.
The best way to understand what the
Reformation was, is to look at its very opposite, which is – deformation.
Reformation is when you reform, restore back something that has been deformed.
In the case of the Lutheran Reformation it
was the message of Christ that was deformed. The Church had become so much like
the world around it, it had been bringing itself up-to-date for so long, that
the unique message of Jesus Christ was almost completely lost.
There was a man, chosen by God, and called to
recover the true message of the Bible. His name was Martin Luther. He didn’t
mean to become a reformer. He didn’t plan to start the greatest revival ever.
He didn’t mean to launch the Reformation and to change the course of history.
When Luther begun to read the Bible, when he begun to abide in Christ’s words,
trying to be Jesus’ disciple, the words of Christ revealed him the truth and
the truth set him free.
Listen to that word: Free. Freedom. This is
what Martin Luther obtained. True freedom which comes from our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ through His Word. And as Luther proclaimed and taught this freedom
to others, the world was changed.
This is what the Reformation was about:
Returning to the Word of God, abiding in the Word, restoring the pure message
of Christ, learning the truth and letting its transforming power to set us
free.
I think that most people really like this
word ‘freedom’. Unfortunately, what we often understand as freedom is something
very, very different than what Jesus had in mind and what the Reformation
rediscovered.
How do we, or at least how does the culture
around us understand what freedom is? I think that we all are influenced by the
fairy tale that we can’t be truly happy unless we are totally free to choose
who we are and how we want to live.
This idea, this story has been around for so
long and is still actively promoted. Let me give a few examples of this kind of
thinking, of how people understand this freedom, and I’m sure you will
recognize most of them.
People say: ‘I want to be free to do whatever
I want. I want to be free from all restrictions, from all authorities and
responsibilities, from all obligations that I haven’t chosen myself. I want to
be free to define who I am. I want to be free to define who God is and what to
do about it. I want to be free to decide myself what is right and what is
wrong. I want to be free to call the reality around me what I want.’
I’m sure you can recognize examples of this false
freedom around us in our culture, even among people close to you, may be even
in your own thinking. So many people today are captivated by this false idea of
freedom even not realizing it.
What is significant about this false freedom
is that all of this is about… about whom? Yes, it is about me! This false
freedom assures that I am the centre around whom everything else revolves. It’s
obvious that this isn’t true.
It takes just a minute to recognize that we
are not creators of our lives, we didn’t decide when, were and with what genes
we will be born. We didn’t choose our talents and weaknesses, we didn’t choose
our relatives and opportunities that we have. We didn’t choose most of our
relationships and responsibilities which define who we are. All of this was
given to us.
And still people want to assume that I am the
beginning and the end. That it is all about me. Of course, no one can make the
entire world to revolve around them, but at least we do our best according to
how much power and influence we have.
The irony about this false freedom of ‘me’
is, that, in fact, it is the greatest tyrant that enslaves us. We are enslaved
to focus mostly on ourselves, to think and care mostly about ourselves, to
worry about our future, we are bound to follow our desires, and we are tricked
to believe that if we do it, this is freedom. When in fact this false freedom
doesn’t allow us to be who we are created to be, to live and enjoy our lives in
their richness.
In ancient Greek devil was called diabolos,
which literary means, one who mixes things up, creates confusions, deceives.
This is what he has done, he has persuaded us that our slavery is freedom, so
that we would demand more of it.
And don’t be fooled thinking that we as
Christians are immune to this kind of deception--Not at all!
In today’s Gospel, Jesus says: If you abide
in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the
truth will set you free. Jesus tells us what it means to be His disciples
and what blessings it will give us.
Now let’s reflect on our own thinking. Do we
really want to allow Jesus Christ to determine what it means to be a Christian,
or we want to determine it ourselves?
I see it again and again that people want to
define themselves what it means to be a Christian, because—you know—we all are
such mature, sophisticated, educated adults and we should make up our own
minds, and how to go about this business of “faith”.
Some people choose to believe that to be a
Christian mainly means that you need to show up in church as often as you can.
On the other hand it doesn’t matter much how you live your life between
Sundays, as long as you have been to church.
Others choose to believe the very opposite.
They believe that coming to church really doesn’t matter for that’s what these
first, these hypocrites do. What matters for them is how good you are in your
daily life! (Of course, good according to our own criteria of goodness!)
Some chose to believe that they can be good
disciples of Christ if they live as nice and loving persons, and try to help
others. There really is no need to focus on the Bible and what it teaches, it
doesn’t really matter. Just be a loving person. For at the end, they say, all
religions are the same, aren’t they?
