Today we commemorate the
launching of the 16th Century Protestant Reformation. The message of the reformation is just as
relevant today as it was then. On
October 31, 1517, 500 years ago, a Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther, nailed
95 theses on the Castle Door, in Wittenberg Germany . The 95 theses were protests or criticisms of
the theology and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. I know you are very interested in what all of
these theses protested, so let’s get started, number 1.
Luther didn’t set out to break
with the church, but to simply reform it.
He was surprised by the widespread reaction to his public protest. He had touched a nerve in the lives of the
people and his reputation spread quickly throughout Germany
and Europe .
Opposition from the Pope and the church in Rome followed. They said: “There is a wild boar ravaging
in the vineyard of the Lord.” The
Roman Church demanded that Luther recant his errors, and when Martin refused, a
tear in the Church, a schism in Christianity occurred, which has lasted 500
years. The Protestant church was born.
In Luther’s day God was pictured
as being angry and vengeful because of human sin. God is good and humanity is sinful. People were afraid of God. Scripture says the wages of sin is death. Human sin, the sins of idolatry and
disobedience, had dishonored, had disrespected, had blasphemed God the creator. Even Jesus seemed to be a harsh judge to
Luther who sent the saved to heaven and the damned to hell. Luther was afraid for his soul and tried to
appease God, to become acceptable to God.
He tried to earn God’s favor and forgiveness. He fasted until his cheeks caved in, he
performed good works for the poor, he crawled on his knees up the church steps
until his knees bled, he confessed his sins for six hours at a stretch, but in
the end Luther felt hopeless, helpless, and afraid that God would not accept
him and forgive him, and welcome Luther into heaven.
Luther felt like the nominal
Christian who lived with the philosophy that his good works would be more than
enough to get him into heaven. One night he dreamed of the last judgment, when
all humanity stood before God. He was
standing directly behind Mother Teresa. He
overheard God say, “Teresa, I was really expecting a lot more out of you.”
So Luther turned to the
Scriptures. Luther studied the book of
Romans. He read verses such as the
following: “The gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who have
faith; The righteous shall live by faith; Since we are justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, God proves his love for us in that while were
still sinners Christ died for us, there is now no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus; If God is for us, who
can be against us; I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor
principalities, nor things present nor things to come will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord; God sent Jesus Christ, that
through his sacrifice, he took the punishment for our sins.” In the letter of Ephesians Luther read: “For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it
is the gift of God not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” We are saved not by works, but by God’s
grace through faith.
What is grace? It is like when I was serving a church in Colorado . I had just finished moderating a long session
meeting and I was eager to get home. You
elders know what I’m talking about. It
was about 10:00 pm and I was driving along a narrow frontage road on my way
home. No one was on the road. Suddenly I saw flashing lights in my rear
view mirror. The police officer pulled
me over and asked: “Do you know why I
stopped you?” I said: “Yes, I was
speeding. I just was on my way home
after moderating a session meeting at my church.” He didn’t say anything. He finished writing the ticket. I signed it
and as he was tearing it out of the book, he ripped the ticket in half. I don’t know if it was on purpose or was an
accident. He looked at me and said: “This must be your night, be safe.” He walked away without giving me a ticket. That is grace.
Luther heard that word of grace
and knew that God had spoken to him through the scriptures. He was transformed by his understanding that
the gospel was good news, joyful news of what God has already done in the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus to make us right with God, not what we have to
do in order to get right with God. All
we need do is respond, that is, repent of our sins and believe the good news of
the gospel. God has saved us in Jesus. All we need do is accept God’s salvation in
Jesus Christ through faith. After that
God will begin His work of sanctification, of transforming our hearts, souls, minds
and behavior, to make us more and more like Christ.
This revolutionary understanding
of the gospel caused Luther to begin looking into the practices of the church
which had long troubled him, and the unity of the church of the Middle Ages was
broken. Luther translated the Latin
Bible into German, the language of the people, because he wanted Germans to
read God’s word in their own language. He
wrote hymns like A Mighty Fortress is our God and carols like Away in a Manger. He denied that there was such a place as
purgatory or such a requirement as penance, because he could not find biblical
grounds for these doctrines. He said the
Bible is our authority, not the pope. Popes
are fallible. The church should pattern
its life and its theology on the Bible, on scripture. And if any church doctrines or practices are
not supported by scripture they should be stopped.
The Reformation began with a
simple act, nailing 95 theses or protests against the Roman church. About half of them were protests against the
church’s practice of selling indulgences.
What is an indulgence? An
indulgence is: "A way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to
undergo for one’s sins." The
Catholic Church declared that God forgives sins when you confess your sins to a
priest. But even though you are forgiven,
you still had to be punished for those sins. You had to do penance. Indulgences were a means of taking care of
the penalties for your sins. They would
reduce or eliminate the punishment you had to undergo after your sins were
forgiven. It is called the doctrine of
penance.
Gradually, the practice of
indulgences became corrupt. Indulgences
were sold. They began as the priest
telling you to say certain prayers like Hail Mary Mother of God a certain
number of times to pay the penalty for your sins, to doing good works to pay
for your sins, to buying indulgences in exchange for your punishment. The Roman church said indulgences could
reduce the time spent in purgatory for family, relatives and friends who had
died and were being purged for their sins, or reduce or eliminate the time you
would spend in purgatory after you died, or to move family members who had died
from purgatory to heaven. Indulgences
were sold to purchase salvation from damnation.
Indulgences were used to raise money for the church, to buy land, to
build cathedrals, like St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome , or to fund the Crusades. Churches were accumulating more wealth at the
expense of the people.
Luther saw these abuses and
decided to take action. Here are just
three of Luther’s protests out of the 95. He writes: “Why does not the Pope,
whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build
this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money
of poor believers?” “They are the enemies of Christ and the pope who
forbid altogether the preaching of the Word of God in some churches in order
that indulgences may be preached in others.” “Injury is done to the Word of God when, in
the same sermon, an equal or larger amount of time is devoted to indulgences
than to the Word.”
The Message of Luther, the
message of the gospel, the message of the Bible is repent and believe the good
news of the free gift of God’s forgiving and transforming love in Jesus Christ. God is gracious. His salvation is the greatest gift we can
ever receive. In the name of the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. Amen!
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