Another gem from Sasse, as we reflect this week on the Reformation:

Although in his book on the Babylonian captivity of the church and in the Smalcald Articles, [Luther] unmasked and condemned the idolatry which had crept into the Mass, he admitted that the Roman Mass was still a valid Eucharist. And so he did not, like Zwingli and Calvin, introduce a new liturgy. The Lutheran liturgy was merely a Mass without the invocation of the saints and [without] the Roman conception of sacrifice. To Luther it was unthinkable that the unity of the Western church might be forever destroyed. He wanted to recall this church to what he was convinced was the pure teaching of the Gospel and, at the same time, the ancient teaching of the church.

Only from this point of view can Luther’s actions be understood. He wanted neither to split the church nor to found a new church. Nor was it his ambition to become the reviver, the Reformer of the church. His conscience told him that he was merely carrying out the duties of his office in the church: the pure teaching of the Gospel. According to his own conception, his work consisted only in this: “to have reintroduced the Holy Gospel into the world.”

–Hermann Sasse, “Luther and the Teaching of the Reformation,” in The Lonely Way

Text: Romans 3:19-28 +++ An adult was also confirmed at this service.

The problem with the church today is that Luther’s problem has stopped being our problem. Luther’s problem was the original problem of all true theology: How can mankind be redeemed – rescued from his sins, and the death and hell they have merited? For Luther, the question became a very personal one: “How can I be redeemed?”

This question is really a question about God: “How can I find a God of mercy?” Today’s questions about God – if they are about God at all – are throughly self-absorbed: How can I find a God who can give me my best life now? How can I have a life of purpose? How can I be happy? In these questions, God is a means to an end. But God is not a means to an end. God is the end, even as He is the beginning.

I heard a church historian speaking recently about the how modern American religious thought is different from previous ages. One of the things that makes our age unique is that nobody thinks he is going to hell. Luther wrestled with a different kind of problem. He couldn’t see how he wouldn’t be condemned to hell. The typical answer of his day – that God’s wrath would be turned aside by his duties as a monk, his life of self-denial, his frequent confession and communion – none of that satisfied him.

Luther, you see, had a gift, given to him by God: He had a tender conscience. Today, we would call that a curse. The key to success – in business, in life, and especially in the church – is compromise. And with each compromise, the conscience is deadened a little, and God’s Word is set aside a little more. With each compromise you and I make, we have to tell ourselves, “The warnings of God’s Word don’t really apply to me. After all, I’ve been baptized, I’ve been confirmed, I go to church from time to time – I’m already forgiven, right?” And so we willfully sin, repeatedly, and keep on expecting God’s forgiveness. It’s our right! We are entitled!

But when we hear the Bible really speak, all of our compromises melt under the heat of divine scrutiny. It is written, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12.29). We ought to be afraid – very afraid – at those words. The fact that we are not testifies to just how compromised we are, just how spiritually arrogant we have become, just how much we have taken God’s Word of Law and Gospel for granted.

The young Luther did not take the Law for granted, but at the same time he didn’t really know the Gospel. What he did know, what he was certain of, was this truth from God’s Word: “The whole world [will] be held accountable to God” [Epistle]. And when that day of accountability, when that day of reckoning, when that day of judgment comes, “By works of the law no human being will be justified in [God’s] sight.” God’s Law requires – demands – that every person be righteous. And yet the same word of God says that no person is righteous – not one! The answer Luther’s church was giving him was that popes and indulgences and fasting and celibacy and penance could obtain for him the righteousness that he needed. But he knew it was not true. “By works of the law no human being will be justified in [God’s] sight.”

What makes Luther different from other reformers is what drove his teaching. Other reform movements were driven by mystical experiences, emotional conversions, or a commitment to obedience. The Lutheran Reformation was instead a rediscovery of the teaching of the Bible about God’s righteousness. Luther rediscovered the Bible’s teaching that what God demands in the Law, He gives in the Gospel. In the Law, God’s punishes and condemns our unrighteousness, but in the Gospel, God gives freely His own righteousness. Through the fog of a false understanding of God’s righteousness, Luther heard the “eternal gospel” mentioned in today’s first reading, written in Romans 1: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” These words revealed the answer to Luther’s terrifying question: “How can I find a God of mercy?”

