✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
Jeremiah 29,1.4-7.10-14
Gedenktag der Reformation 095, transferred (21. S. n. Trinitatis 066) 5412
Simon Martyr in 1st c. and Jude/Thaddaeus Martyr in Edessa, Greece or Persia
28. October 2012
1. Almighty and Gracious Holy Spirit, You have given Your Church the means of grace (der Gnadenmittel) and the preaching office (das Predigtamt) so that absolution for the full remission of sins is proclaimed to guilty sinners crushed by Your holy law. At various times throughout this Church age, Satan and his wily servants have managed to sow doubt and distress among Your faithful people so that they despair of Your love and mercy. Each time You raise up banner-men of the faith who draw Your distraught people back to the means of grace and the comforting gospel. We give thanks for these men and women whose desire for pure doctrine, piety and the gospel promise have restored peace and tranquility to fainting spirits. Make each of us here today faithful heirs of these Christian banner-men so that our support for, and the proclamation of, the gospel is freely passed on to our neighbors and the next Christian generation. Amen.
2. 1These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 4„Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, so that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 10For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you My promise and bring you back to this place. 11For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. 13You will seek Me and find Me. When you seek Me with all your heart, 14I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.“
3. The Medieval Church in Luther’s day was, in the opinion of many Christians, a Church in exile. Others before Luther had urged for a reformation in the Church. Their uniform concern was that too much questionable stuff had slowly crept into the Church over the centuries, stuff that if left as is would eventually harm the faith of Christians. One example of this was the communion practice common in Martin Luther’s day: people only received the bread at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. No one could point to a specific resolution or conciliar decree that had authorized this practice; it just happened and was accepted by the average lay person to be the way Jesus instituted His Sacrament. Those who had access to the Holy Scriptures, and pondered the Word, realized that communion under one kind (species) was not how Jesus instituted this Sacrament. Some, like Jan Hus, even went so far as to reestablish communion with bread and wine as the proper, Scriptural practice in their local churches.
4. Another example was Medieval penance. The practice was developed as way for people to confess their sins and make temporal restitution for their guilt. Penance was supposed to alleviate your guilty conscience: just do the deeds proscribed by your Father Confessor and fret no more about your sins. This did not ease the conscience of all Christians, for they had an unrelenting conscience that was never satisfied by anything they did to cover the guilt of their sins. Luther was one of these guilt-ridden persons. He did everything he was told to do: he confessed his sins, he revered the holy relics, he went on pilgrimages, he purchased indulgences and he even added more stringent penances to himself beyond what his Father Confessor listed. Luther would starve himself, deny himself sleep and he even whipped himself bloody. He did all this to bring the certainty of forgiveness (Vergebunggewißheit) to his guilty conscience, but nothing worked.
5. What finally liberated the downtrodden Luther was the Word of God. Luther’s Father Confessor sent him to Wittenberg University in 1511 to earn a doctorate in theology. Staupitz reasoned that if Luther spent time studying, teaching and preaching, then he would finally find the salve for his burdened conscience. From 1515-1517, Luther lectured on Romans and Galatians at Wittenberg University. During that period he came to see the gospel clearly for the first time while reading Romans 1,17 in preparation for a class lecture: »For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith in faith, as it is written: »The righteous will live by faith.«« (Habakkuk 2,4).
6. Luther writes about that glorious moment: „First I saw this well, namely, that the free gift is absolutely necessary for obtaining the light and the heavenly life, and I worked anxiously and diligently to understand the well-known statement in Romans 1,17: »The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel.« [cf. AE 34,336-38] Then I sought and knocked for a long time (cf. Matthew 7,7), for that expression »the righteousness of God« stood in the way. It was commonly explained by saying that the righteousness of God is the power of God by which God Himself is formally righteous and condemns sinners. This is the way all teachers except Augustine had interpreted this passage: the righteousness of God, that is, the wrath of God. But every time I read this passage, I always wished that God had never revealed the Gospel—for who could love a God who is angry, judges, and condemns?—until finally, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, I weighed more carefully the passage in Habakkuk (2,4), where I read: »The righteous shall live by his faith.« From this I concluded that life must come from faith. In this way I related the abstract to the concrete, and all Holy Scripture and heaven itself were opened to me. At this time, however we see that great light very clearly, and we may enjoy it richly. But we despise and disdain this jewel and heavenly treasure. Accordingly, if one day it should be taken away again, we shall cry and knock once more, as Christ says about the foolish virgins in the parable (cf. Matthew 25,11). But we shall cry and knock in vain. Therefore let us fear God and be grateful. Above all, however, my own example and the example of others should move you. We lived in death and hell and did not have the blessing so abundantly as you have it. Therefore occupy yourselves diligently with the doctrine of the blessing, and think about it, in order that you may be able to keep it yourselves and also to make it known to others. As for ourselves, we have done our duty“ (Luther 158; WA 43,537).