Some believe that to be a Christian means
that you are self-satisfied and don’t need much. Then you can look at others
who strive for more from this world, and condemn them, for you are not like
them. You are happy and content with what you have. We could continue this list
on and on…
I’m sure we can recognize that these ideas
live not only among people we know, but also among us. The bottom line again is
the same – it is all about me. It is ‘me’ who is going to decide what God
should expect from me. At the end it is about what I myself choose, about my
false freedom.
If we ask where people get these ideas… there
is no answer. “I decided, I choose to believe this way!” This is not freedom—it’s
slavery: slavery to self, to the self which continually rebels against true God
and wants to be like god.
This is why we have such apathy to the Word
of God, this is why we don’t want to
read it, or to study it, to listen to it, or to understand. For if you listen
to the Word of God, our false freedom is taken away. Then we stand before the
Creator and Redeemer as His little rebellious creatures.
It is much harder to admit that all is not
about me, that I can’t re-define reality or determine what is right and what is
wrong, but God the Creator does it and I’m supposed to listen to Him and live
accordingly. We all are so, so deformed in our hearts. We are born this way and
as we grow we get only worse. This is why we confess: “I, a poor helpless
sinner…” Deformed.
Jesus said: “If you abide in my word, you are
truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you
free.” The Lutheran Reformation started with the Word of God, with Luther
abiding in the Word. In these few words Jesus reveals what is the recipe for
true reformation.
Every true reformation should start with the clear
Word of God. When we are willing to listen to our Lord, instead of being like
little gods ourselves. We don’t read the Bible to study God. We read it for
this is how our God speaks to us. When you read and meditate upon the word of
God, at home, in church, or in bible studies, Jesus Christ, the Son of God
Himself speaks to you. He send the Holy Spirit together with His words to
enlighten you, to show you the truth and to set you free.
Only when you come closer to Christ through
His word, you begin to see the truth, about yourselves and about this world.
Sometimes we think that mature Christians are those who don’t sin, or sin just
a little. Mature Christians are those who understand the truth about our
sinfulness and total dependence of God’s grace. The more you abide in the Word,
the more it shows the darkness of our hearts, and the more we can rejoice and
appreciate what Jesus Christ has done for us.
Everything we receive from Him is totally
underserved. If God was only just, we would all be condemned to hell and
destruction. God is not only just, but he is also gracious and merciful. It is
because of His incomprehensible grace and love, it is because of Jesus sacrifice,
that we have our hope. And what a hope it is! God has chosen you for eternal life
All your sins are forgiven! The Holy Spirit has created you a new heart! He has
made you a child of God the Father! You are an heir of God’s eternal kingdom!
The truth is that we don’t deserve any of this.
The truth is that God loves each of you so
much that He gives His life in exchange to yours, so that only He could be with
you. So that only He can have you in His presence in His eternal Kingdom. This
is our hope, this is the truth. This is the truth which Jesus reveals to us in
His word, and this truth sets you free.
Jesus sets you free in two ways. First, He
sets you free from something and second, He sets your free for something.
First, most importantly, He sets you free from the false freedom of self. The
Holy Spirit enlightens you and helps you to see that this is not all about you.
We are free to turn our eyes from ourselves to Jesus and to our neighbours.
Second, Jesus sets you free for something. He
sets your hearts free, so that you desire what is truly good. He sets you free
to trust the you are created in God’s own image, that Jesus Christ has died and
risen so that you can live eternally. He sets you free to trust the your God
loves you and cares for you, and there is nothing to worry about. He is your
rock, and your shield. Jesus sets you free to enjoy your humanity.
To live in joyful and fulfilling
relationships with your Creator and Redeemer, and because we trust that He
provides for us, we are also free to live for our neighbours, sacrificing
ourselves. We are set free from all deformation, and we are set free to be
reformed and restored, to be prepared for all good works. This is what the Reformation was about, and
this is why it is still as important for us, as it was for the people five
centuries ago. We all need to abide in the Word of God as much as we need the
air. We need the Word to reveal us the truth and to set us free. This is why we
always need to be reformed.
Today we still are blessed, we still have the
same Word of truth being preached, but don’t take it for granted. Abide is this
Word, learn the truth and be set free, or as Jesus said: “Walk while you have
the light, before darkness overtakes you.” (John 12:35) So happy Reformation
Day!
Amen.
Dear Jesus, enlighten us by your Holy Spirit,
and set us free from the slavery to ourselves. Open our eyes, and keep them
fixed on you, and help us to trust in your clear word of truth. Amen.
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