Luther’s problem needs to again be our problem: “How can I find a God of mercy?” If we want reform for the Christianity of our day, the church must ask this question again. If our Synod is to be restored to her former vigor, she must again ask this question. If our congregation, which has inherited the gift of the Reformation – if our congregation is to be successful, we must continuously ask that question: “How can I find a God of mercy?”

And hearing the answer in God’s Word, that we are justified, declared righteous, shown mercy “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” then we will have success. Perhaps not as the world counts it, in buildings, budgets, and crowds, but the kind of success God promises: that His Word will not return to Him void, but accomplish the thing for which it is sent.

Today, when Gena is confirmed, that is what pleases God – renouncing the devil and confessing the faith. Today, when you come to the altar confessing your sins and receiving in faith Christ’s body and blood, and with it, His pledge of forgiveness, that is what pleases God.

So each one of us needs to, every day, every week, acknowledge our sins, lament them, confess them, turn from them, ask for God’s help, and ask, “How can I find a God of mercy?”

And then, we are ready for the answer: We cannot find Him, but He has found us; in JESUS He became one of us, took on our human nature, hungered with us, suffered for us, died with our sins on HIm, and rose from the dead so that we too can rise from death. That is God’s answer to the Reformation question, the Bible question, the human question, “How can I find a God of mercy?” Trusting in that answer is what the Bible means when it says, “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” May that Reformation faith renew our hearts and our congregation!

The God of Kant, Schleiermacher, and Ritschl is no longer a consuming fire. If the modern man believes in God at all, he believes in him as the guarantor of his happiness. And so the thought of the existence of God has become, since the eighteenth century, a comforting thought. For Luther it was a most disturbing one. In bitter moments of grave temptation he often wished that God did not exist. For if God exists, and if he really is God, then man is lost. Created to do God’s will, and incapable of its fulfillment, he is guilty of the judgment [of God]. And how can man hope to stand before the God of heaven and his unerring judgment?

–Hermann Sasse, from “Luther and the Teaching of the Reformation” (1937) in The Lonely Way.

For those of you new to Lutheranism, it is our custom to celebrate Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday in October. Despite the fact that we have a picture of Luther preaching on the cover of the service folder, the Reformation really isn’t about Luther, and the Lutheran Church isn’t about Luther. Luther was merely – well, there really isn’t anything “mere” about Luther. His personality was larger than life, which can overshadow his real importance: that he was merely a humble instrument of God, a preacher of the kingdom of heaven. On Oct. 31, 1517, Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. These theses begin, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Luther was a preacher of repentance. Luther was merely a preacher of God’s Word, a preacher of the kingdom of heaven.

Luther simply followed in the train of John the Baptist, the greatest preacher of the kingdom of heaven. Girded in camel’s hair, he showed that the kingdom of heaven comes not in finery. With a diet of bugs and wild honey, he showed that the kingdom of heaven comes not in a high life of fine dining. With the desert for his home, he showed that the kingdom of heaven is not in expensive accommodations. With his preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” he showed that the kingdom of heaven is found only in humility, lowliness, the turning away from sin to live for God alone. With his baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, he showed that this path of repentance was open to all, irrespective of what you have done, be you harlot, drug dealer, murderer, adulterer, or even if you have been an apathetic suburbanite more concerned about your investment portfolio, career, and social life than going to confession, saying your prayers, and growing in faith and piety. John the Baptist proclaimed God’s truth that His kingdom is open to all, be they high or low, rich or poor – but that the mark of this kingdom if repentance and bearing the fruits thereof.

Now some reject this preaching of repentance. We live in a world where sexual immorality is celebrated, where tearing the limbs from unborn children and crushing their skulls is called a choice? But the truth is, there is a part of us that rejects repentance, too. We claim to love the triune God, but are in truth obsessed with the gods of this world, its sin, its situational ethics that justifies wrong-doing. Confessing your sins on Sunday morning, are you serious about amending your sinful life on Monday morning? Repent, and bear fruits worthy of repentance.

