Festival of the Reformation

Romans 3:19-28

St. John 8:31–36

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Between now and Reformation Day 2017 we will be celebrating the 500 years since Martin Luther started the Reformation of the Church. We’ll have special services and hear special news from the Synod. We’ll take some time to appreciate the heritage we have in the Lutheran Church. In fact, over the next year, even other Christian churches will have to tip their hats a bit to Martin Luther and the Lutheran Church. Whether they liked it or not, every Christian Church in existence today was effected in some way by the Reformation.

And that’s all a good thing. The Reformation was an important event. You can hardly teach a history class without dealing with it in some way. And the Lutheran Reformation was certainly a godly event. It restored the preaching of the pure Gospel to the Christian Church. Thanks to Luther and many other church leaders we have now enjoyed almost 500 years of pure teaching from the Scriptures Alone, that we are saved by Grace Alone through Faith Alone in Christ Alone. So it’s a good thing for us to pull out all the stops and really celebrate.

But there can also be a problem with anniversary celebrations like these. And the problem is the temptation to start celebrating ourselves. It could be far too easy for us to pat ourselves on the back, shout Rah! Rah! Rah! for Luther, and turn it into a big rally for how great we are. It could be far too easy for us to let the triumphalism get out of hand, to go blind to our own failures, and to look down in pride upon those around us.

And so as we begin this anniversary year, we might do well to consider how the Reformation got started almost 500 years ago. It didn’t start with a parade, a pep rally, stump speeches or fanfare. It didn’t start with an army of revolutionaries or a grand assembly of likeminded founding fathers. It started with a monk posting the outline for a theological debate on a church door. And even this was not as remarkable as it may seem. The monk was a university professor. He was concerned about the church’s teaching on indulgences and so as a professor he wanted to have a debate, a discussion. And the hammer blows that pinned his 95 Theses up on the door were not the loud resounding booms that would shake the church of Rome, nothing quite so dramatic. They were just announcing a theological debate. They were announcing what any pastor and teacher of the church should do: study God’s Word and proclaim it. Obviously the Reformation did grow into a much greater event, involving princes and bishops, emperors and popes. But its beginning was simple. And the very first thesis of those 95 posted by Dr. Luther was perhaps the simplest one of all, and one that we should still keep in mind for ourselves. Thesis 1: “When our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ He willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.”

This was Luther’s fundamental point: the whole life of a believer should be about repentance. Repentance is not a momentary, once in a while thing. It’s not just what you do when you do something really bad. Repentance is not buying an indulgence, or trying to make up for a sin by doing a good deed, or just giving lip-service to God’s Law. Repentance is the whole Christian outlook. It is the way we stand before God, confessing all our sins, all our failures, to Him, and relying solely on His grace in Jesus Christ. Repentance is the whole deal: contrition and faith, sorrow over sin and trust in the Savior, fear of God’s wrath and love of God’s mercy. Or as Jesus put it in our Gospel reading, repentance is abiding in Jesus’ Word. Not just checking-in once in a while. Not just keeping it in the back of our minds. Abiding in the Word of Jesus means having it at the very center of our lives. Returning to His Truth again and again. Living the life of repentance, the life of a baptized child of God, the life of listening to His Word, learning the Truth, and being set free by the Truth.

And so just as the Reformation was begun with a call to repentance, a call to renew this life of confessing our sins and abiding in Jesus’ Word, so also it would be good and right for us to begin this anniversary year with a similar call to repentance and renewal. It is not a new call, it’s the same call to repent that has been echoed down throughout the ages, but it is always new for us – we always need to hear it again. Because we have sinned and need to repent. We have lived as if God did not matter and as if we mattered most. We have let our desires and convenience control our actions rather than God’s commands and promises. In certain ways we have not been faithful Lutherans or faithful Lutheran churches. We have been embarrassed by God’s Word and tried to water down His Truth or soften it so as not to offend people, because we fear men more than we fear God. And we have also thought we’re better than others, more holy, more pure, more right, and so we have despised those most in need of our witness, our support, and our love. Repent.

