Marks thoughts: October 31 - A day of joy and sadness

Today we celebrate the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation.  Certainly this is a day of great joy for Lutherans.  We give thanks to God that he used his servant, Martin Luther, to make the Gospel clear once again.  In the Reformation themes of Scripture alone, grace alone and faith alone we see that forgiveness and salvation are the gift that God gives us apart from anything that we do.

Today is a day of joy.  Yet one does not understand Luther and the Reformation if this is not also a day of sadness.  It was not Luther’s goal to create a division in the Church.  He sought to reform the Church by returning her to the biblical teaching of the Scriptures alone.  Luther wanted a catholic reformation – one that retained all that was good and true in the Church’s faith and practice.

Luther was not seeking a revolution.  Yet this also occurred.  In the theology of the radical Reformation, Zwingli and Calvin and their heirs such as Arminius and Wesley, a completely new version of Christianity was created.  For fifteen hundred years no Christian had denied that God actually does something in Holy Baptism or that the Sacrament of the Altar is the miracle of Christ’s true body and blood.  Yet now, in areas such as where I live, it is the dominant form of Christianity. This is a tragedy.

At the time of the Reformation, there was only the Catholic Church.  Luther was a Catholic.  The Roman Catholic church today is not the exact same church as the one at the time of the Reformation.  In important areas, the Roman Catholic church has proven Luther to be correct.  The Scripture and the liturgy of the Mass are now in the language that people can understand.  The blood of Christ is received by the people in many Roman Catholic parishes. 

In many areas, the theology of the Catholic Church was not a monolithic entity at the beginning of the sixteenth century.  The Reformation began in response to the practice of penance, yet in his book Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation, Thomas Tentler points out that there were in fact three different theologies that explained the relationship between absolution and penance.  In practice, many priests serving as confessors combined two of them.  The start of the process of salvation was understood differently in the theology of Thomas Aquinas and in the school exemplified by Gabriel Biel.

The Roman Catholic church is herself a product of the Reformation.  The specific positions taken by the Council of Trent and the manner in which they were expressed, were shaped and formed in response to the Reformation.   The Council of Trent sent the Roman Catholic church on a trajectory that has received further development in Vatican I and II. 

The Roman Catholic church is not the exact same church as the Catholic Church at the beginning of the sixteenth century.  The division between her and the Lutheran Church should sadden any Lutheran.  To share so much catholic teaching and practice, and yet not be in the same fellowship is a tragedy as well. 

Five hundred years later, it is legitimate to ask whether the Reformation still matters. Lutherans who confess Scripture alone, grace alone and faith alone may wonder whether the issues that existed in the sixteenth century still exist today.  A brief look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church soon provides the answer to this. Below are relevant quotations that deal with the key Reformation issues concerning the source of revelation, justification, penance and purgatory, and the Sacrament of the Altar.  Sadly the divide has actually expanded due to the Marian dogmatic assertions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which so dramatically illustrate the contradictory views about God’s revelation.

I. Revelation

A. 82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.

B.  891 "The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful - who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals. . . . The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," above all in an Ecumenical Council. When the Church through its supreme Magisterium proposes a doctrine "for belief as being divinely revealed," and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions "must be adhered to with the obedience of faith." This infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation itself.

II. Justification

A. 1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:⁴⁸

B. 2010 Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life.

 
III. Penance
A. 1446 Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification. The Fathers of the Church present this sacrament as "the second plank [of salvation] after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace."

B. 1459 Many sins wrong our neighbor. One must do what is possible in order to repair the harm (e.g., return stolen goods, restore the reputation of someone slandered, pay compensation for injuries). Simple justice requires as much. But sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor. Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must "make satisfaction for" or "expiate" his sins. This satisfaction is also called "penance."

 
C. 1471 The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.
 
D. What is an indulgence? "An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints."
 
E. "An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin." The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.

IV. Purgatory

A. 1030 All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

B. 1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.⁶⁰⁶ The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.

V. Sacrament of the Altar

1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different." "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory."

VI. Mary

A. 491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.

B. 493 The Fathers of the Eastern tradition call the Mother of God "the All-Holy" (Panagia), and celebrate her as "free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature". By the grace of God Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long.

C. 966 "Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death." The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:

D. 971 "All generations will call me blessed": "The Church's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship." The Church rightly honors "the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of 'Mother of God,' to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs. . . . This very special devotion . . . differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration."⁵¹⁶ The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an "epitome of the whole Gospel," express this devotion to the Virgin Mary.

E. 2682 Because of Mary's singular cooperation with the action of the Holy Spirit, the Church loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her, and to entrust supplications and praises to her.

