Reformation

Of all the denominational traditions, Lutheranism is the only one that dedicates a Sunday to celebrate the legacy of the Reformation.

Faithfulness to the day and the Reformation legacy, however, is not to celebrate the division of the church but to shine the bright light of the gospel and to remind the church that it is constantly being reformed.

Reformation reminds us that God’s people have always needed renewal and reforming. The Babylonian exiles looked forward to their return to Jerusalem. Their return would be accompanied by the new hearts that the prophet Jeremiah promised. The teachings of the law would no longer be confined to clay tablets but would be written on the hearts of God’s people, a promise that comes true for us in baptism.

The reformation we need, both as the church and as individuals, is due to our sin. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, sin is not the list of things we shouldn’t have done but did or the accompanying list of things we should have done but didn’t. Sin is the great enslaver, that force of evil and death that binds us and keeps us from the life God intends for us, the church, and indeed for all creation. We all need to be freed, Jew and Gentile alike.

While Paul’s words in the reading for Reformation Sunday get rather technical with the language of sacrifice, here, for the first time in Romans, Paul specifically ties our justification — our being made right with God — to Christ’s death and resurrection. That’s the good news that Luther and his Reformation colleagues dusted off and held up for the world to see in all its divine brilliance.

So, our Reformation celebration also points to the need for the daily recovery of that gospel in our lives and the church. Yet another promise finds its fulfillment in the daily remembrance of baptism.

Justification brings to the Christian a certain freedom. But freedom may not mean what you think it means. The freedom in Romans from the great enslaver gets translated in John’s gospel to the freedom to live in the Spirit. It’s a freedom to participate in the life of God, freedom to experience the unconditional love and grace of God. All of it ultimately means freedom to live not for ourselves but for God and our neighbor.

It’s tempting to make the Reformation about the propositional truths that are the great foundation of the Reformation legacy: Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone. While there is much that is useful and helpful in these Reformation principles, it’s not principles that we celebrate. It’s the gospel itself that we celebrate, the daily dying and rising of the Christian in the waters of baptism, and the ongoing reformation of the church, the people of God, freed from the great enslaver and set free in service to the world.

Celebrating the Reformation is to remember the gospel truth that in Christ’s death and resurrection, by the grace and mercy of God, we have become the children who have a permanent place in the Father’s household.

Chad Rademacher

Pastor, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church