Reformation Day
(Observed)
October 30, 2016
Text: Romans 3:19-28
Reformation
Day is a great day for a Baptism.
Baptism is what the Reformation is all about, and Baptism is, itself, a
reformation of the one who is baptized.
It is literally a re-formation. Look what just happened in front of your very
eyes. God took little Gabriel and poured
water on his head, and your ears beheld some very powerful words, the Name of
God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, placed on Gabriel, and that does something. Gabriel, who was born of his mother some
weeks ago, is now born anew, spiritually, by water and the Word. He is now a son of God. That is what St. Paul says: “he saved us, not because of works done by
us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of
regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly
through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might
become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7;
ESV). So God took Gabriel, born in sin…
I know that’s not very pleasant to hear when we’re talking about a precious
little baby like Gabriel, but that is what the Bible says… God took Gabriel,
born in sin, and gave him new birth in Baptism.
He took Gabriel out of the devil’s possession, and gave him instead the
Holy Spirit. He took Gabriel and clothed
him with Jesus, with the robe of Jesus’ righteousness, with Jesus’ death and
resurrection. Gabriel is now covered
with Jesus. It’s a re-formation. He now bears the cruciform shape of Jesus, in
whom Gabriel now believes. And it’s all
a gift, freely given. By grace. Gabriel is an heir with Jesus, an heir of the
Kingdom, an heir of eternal life.
Baptism
is the concrete event that puts in action the theology St. Paul teaches us in
this morning’s Epistle (Rom. 3:19-28).
The question St. Paul is addressing is that which drove Luther during
the Reformation: How do I get right with God?
The problem is that I am a sinner.
I have not lived up to God’s righteous and holy Law. His Law condemns me for my sin. I was born in this sin. I was conceived in this sin. This sin is the fatal disease inherited from
Adam and Eve and our parents ever since.
And I put this sin in action with all the actual sins I commit, the good
I have not done, the evil I’ve done instead.
How do I make up for that? How do
I, an unrighteous sinner, condemned to eternity apart from God in hell, become
righteous before God, and so achieve eternal life with God in heaven? You can’t do it! Even if you try really hard. Even if you sin less. Even if you study the Bible every day and do
your best to put it into practice.
You’ll still fall far short.
There will still be evil in your heart.
Concupiscence, we call it in
theology, the innate orientation toward sin planted deeply in your very
being. The problem is not simply that
you sin, it’s that you are a
sinner. It is not that you are a sinner because you sin. It is that you sin because you are a sinner.
And what do you do about that?
Nothing. You can’t. And now you know the struggle of Luther as he
grappled with the concept of the
righteousness of God. He tried. Oh, how he tried to be righteous before God. He became a monk of the strictest order, the
Augustinians. He dedicated his life to
God. He went to Confession every day,
sometimes several times a day. He
punished his body. He starved himself
nearly to death. All to work off his
sin. All to gain righteousness. This is simply what his Church taught him to
do to appease his stern Judge, Jesus Christ.
Still, he found no peace.
Then
something happened as he was studying St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter
1, verse 17: “For in it,” namely,
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “the
righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written” in
the Prophet Habakkuk, 2:4, “‘The
righteous shall live by faith.’” By
this Word, the Holy Spirit opened his understanding of that term, “the
righteousness of God.” This
righteousness, the standard by which God judges sinners, to which we can never
measure up, is given to us as a gift by
faith in Jesus Christ. It is Jesus’
own righteousness credited to us. The
righteous, the justified one, shall
live by faith. Here is Luther’s own
account of this discovery (and remember as I read this that the words “just,”
“justice,” and “justified” are simply synonyms for “righteous,”
“righteousness,” and “being made righteous”:
“I
meditated night and day on those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I
paid attention to their context: "The justice of God is revealed in it, as
it is written: 'The just person lives by faith.'" I began to understand
that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by
a gift of God, that is by faith. I began to understand that this verse means
that the justice of God is revealed through the Gospel, but it is a passive justice,
i.e. that by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written:
"The just person lives by faith." All at once I felt that I had been
born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates. Immediately I
saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures
from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings, e.g., the work
of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which he makes us
powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God,
the salvation of God, the glory of God. I exalted this sweetest word of mine,
"the justice of God," with as much love as before I had hated it with
hate. This phrase of Paul was for me the very gate of paradise”[1]
Righteousness
is a gift given by God on account of Jesus’ sin-atoning life, death, and
resurrection for you. And it is received
by faith. Believe it and you have it. No strings attached. No work to be done to earn it. Not even faith is your work. God gives that, too. By His Spirit, who comes to you in His Word
and holy Sacraments, the means of grace.
You saw it today. Gabriel became
a believer by means of Baptism, in which God gave him the Holy Spirit to
believe in Jesus. How can that be? How can little Gabriel, who cannot yet speak,
who doesn’t even understand the words I’m saying, believe in Jesus Christ as
his Savior from sin? Grace! It’s a gift!
God gives it! Faith is simply
trust in Jesus. It is not the ability to
understand. It is not the ability to
confess. Those things come along with
faith as we grow into the gift that has been given. But faith is simply trust. Gabriel can do that. He trusts his mom. He can’t rationalize that trust. He cannot confess it. He doesn’t say “Mom” yet. But he trusts Mom. And now, in the same way, he trusts
Jesus. Because he’s been baptized. God did that.
God did it all. God gave Gabriel
faith in Jesus. By grace. Pure gift.
Gabriel believes in Jesus. He’s a
Christian. And this is something for you
parents to remember when Gabriel cries all night long and demands food and
drink and soils his diapers, and as he grows and becomes a two year old and a
teenager and a know-it-all adult. In
Jesus Christ, Gabriel is perfectly righteous.
Because that righteousness was given to Gabriel as a gift right here at
the font. And the same goes for you, and
for me, and for each one of us, sinners that we are. In Jesus Christ, we are perfectly
righteous. Our sins are forgiven. Righteousness is given us as a gift in
Baptism, in Absolution, in Preaching, in Supper. By grace.
Pure gift. God does it all.
Beloved
in the Lord, we are one year away from the 500th Anniversary of the
Lutheran Reformation, the 500th anniversary of the day Martin Luther
nailed his 95 Theses against indulgences to the Church door in Wittenberg,
calling the Church back to the Gospel and faith in Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of sins. We should make a
big deal out of this, all year long. Not
because we’re celebrating a man or even a Church body. But because the Reformation and Luther’s
preaching made clear what St. Paul proclaims in our Epistle: “But now the righteousness of God has been
manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness
to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who
believe. 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” (Rom.
3:21-24). That is the Gospel. And that’s worth making a big deal
about. And that is what we saw in action
in Gabriel’s Baptism this morning.
Righteousness of God. Freely
given. In Jesus Christ. Through faith. God does it.
It’s
a reformation before our very eyes, a re-formation. This little one, a sinner born in the image
of Adam, has been re-formed into the image of Jesus. And so have you, beloved. By grace.
Through faith. Our God has done
it all. In the Name of the Father, and
of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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