Sermon for the Festival of the Reformation - Jn 8:31-36

                                                                                    Reformation

                                                                                    Jn 8:31-36

                                                                                    10/25/15

            If you have watched NFL football – or really any sports recently – you probably have noticed an avalanche of ads for the companies “Fan Duel” and “Draft Kings.” It seems like these ads are constantly on TV – and in fact they are.  In the week leading up to the start of the NFL season, Draft Kings was the television’s No. 1 advertiser as it showed a commercial every minute and a half.  Fan Duel cannot have been far behind.

            “Fan Duel” and “Draft Kings” have cashed in on the fantasy football craze – a game in which people select their own team of players and then compete against other people based on the individual statistics of players they select and put in their line up each week.

            Fantasy football is huge.  Millions of people take part in leagues, sometimes just for bragging rights at the end of the football season and sometimes for the sum of money which all the participants have contributed. What Fan Duel and Draft Kings have done is to place this process online in one week formats.  Instead of waiting a whole season, people can play a week at a time.  People pay money to play, and then they can win money each week.

            Now that may sound like gambling to you.  But according to the law – with the exception of Washington, Louisiana, Arizona, Montana, Iowa and now Nevada – it’s not because a 2006 exemption says that the term “‘bet’ or ‘wager’ … does not include … participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game.”

            What legislators did not foresee in 2006 was how online fantasy football would explode in popularity. In particular it has been extremely popular with 18-35 year old males.  And that is now being recognized as a real problem because young men are the people who are most susceptible to becoming problem gamblers.  Research has shown that gambling can be addictive.  It stimulates the brain’s reward systems much like drugs do.  People, usually men, fall into patterns in which they find themselves unable to stop gambling.  They continue to gamble in spite of the fact it is obviously destroying their finances, their marriage and their family.  The thrill of gambling becomes a slavery that controls and destroys their lives.

            In the Gospel lesson for the Festival of the Reformation, Jesus addresses an unrecognized slavery.  He speaks about the slavery of sin and declares that only he can set people free. We describe the Lutheran Reformation that Martin Luther started as being about Scripture alone, grace alone and faith alone.  And this is absolutely true.  But our text this morning reminds us that the Lutheran Reformation was also about recognizing the true depths of sin so that the glory of the Gospel could come clear.

            In our text this morning, Jesus is in Jerusalem and he is in a running discussion with those who oppose him, even as others are listening to the conversation.  Jesus had said, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” The Jews were puzzled by this, so Jesus added, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”

            Our Lord declared that only faith in him could rescue people from their sins.  He said that he was from above.  The Jews were even more puzzled and so they asked, “Who are you?” Jesus said that he was what he had been telling them from the beginning, and that he had been speaking what he heard from the One who sent him. The Jews did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” And as he was saying these things, many believed in him.

            In our text Jesus now says to those who believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  Yet this prompts the response, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”  In spite of their long history of subjugation, they declared that they had never been enslaved to anyone.  And so Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

            Human beings want to believe that we are ok. We want to believe that we are our own masters and that we can take care of everything on our own.  The first temptation was the suggestion that we could be like God, and we’ve been trying to play that role ever since.

            Now if you are a Christian, it becomes rather obvious very quickly that everything is not ok.  The Law revealed in God’s Word shows us our sin.  It shows that we mess up in thought, word and deed.  And the central event of Scripture is the death of Jesus Christ on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.  You can’t avoid the fact that sin is a real problem and that God has acted in Jesus Christ to do something about it.

            But even after granting this, it doesn’t mean that you have to give up totally on the idea that we can take care of things – that we can be like God.  You just have to modify things a little.  That is what the medieval Church had done.  She recognized that God’s grace was necessary for forgiveness and salvation. But she set it up in a way that God’s grace equipped the Christian to do his or her part in order to achieve full salvation. 

            And so at the beginning of the sixteenth century, being a Christian was about doing.  In fact the Church had made up the “evangelical counsels” of poverty (the renunciation of private property), chastity (the renunciation of marriage) and obedience to religious superiors that were said to go over and above the Ten Commandments in obtaining merit before God.  To be “religious” was to become a monk or a nun and take up the performance of these evangelical counsels.

            Martin Luther did this. And he did it all the way.  He was the monk’s monk.  And what he found was that his doing – even when it was supposed to be assisted by God’s grace – could never bring him peace.  It could never bring him peace because Luther knew that his doing was always plagued by sin.  It was never perfect.  It was never pure.  It was never holy.