Repent and abide in Jesus’ Word. Turn away from your sin and live in Jesus’ grace and truth. “When our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ He willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” This is the life that finds its source and its center in Jesus our Savior. For it is in Him, in His Word and sacraments, that we receive the Gospel, the Good News of our salvation. It is not in the Law, our achievements or efforts. This life is found for free in the Gospel: The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. This is the righteousness that God gives to the sinner on account of His Son. It’s the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. And this is a gift from God for all people. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

Jesus died for you. His holy blood was more than enough for God – an all-sufficient payment for your sins and for the sins of the world. So that now, whoever believes in Him, whoever abides in His Word, whoever repents and trusts in His saving name, would be declared righteous in God’s sight. You are free from sin and free from the demand of the Law to earn your salvation. You are righteous in Christ, through faith in Him, by the grace of God.

This is the great and holy treasure that Luther helped to rediscover by abiding in Jesus’ Word, hearing it, studying it, living it in repentance and faith. And this is the great and holy treasure we still cherish and proclaim today. That’s the real reason to celebrate the Reformation. We’re not celebrating ourselves or even celebrating Luther. We’re celebrating that the Gospel is proclaimed so clearly and truly for all. The salvation achieved on Christ’s cross and delivered in His Word is here for us and for the world. That’s the reason to celebrate the Reformation. The Reformation is STILL all about Jesus.

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.

St. James the Just - Brother of Jesus, Bishop of Jerusalem, and Martyr

James 1:12; 2:18–26

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There are a few men called James in the New Testament. The one we celebrate today, sometimes known as James the Just, was not one of the 12 disciples or apostles. This James seems to have been a brother, or at least a close relative, of Jesus. During Jesus’ ministry James and His family apparently did not believe in Him. In our Gospel reading, James and the rest of Jesus’ immediate family were cited by the unbelieving people of Nazareth to question Jesus’ authority and to mock His teaching. But Paul records in 1 Corinthians 15 that after rising from the dead Jesus made a special appearance to James. We assume this is when James finally came to faith in the man he knew from childhood, and confessed Him to be Christ the Lord. James then became a leader in the Jerusalem Church, especially it seems, as the apostles departed on their missionary journeys. This is why we can give him the title “bishop,” the leading pastor for the Jerusalem Christians. His position becomes evident at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 where the apostles, pastors, and people met to discuss the status of Gentiles in the Church and whether they had to obey the Law of Moses. Peter spoke about the Gentiles being saved by faith, not by the Law. Paul and Barnabas spoke about their missionary activity among the Gentiles. But James had the decisive and final word. He quoted the prophets, that it was foretold that the Gentiles would also be called by the name of the Lord and be saved. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, James was killed by being stoned to death in Jerusalem around the year of our Lord 62. This was due to his Christian faith and so this martyr’s death served as a witness to His crucified and risen Lord who grants forgiveness and life to all who believe in Him. Although Josephus was not a Christian, he still recognized that James was a righteous man and wrongfully killed. Josephus even recognized this unlawful execution of an innocent man as one of the events leading up to the Roman’s destruction of Jerusalem.

James the Just was given his nickname by later Christians for his reputation as a just and righteous man in keeping God’s Law. And the Epistle that he wrote and bears his name also strongly emphasizes a need for Christians to live holy and righteous lives according to God’s commandments. Unfortunately, some have seen his teaching as contradicting the teaching of St. Paul, especially in Galatians and Romans. For example, in Galatians 2:16, Paul writes, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. But in James 2:24, James writes, you see that a person is justified by works and not be faith alone. Paul clearly states that we are justified or declared righteous with the righteousness of Christ when we believe in Him. However, it seems that James claims we are justified or made righteous according to our keeping of the Law. So what do we make of this apparent contradiction in Holy Scripture?

First of all, we must recognize that James is working with a different definition of faith than Paul. James is talking about an historical faith, or in other words, a knowledge of the facts, for he writes, Even the demons believe – and shudder! Demons have knowledge about the Christ. They know He is the Christ, the Son of God, who died for the sins of the world, but they do not trust or love Him. While knowledge is necessary for faith, there’s more to it than just knowing the facts. You’re not saved just because you know who Jesus is or have Bible verses memorized. You’re not saved just because you got confirmed once upon a time. You’re not saved just because you show up at church and go through the motions. True, saving faith is a real trust and love for Christ, a confident hope in His promise to forgive your sins and give you everlasting life.