7. Luther’s rediscovery of the gospel was truly paradise, for „In much of medieval preaching, the Law and Gospel were so confused that the „Good News“ seemed to be that Jesus was a „kinder, gentler Moses,“ who softened the Law into easier exhortations, such as loving God and neighbor from the heart. The Reformers saw Rome as teaching that the Gospel was simply an easier „law“ than that of the Old Testament. Instead of following a lot of rules, God expects only love and heartfelt surrender“ (Horton). Luther’s Reformation liberated numerous Christians from the crushing burden of the law and their tormented conscience. The pure gospel of forgiveness on account of Christ alone transited the Church-in-exile into the Church-in-paradise.
8. The 21. century Church, however, has in many places returned to a self-imposed exile. Many churches in American Evangelicalism have returned to a preaching of Jesus as a kinder, gentler Moses. „Much of evangelical preaching today softens the Law and confuses the Gospel with exhortations, often leaving people with the impression that God does not expect the perfect righteousness prescribed in the Law, but a generally good heart and attitude and avoidance of major sins. A gentle moralism prevails in much of evangelical preaching today and one rarely hears the Law preached as God’s condemnation and wrath, but as helpful suggestions for a more fulfilled life. In the place of God’s Law, helpful tips for practical living are often offered ... as „Lifestyle Perspectives.“ ... The piety and faith of the biblical characters are often preached as examples to imitate, along with Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. As in Protestant liberalism, such preaching often fails to hold Christ forth as the divine savior of sinners, but instead as the coach whose play-book will show us how to achieve victory“ (Horton).
9. Our sinful nature enjoys this sort of preaching. The law is too harsh and demanding, and the gospel of Christ crucified is too offensive. Preachers who lighten the burden of the law with a gospel chuck full of exhortations and moral lessons is to transform the pure gospel into the law lite. This is the sort of preaching we want and desire, for it strokes our ego, doesn’t make too many demands from us and ultimately confirms what we already believe about ourselves, namely that we are decent men and women who just need a little encouragement to be better individuals.
10. This so-called 21. century gospel proclamation is not manna from heaven that satisfies our hunger, but toxic poison that kills our life. The good news is that Jesus promises to deliver us from our self-imposed exile. He does not coddle us. Jesus lets us feel the full blast of the law and its condemnation upon us. The law tells us that we are to love God and our neighbors, reveals that we miserably fail to do this and exhorts us to repent of our massive failure to live according to God’s will. The law threatens death and damnation upon those who are complacent with loving God and our neighbors.
11. Jesus then comforts us with the gospel and it’s absolute certainty. The gospel proclaims that we are forgiven, loved and redeemed by God. The threats of the law have been silenced. The condemnation of the law has been commuted. Jesus is our substitute. He took our place under the law, lived it perfectly, suffered its condemnation for us in our place and rose from the grave in glorious victory. The good news for terrified sinners, people burdened by the law or seeking a way to live a better life in Jesus is: He has done it all for us and He gives us His righteousness. Jesus has found us and has restored our fortunes: this is the pure gospel.
12. The Church must be semper reformanda, always reforming, for the Church is always tempted by the wicked world to give up the pure gospel in order to please men and women. The Church is always going back to Christ and to His precious Word and Holy Sacraments.The Church must continue to confess, preach and teach the pure gospel. The work of Luther and the Reformers is as relevant today as it was in 1517.
13. »The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek«. »The gospel of Christ crucified is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, but to those who are called to faith, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God« (1. Corinthians 1,23-24). »Righteousness will be reckoned to you who believe in God the Father who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead, who was handed over to death for your trespasses and was raised for your justification. Therefore, since you are justified by faith, you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. For while you were still weak, at the right time Christ died for, you, the ungodly. Therefore just as Adam’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so Jesus’ act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all, yes, for you!« (Romans 4,24-5,1.6.18). »There is therefore no condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8,1), for Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for you who believe« (Romans 10,4). »Now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord« (Romans 6,22-23).
14. The gospel of Christ Jesus crucified and risen for you and your sinfulness justifies you: all your sins have been paid for and you are now righteous before God the Father. The gospel sanctifies you: the Holy Spirit daily works in you to create good works by which your neighbors are blessed. The gospel is revealed by faith and received by faith. You are saved. You are righteous. You are sanctified. Christ has made it so. The gospel proclaims it. Believe it, for the gospel is the power of God the Son working in your life through the Holy Scriptures, Holy Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Absolution. The gospel is yours by grace and it is free all on account of Christ. You can be certain of it. Amen.
15. Let us pray. O Lord, Your steadfast love and justice endure forever. Do not forsake the work of Your hands. Keep the doctrine pure in our midst, the gospel free and the offerings liberal so that the proclamation of Christ crucified may continually be proclaimed from this corner.
To God alone be the Glory
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
Horton, Michael. http://www.whitehorseinn.org/free-articles/the-law-the-gospel-by-michael-horton.html
Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works, Vol. 5: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 26-30. „Preface to the New Testament“. Jaroslav Pelikan, Ed.; Walter A. Hansen, Ed. Copyright © 1968 Concordia Publishing House.
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