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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.
Generally speaking, you were free either to come here to Pilgrim for this Reformation Day Divine Service or to not come here and do something else. At this point in our country’s history, anyway, we still generally are free to exercise our religion and do quite a number of other things that people around the world may only be able to dream of doing. At the same time, however, we may feel and actually be in some sense “enslaved” to people and positions in our families, church, and society at large, such as at school or our jobs. Most importantly, as we heard in the Gospel Reading tonight, by nature we are slaves to sin, and so, as we also heard, God calls and enables us to abide in Jesus’s Word and so be set-free disciples. Tonight we consider the Gospel Reading under that theme of “Set-free disciples”.
Tonight’s Gospel Reading, appointed for our use only on Reformation Day, is an excerpt of Jesus’s teaching seemingly at the Feast of Tabernacles, which the Divinely‑inspired St. John uniquely records. As Jesus spoke, many believed in Him, so Jesus spoke to the Jews who had believed in Him, about undoubtedly fewer of them’s abiding in His Word and so truly being His disciples, with the result that they would know the Truth—Him the Son—and be not enslaved to sin but set free. To be sure, both abiding in God’s Word and the matter of slavery to and freedom from sin were involved in the Reformation that in some sense began 502 years ago today, even as abiding in God’s Word and the matter of slavery to and freedom from sin are relevant to us in our time.
People popularly think falsely that we have the same freedom in spiritual matters that we have in earthly matters. We may be free to drink Coke or Pepsi, turn left or right on a two-way street, or use an Android or an i‑O‑S smart phone, but by nature we are not free to decide whether or not we will fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Rather, Jesus says everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin (confer 1 John 3:8). We practice sin because we are enslaved to it, corrupted by sin from the moment of our conceptions, and so we are spiritually dead in sin, unable to decide anything in spiritual matters, and deserving of both death here in time and torment in hell for eternity. In sin, we may deceive ourselves and believe lies; we may think of ourselves as gods, act accordingly, and be blind to our true situations in relationship to the God (Schlier, TDNT, 2:496-498). The Jews of Jesus’s day, the Roman Catholics of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s day, and many people in our time are so blind to their slavery to sin.
Thus, in the Gospel Reading, Jesus calls and enables the Jews of His day, the Roman Catholics of Luther’s day, and all of us in our time to abide in Jesus’s Word and so be set-free disciples. The ninety-five theses, which Luther mailed to his ecclesiastical supervisor and is usually thought to have posted 502 years ago today, began with the proposition that “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’, He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance” (AE 31:25). Unless we reject His will for us by not repenting, then God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake. Our repenting is not a cause of our salvation, but our repenting is a necessary circumstance for our salvation. Twice in the Gospel Reading Jesus makes essentially the same conditional “if‑then” statement about people’s being free; Jesus recognizes both the possibility that some will not abide in His Word and be His disciples and so know the Truth and be set free, but also the likelihood that some will do so. Abiding in Jesus’s Word we are truly His disciples, with the result that we know the Truth—Him the Son—and are not enslaved to sin but set free from sin.
Fulfilling Old Testament prophecy through Isaiah (Isaiah 61:1), the Spirit of the Lord God was upon Jesus to proclaim liberty to the captives. Jesus even pointed to Himself as the fulfillment of that prophecy both in his home Synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-21) and to disciples of John the Baptizer (Matthew 11:5; Luke 7:22). The true Son of God in human flesh, Jesus identified Himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, through Whom alone we have access to the Father (John 14:6), enabling us to worship the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in Jesus, the Truth (John 4:23-24). Out of His great love, mercy, and grace, Jesus died on the cross for us and for everyone who ever has been, is now, and will be. Jesus died in our place, the death that we otherwise deserved, that we may be set free from sin. When we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to stop sinning, then God forgives us our sin, all our sin, whatever our sin might be.
Our great liberation from sin takes place as the Gospel is read and preached to us in groups such as this and as the Gospel is applied to us individually in Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar (confer Schlier, TDNT, 2:499-500). In all these ways, God’s Word abides in us and we abide in Him (John 15:7)—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (confer 2 John 9)—and we are truly His disciples, and we know Him as the Truth; He sets us free, and we are free indeed. For most of us that liberation starts at the Font with water and the Word through which God works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. That liberation continues, if we privately confess to our pastor the sins that we know and feel in our hearts, in individual Holy Absolution, where the pastor’s absolution is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself. And, perhaps the greatest earthly experience of that liberation from sin comes at the Rail with bread and wine that in the Sacrament of the Altar are the Body and Blood of Christ given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Truly in all of these ways we are “Set-free disciples”!
Of course, we are not “set free” to do whatever we want. We are no longer enslaved to sin and its disobedience, but we are, as it were, slaves to obedience, which leads to righteousness and ultimately to eternal life (Romans 6:6, 16, 18, 22). A few years after the ninety-five theses, Luther expressed the paradox well, writing that “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none” and that “A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all” (AE 31:344). We actually are in some sense “enslaved” to people and positions in our families, church, and society at large, such as at school or our jobs, but, as Christ works in us, we do not feel enslaved but willingly love and serve God as we love and serve our neighbors. With daily repentance and faith, we live in His forgiveness of sins and experience His peace and joy already now.
Whether or not Luther was, as his funeral preacher described him, the flying angel with the eternal Gospel of tonight’s First Reading (Revelation 14:6-7), through Luther’s meditation on passages such as tonight’s Epistle Reading (Romans 3:19-28), God did work a wonderful Reformation that restored the Gospel of salvation by faith in Christ to its rightful place. The number of disciples is not ultimately what matters, as Luther himself expressed once when preaching on John 8. Many may have started with Christ, with the Reformation, and with us, and a fraction may remain, but there will be some who stay; “Let those who stand, stand,” Luther writes, continuing, “let those who will not stand fall away if they please” (Plass #107, p.38; confer AE 23:398-399). Thanks be to God that we are among those who stay and so are “Set-free disciples”.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +