Reformation Day (Observed)

 Video of Service

Reformation Day (Observed)

October 25, 2026

Text: Rom. 3:19-28

            Five hundred years ago, Father Martin Luther had a son.  Not an illegitimate son, mind you, like so many priests and monks (and even a few popes) may have had.  A son with his lawfully wedded wife, Katharina.  Johannes… Hans… Luther.  Dr. Luther’s firstborn.  

            It is difficult for us to understand how revolutionary this was, and how important for the Reformation of the Holy Christian Church… for the cause of the very Gospel!  We’re used to ministers being married and having children.  At least we Protestants are.  It’s par for the course.  But we must remember that, for much of the Church’s history, and especially in the middle ages, there was this prevailing unbiblical opinion that married family life was less holy… and even, perhaps, a little bit dirty… compared to those “religious” (priests, monks, nuns) who took vows of celibacy.  Marriage had essentially become a Sacrament of concession for those who couldn’t live up to the requirements of Holy Orders (monastic and ordination vows).  Such that, by the time of Luther and the Reformation, it was more or less a given that monastics were far more likely to go directly to heaven when they died, as opposed to married people, who had less holiness, and more sin to purge in Purgatory (and, for the sake of clarity, let me just remind us all that Purgatory is not in the Bible, and is an anti-biblical, anti-Gospel doctrine, that robs Christ of His proper glory as the once-for-all-sufficient Sacrifice of Atonement for our sins.  He alone makes satisfaction!).  So, there was this distinction made between celibate monastics and the common people on the basis of works: Monastics are more righteous and holy before God by virtue of their works (including celibacy).  Married people are less righteous, because they need conjugal relief.  What would St. Paul say about such a distinction?  What does he say in our Epistle?  There “is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”... and that includes you Pharisees, and you monastics… and you good Christian folk (yes, we do it, too, whenever we think our goodness makes us more righteous than people who aren’t so good)… and all your shiny, holy works… you all fall short of the glory of God, “and are justified by his grace as a gift”... apart from your works, whatever they may be… “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:22-24; ESV), and through that redemption alone.  There is no distinction.  All of us are in the same boat.  Sin, and therefore death and condemnation.  And if we are to be saved from that death and condemnation, and justified (declared righteous before God), it is the same way for all of us.  Grace, freely bestowed, by virtue of Christ’s redeeming work for us in His suffering and death on the cross.    

Now, there is no question that virginity is a high and holy calling.  And we’re all called to that unless, and until, we’re married (that is the expectation, beloved… that is God’s design, in spite of our culture-wide sexual brokenness, that we reserve sex for marriage, and keep our bodies, created and redeemed by God, pure).  But what does Jesus say on the subject?  Very few have the gift to remain celibate their whole life long.  When His disciples proposed that it is better not to marry, Jesus responded that not everyone can receive such a saying, but only those to whom it has been given by God (Matt. 19:10-12).  The usual law of nature, as St. Paul points out, is that men and women need to get married to each other, in order to avoid sexual temptation (1 Cor. 7:1-5).  For this reason, husbands and wives are not to withhold conjugal rights from each other, Paul says, unless for a short, agreed upon time, for the sake of prayer (v. 5).  And he says this, maintaining marriage as a high and holy calling of God, even as he holds up lifelong virginity as an extraordinary, albeit rare, gift of God (vv. 6-7).  

            Marriage is good.  We Lutherans don’t count it as a Sacrament, because it doesn’t bestow the forgiveness of sins, but marriage is instituted by God for our good: For mutual companionship and support, for procreation (children are good!), and for enjoyment of God’s good gift of sexuality.  Marriage even predates the Fall, doesn’t it.  God is the first Father to walk a bride down the aisle and give her away to a groom (Gen. 2:18-25).  And that bride and groom are already a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Bride, the Church (Eph. 5:32), as are every Christian bride and groom since, such that Christian marriage is, in itself, a preaching of the Gospel!  High calling, indeed!  

And then, marriage even becomes a picture of the inter-Trinitarian life of love, when that love brings forth fruit… Babies!  Just as God, not out of necessity, but out of love, created.  Created man.  Created us.  In His own image.  To be the object of His love.  So He could love us.  When God gives a husband and wife to procreate (that is the word, by the way… let’s stop saying “reproduction.”  This isn’t a mechanized assembly line)… think about this, and marvel… that husband and wife are given to participate in God’s creative act!  To be instruments of it.  Can there be a higher and holier calling than that?

Now, of course, not everybody receives the gift of marriage.  And not everybody receives the gift of children, even if they are married.  And for some, this is a heavy cross, and so, very important that we say to you who bear such a cross: There is nothing deficient in you.  Yours, too, is a high and holy calling.  It’s not wrong to remain single, and not have children.  It’s also not wrong to pray that God would provide you a spouse and children, if you so desire.  Either way, your calling is to wait upon the Lord, and live fully, and faithfully, and joyfully, in Him.

            What we’re talking about is the doctrine of vocation.  Our callings from God.  We all have many vocations.  Our vocation is not just our job, but every relationship in which God has placed us in our station in life (your station in life is the place and the circumstances in which you find yourself).  Our number one vocation, of course, as Christians, is that of baptized child of God.  But then, flowing from that, just to take myself as an example, I am a husband, a father, a pastor, a son, a brother, a friend, a neighbor, a citizen… and the list goes on.  Same with you.  And one of the great truths recovered by the Reformation is the doctrine that those vocations, those divine callings, are as significant and holy as the calling into the priesthood or the convent.  Because there is no distinction.  Our righteousness comes from Christ.  Our good works do not contribute to our righteousness before God, but are done for the sake of our neighbor, in vocation!      

So again, think what a revolutionary thing it is, living, as he did, in this spiritual/cultural environment of the Middle Ages, that as a confession of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Father Martin Luther took a wife, and they conceived a son.  Because being married, and raising a family, faithfully, according to God’s Word in Holy Scripture, is just as high and holy a vocation as clerical celibacy.  

We should add, by the way, that Rome has taken a higher view of marriage, thank God, since the Reformation (the Reformation was very good for Rome).  Although they’d do well to get rid of the requirement of priestly celibacy and monastic vows, because priests and monastics (as has been amply demonstrated, scandalously and publicly over the years) are all-too-human, and have all-too-human needs and desires.  Beloved, for a masterful treatment of this topic, go read our own Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XXIII, on the Marriage of Priests.  It is phenomenal, and surprisingly relevant to other issues of marriage and sexuality current in our time.  And let me say, here and now, before God and everybody: I thank God I’m a Lutheran pastor, and therefore lawfully (and happily!) married, with children.  And I thank God for my wife, without whom I couldn’t possibly be the pastor I am today, and for my children, who teach me every day how to be a better pastor and father (two vocations which very much go together!). 

Which is to say, that Martin Luther married and had a son 500 years ago, directly and substantially affects my life and ministry, and the life of the Christian Church, which is to say, the life of every Christian… your life.  Because, we can get married, or stay single.  We can have children, if God so blesses us.  And if God does not bless us in that way, we are just as blessed.  Church work is a blessed and holy vocation.  But you don’t have to do Church work to be just as righteous and holy before God as pastors, priests, monks, or nuns.  Every true Christian vocation is as holy as every other true Christian vocation.  Because our righteousness and holiness comes from Christ alone.  “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight… For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom. 3:20, 28).

Martin Luther had a son.  Oh, how he loved little Hans.  A gift of God, given by grace, for the exercise of faith, and faithfulness.  So it is with our vocations.  All praise and thanks to God.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.