Today’s Gospel reading comes at a time when John the Baptist is in prison for daring to tell King Herod that his adulterous life was sinful. “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence,” comments Jesus on John’s incarceration, “and the violent take it by force.” John’s life is taken by force, his head removed at the request of a dancing girl. But violence could not stop the great repentance movement that the LORD, through John’s preaching, had begun.

Christ Jesus, our Lord, whom John had pointed out as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, continued to preach repentance, inviting sinners such as Matthew and Zacchaeus, sinners such as the adulterous woman at Jacob’s Well and the woman caught in adultery, calling tax collectors and murderers to repentance. Our Lord called them to leave the broad path leading to destruction, and walk the narrow path that leads to life. Jesus preached the kingdom of heaven, the love of God for all men and His forgiveness for sinners. But Jesus was not just a reformer, revolutionary, example, or teacher. Jesus Himself was and is the kingdom of heaven, come in the flesh.

But, “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” They seize Him, do violence to Him, whip Him, pummel Him, slam thorns into his brow, nail  Him to a tree, thrust a spear into His side.

That is how the world responds to the call to repentance. That is how the world treats her God, who comes in love, offering peace, saying, “Come now, and let us reason together; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” The world wants none of it. The world’s kingdom comes with soldiers and weapons of war. In this world, kingdoms uphold their glory and exercise their might by force, and leaders come into power with smooth words and empty promises. The proud and cunning rule, while the kingdom of heaven suffers violence.

But the kingdom of heaven is not violent. The LORD’s kingdom is a kingdom of martyrs, a kingdom where the other cheek is turned, where one does good to one’s enemies and prays for his persecutors.

These two kingdoms are engaged in a great struggle, from the days of John the Baptist until now, from the day that Satan sought to raise up a kingdom against God’s kingdom of love and mercy. These kingdoms are in a great struggle; on the one side the kingdoms of earthly pride and the reign of the devil, and on the other side, the kingdom of heaven, abiding in humility and repentance.

The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence in this world, and as Reformation Christians, we stand up and are counted willing to suffer the world’s hatred, and even the scorn of other Christians because we hold that, as our Confessions say, “the Word of God is and should remain the sole rule and norm of all doctrine, and that no human being’s writings dare be put on a par with it, but that everything must be subjected to it.” We are Lutherans not because we follow Luther, but because we hold to the same opinion that Luther held, that only the Word of God rules in the Church, not popes or councils or synods; the source of doctrine only comes from the Scriptures, not a convention or commission, not any human tradition or assembly. We are Lutherans not because we follow Luther, but because Luther stands in the long line of those preaching in the mode of John the Baptist: “Repent!” and, “Behold, Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!” Put not your trust in princes or popes; put not your trust in your works, feelings, experiences or decisions. In Christ Jesus alone can we trust and hope. Luther and the other reformers simply continued the great repentance movement that began with John the Baptist, a repentance and reforming movement that looks only to Jesus, to the grace He won for us.

The church doesn’t need a program (or even a grass-roots movement!). The church doesn’t need visions or convocations or meetings. No political action can save the church. No fundraising campaign can save the church. The church stands or falls by the doctrine found in the Word of God, the doctrine that we are justified, declared righteous, entirely by grace through faith, apart from the deeds of the law. The church needs to continuously reform, we all need to be constantly returning to that doctrine in which alone is our life. The church needs to continuously reform by hearing the united voice of Paul Gerhardt, John Gerhard, Martin Chemnitz, Martin Luther, of Gregory the Great, of St. John Chrysostom, of Augustine of Hippo, of Ambrose of Milan, of St. Paul, of John the Baptist, all crying out to us from across the ages: “Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!” Reformation begins anew when you and I turn from our sins, hear the Word of God, and lead holy lives according to it.