So if we see that Paul and James are not contradictory but that they are dealing with two different issues, we come to see that the Holy Spirit, who is the one divine author of the Scriptures, He is teaching us two important things through the pens of Paul and James. Through the writings of Paul, the Holy Spirit wants to save us from legalism, that is the false idea that sinners can please God by their works. And through the writing of James, the Holy Spirit wants to save us from licentiousness, that is the false idea that because we are saved by grace then sins don’t matter and we can go on breaking God’s commandments. It is the second point that we should especially learn today from James the Just, but it should also be recognized that both Paul and James are concerned with Christians having a genuine faith that produces fruits of repentance. That means, it is expected that if a Christian truly confesses his sin and truly believes the Gospel then he will also begin to do good works in accordance with God’s will, which He lays out for us in His commandments.

So, dear Christians, you can’t just go on sinning. Christian faith means you believe you are a sinner and that that is wrong, and you believe you have a Savior in Jesus Christ. So how can you confess your sin, ask for forgiveness, and then simply go on committing that sin? How can you say you have faith but willingly deny what God clearly says by your words and actions? You can’t – that “faith” is a sham. So if you are a Christian you can’t simply go on living in sin, like living with someone you’re not married to. Part of repentance is that we turn away from our sin and try to stop doing it. Even though we will never be completely without sin, we still need to separate ourselves from situations that clearly tempt us to sin and promote a life that is contrary to God’s Law. But another form of living in sin is living with bitterness and hatred in your heart. Jesus teaches that if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 6:15), and we are reminded of this truth every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus taught us: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. If we know God’s free forgiveness for the horrible things we have done, then we also should sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us. What James wants to warn us about is dead faith, that is, saying you believe while you go on sinning as if it doesn’t matter. To this kind of arrogance, James writes, faith apart from works is dead. (James 2:26)

On the other hand, the Holy Spirit, through James, teaches that faith, which is hidden in the heart, can be demonstrated by the good works a person does. James writes, Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:18) It’s impossible to see faith apart from outward works because faith is invisible. The only way to see a person’s faith is by seeing the good works they perform because of their faith. Or we could sum this up with the words of the great Lutheran hymn, Salvation unto Us Has Come:

Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone

And rests in Him unceasing;

And by its fruits true faith is known,

With love and hope increasing.

For faith alone can justify;

Works serve our neighbor and supply

The proof that faith is living. (LSB 555:9)

Some people may be aware that Martin Luther was not a big fan of the Epistle of James because he thought it confused the matter of faith and works. But Luther also made the same points about true faith producing good works. He wrote:

Faith is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God. It kills the old Adam and makes us altogether different men, in heart and spirit and mind and powers; and it brings with it the Holy Spirit. O it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them. Whoever does not do such works, however, is an unbeliever… Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. This knowledge of and confidence in God’s grace makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures. And this is the work which the Holy Spirit performs in faith. Because of it, without compulsion, a person is ready and glad to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer everything, out of love and praise to God who has shown him this grace. Thus it is impossible to separate works from faith, quite as impossible as to separate heat and light from fire. (AE 35:370–371)

What James, and Luther, want to teach us is that true faith is more than just knowledge, more than just going through the churchly motions. True faith means your life is different – different from the sinful world and different from your sinful desires. True faith means your life belongs to God and you try to show this by how you live.

There is no real contradiction between Paul, the Apostle of Grace, and James the Just. Every Christian is a Just or Righteous One on account of Christ’s righteousness freely given by God and received by faith in Him. And at the same time, every Christian should also strive to be just or righteous in our life according to God’s commandments. Therefore, James the Just by faith, and James the Just by the Law, can be a good example to us for how we believe and how we live.

It’s not easy to live a Christian life. While the gift of salvation is free on account of Jesus’ death for sin and is granted to everyone who has faith in Him, the gift of salvation also calls us to a holy life in keeping with God’s Word. And that means we suffer trials in the Christian life. We struggle against temptation and act differently from the rest of the world. And that means we can also suffer ridicule from the world for not going along with their ideas. So the words of St. James the Just should be a comfort and encouragement to us as we remain true to our Savior Jesus Christ: Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12)

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.