It will not be easy. It may involve suffering violence. Certainly it will involve not being glorified or deemed successful in this world. Those within the church itself will oppose real reformation. They always have. Luther was called a heretic and outlaw by the leader of Christians in his day. Jan Hus was burned at the stake. John the Baptist was beheaded. Most of the Apostles suffered martyrdom. But we are called to take up the cross and follow Jesus, who suffered violence. And it is precisely in that violence, the violent seizure and crucifixion of Jesus, wherein our hope and joy is to be found. From His cross comes our life. The sins for which we repent are paid for on His cross. The sinner that I am is nailed to the tree. the sinner that you are is drowned in Baptism, pierced and spit upon in Jesus. On the cross, the kingdom of heaven suffered violent, and the violent took it by force, the violence lost, the devil was defeated, your sins atoned for, death undone, peace with God once more is made.

That is what the Reformation is about – God’s free gift to you there, in Jesus on the cross willingly suffering violence in your place. So let this Reformation service not be a mere historical observance. Let the Lutheran doctrine, which is the truly catholic doctrine, the Christian doctrine of the Scriptures, live on today by the reform and repentance which is renewed in our hearts and lives today.

And let us tell a world of violence about the kingdom of heaven. Let us tell a world deluded into thinking that there are many paths to salvation that the one and only path has been opened to us in Jesus. Let us tell a world which, despite nearly five hundred years of Reformation teaching still thinks God accepts us on the basis of our own works, that salvation is only by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. Let us tell the generation to come the mighty deeds of our Savior. Let us be steadfast in God’s Word. Let the Reformation live among us, through lives of repentance!

Today, Reformation is not a doctrine or a subject. Reformation comes freely to you and in you through the reforming, redeeming, renewing Body and Blood of your only Mediator and Redeemer, Christ Jesus the Lord!

With great joy, we Lutherans have never understood ourselves to be a ‘new church,’ but the church of the Apostles, restored, cleansed, and reformed.  Luther realized that the Roman Church had departed from the church catholic.

-Rev. A. L. Barry, late president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod

I love LSB. It’s better than LW in just about every way. And I wouldn’t exchange it for TLH even if I could. But the hymn texts in LSB are in many cases stripped of their vigor from the earlier translations, and I am continually discovering “new” stanzas that were omitted from the modern books. This Sunday, in honor of the Reformation, we will sing all nine stanzas of “Lord Jesus Christ, with Us Abide” from TLH. Here is the text:

Today, one day before the birth of Dr. Luther, we commemorate the birth of the “Second Martin,” Martin Chemnitz. From Synod’s website:

Martin Chemnitz (1522–1586) is regarded after Martin Luther as the most important theologian in the history of the Lutheran Church. Chemnitz combined a penetrating intellect and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture and the church fathers with a genuine love for the church. When various doctrinal disagreements broke out after Luther’s death in 1546, Chemnitz determined to give himself fully to the restoration of unity in the Lutheran Church. He became the leading spirit and principal author of the 1577 Formula of Concord, which settled the doctrinal disputes on the basis of the Scriptures and largely succeeded in restoring unity among Lutherans. Chemnitz also authored the four volume Examination of the Council of Trent (1565–1573), in which he rigorously subjected the teachings of this Roman Catholic Council to the judgment of Scripture and the ancient church fathers. The Examination became the definitive Lutheran answer to the Council of Trent, as well as a thorough exposition of the faith of the Augsburg Confession. A theologian and a churchman, Chemnitz was truly a gift of God to the Church.

Someone once summarized the entire Lutheran Reformation in the sixteenth century as a reformation of the Sacrament of Penance. Today, Reformation Sunday, we should ask ourselves, “Why are we Lutheran?” But along with that question, we should ask another: “Are we Lutheran?”

If it is true that the entire Reformation can be seen as really a reformation of the Sacrament of Penance, we should look at our own church life, family life, and personal life in that light. The theology of Penance to which Luther and the Reformers were responding was one that saw Penance as an action to be performed. Going to the priest for confession had become a mechanistic act where the mouth confessed but the heart was not changed. The sale of indulgences meant that forgiveness could be purchased with money or by doing good deeds.

But now that we Reformation Christians have the Gospel, is the situation better, or worse? Claus Harms, a Lutheran of the nineteenth century, wrote, “The forgiveness of sins at least required monetary payment during the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth it costs nothing. Now men serve themselves with it. They at that time stood higher than us, they were nearer to God.” How can he say that? Because they recognized that sin costs something. We mock and criticize that they paid money for the forgiveness of sins. At least they realized that sin came at a price! Do you?

Are you better than the medieval peasant who went to the priest for confession? Or do you take confession itself for granted? Do you saunter in here, speak a mindless confession along with the crowd, and suppose that you can live reprehensibly but the general absolution gives you a kind of amnesty to keep on with the selfishness, keep on with the pride, keep on with the porn, keep on with the gossip, keep bearing grudges, keep ignoring your neighbor? Is that what the Reformation has given us?

By no means, my friend. And do not think that real peace comes from learning to forgive yourself. The great theologian Hermann Sasse said, “He who forgives himself his sins is his own God” – in other word, if you forgive yourself, you make yourself a god – the worst kind of idolatry.

The Lutheran Reformation recovered for the church that all-important truth that penance, or repentance, is a comprehensive attitude of the entire life of the believer. So that great Reformation document, the Augsburg Confession, declared: “True repentance is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow, or terror, on account of sin, and yet at the same time to believe the Gospel and absolution (namely, that sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ), and this faith will comfort the heart and again set it at rest.”

The Reformation was not to create a new church, or denomination.

The Reformation at its core was not about dethroning the Pope. The Reformers would gladly have continued submitting to the Pope by human arrangement for the sake of good order on the condition that he would allow the Gospel to be purely preached.

The Reformation was all about ensuring that the church proclaimed true repentance to the people, and pointed those people to Jesus who has taken away sins by His death.

So why are we Lutheran? Not because Lutherans are perfect. Not because Lutherans are smarter. No one should be a Lutheran out of ethnic pride or because Dad and Mom were Lutherans or because you married into it. I am a Lutheran because I firmly, truly believe that the doctrine of the Lutheran Church, as found in the Book of Concord, is the only confession that remains entirely faithful to the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. That is the question that you are asked, as well, when you become a member of this congregation: “Do you believe that the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as you have learned to know it from the Small Catechism, is faithful and true to the Word of God?”

So what is that doctrine? Not simply a collection of facts: it is the doctrine that we are sinners saved entirely by God’s grace, through faith.

To be a Christian, we must take every part of that sentence seriously. “We are sinners.” Do you take seriously what a problem your sins are? I have told you many times that you must struggle against your sins, and that is true. But at the same time you must realize that your struggle is never where your trust is. For then, your trust is in yourself.

Here is where faith comes in. Faith is not an emotion. Faith is not having confidence. Faith is not a certainty that everything will work out. Faith is not a blind leap. Faith always has an object. As Christians, our faith has its object in Jesus. True Christian faith is not a blind trust, but it is grounded in the objective reality of the death of Jesus, the certainty that in Him sins are forgiven, death is defeated, Satan is stripped of his power, and that God has had mercy on us.

So the Christian lives constantly aware of two things: My sins are dreadful, they offend God and damn me, I wish to be rid of them; and at the same time, I am serene and confident in the knowledge that God loves me and forgives me all for the sake of Jesus. I know this not by my feelings, emotions, or decisions, but because of the objective work of Jesus on the cross, and in the tangible ways He gives me grace, in the Means of Grace – my Baptism, when I go to the pastor for Absolution, and in the Holy Supper.

Today, then, we thank God for the Reformers. We celebrate the Reformation not out of party spirit or because we hate Catholicism and enjoy bashing the pope. We celebrate the Reformation in a spirit of grateful humility that God still allows His good news of forgiveness to be preached to us, and we ask that He would preserve His Church on earth for the sake of Christ so that many more might hear the pure doctrine that God forgives sinners all by grace through faith in Jesus.