            The flip side of Luther’s discovery of the Gospel is the recognition that ever since the Fall we are warped and twisted by sin.  We have lost the image of God.  Rather than loving and serving God and our neighbor we are turned in on ourselves.  We have a God.  It’s the unholy trinity of me, myself and I.  And even after we have been reborn through the work of the Spirit in Holy Baptism, this old Adam continues to cling to us.  St. Paul described this as the Spirit and the flesh when told the Galatians, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”

            Because this is so, any version of Christianity that gives a role to our doing in order to attain full salvation – or in order to achieve assurance that we are in fact a believer and are saved – is doomed to failure.  It is doomed because it has failed to come to terms with what God’s Word teaches about fallen humanity.  Martin Luther’s experience told him that something was very wrong.  His study of Scripture revealed what that problem was – the true depths of our slavery to sin.

            Yet at the same time, as Luther studied God’s Word the Gospel that provides the answer to this slavery became clear.  In our text today Jesus says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  Luther discovered that the Church had not been abiding in Christ’s word. She had lost sight of the fact that Jesus alone has provided forgiveness and salvation through his death and resurrection.  There is nothing to add.  There is nothing to do. There is nothing that we can do.

            Jesus says in our text this morning, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  Jesus the Son of God has set you free.  It is completely a matter of God’s grace.  It is an undeserved gift.  It is a gift that is simply received by faith – by believing in Jesus who died on the cross and rose from the dead.

            In Romans chapter 4 St. Paul defines this faith as the opposite of doing.  He wrote, “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”  The illustration that I use with the catechumens is this.  If I tell you I am going to give you a million dollars, what can you do to make that happen?  Nothing!  All you can “do” is trust me and wait to receive it. In the same way faith passively receives the blessing of forgiveness that Christ has won.  After all, as Jesus says in our text today, it is the Son who sets you free – you have nothing to do with it.

            The truth about human beings is a bummer. Spiritually we are completely messed up from the moment we are conceived.  Physically we are headed for death from that first moment when we are alive.  Sin has caused all of this.  Even when we have been made a new creation in Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit in baptism, we still have the old Adam clinging to us and fighting against the good every step of the way.  The Spirit does enable us to begin to love God and our neighbor instead of ourselves, but this love is never perfect.

            The Good News of the Gospel that Luther rediscovered in the Reformation is that Christ saves us in spite of this sin.  Indeed, he saves us because of this sin – because we are completely incapable of doing anything to free ourselves from the slavery of sin.  Instead by God’s grace, Jesus Christ has done everything for us. And he says to all those who believe in hin, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

             

           

           

           

                

                                   

Sermon for second mid-week Lent service: What benefits does baptism give?

                                                                                Mid-Lent 2

                                                                                What benefits does                                                                                 baptism give?

                                                                                2/28/24

 

          In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther approaches the Sacrament of Holy Baptism in a very simple and direct manner.  First, he asks the question: “What is Baptism?”  We learned last week that baptism is water.  However, it is not just plain water.  Instead, it is water that has been included in God’s command and combined with God’s word.

          Having established what baptism is, Luther then asks the next important question: “What benefits does Baptism give?”  Of course, inherent in this question is the assumption that baptism actually does something.  This was clearly the belief of the early Church.  It was certainly the belief of the medieval Church. For 1500 years this was the belief of the catholic Church – the universal Church. 

          We know that in the sixteenth century the Reformation took place.  Led by Martin Luther, this was a work to return the church to the truths of Scripture alone, grace alone, and faith alone.  It was a reforming work of removing those things that had crept in that were not from Scripture and were contrary to Scripture.  But it was also a work that retained all the that the Church had always confessed that was true to Scripture.

          However, sadly, this is not all that occurred at this time. There were those who went far beyond this. Instead of a reformation, they brought about a revolution.  There were Christians who began to deny that God does anything in baptism.  They maintained that baptism was only a symbol.  In doing so they created something that had never existed in the life of the Church. They created something brand new.

          Those things that we must do are Law. That which God does for us in Christ is Gospel.  If baptism is only a symbol, then God isn’t doing anything through it.  Instead, it is something that we do to indicate our faith or commitment.  It is a matter of our action.  It is Law.

          However, baptism is not a matter of Law.  Instead, it is God’s Gospel gift.  As the Small Catechism explains, “It works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.”  In explaining this, the Small Catechism quotes the Gospel of Mark which says, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

          God does something through baptism.  Baptism saves.  The Large Catechism says, “This is the simplest way to put it: the power, effect, benefit, fruit, and purpose of baptism is that it saves.”  Of course, when the Large Catechism states this, it is simply repeating what Scripture says.  Peter tells us, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

          Baptism now saves you. That’s what Peter says in a direct and simple statement.  And this verse illustrates what we find elsewhere in Scripture about baptism.  In text after text, Scripture says that baptism does something.  You don’t have to do any work to make the verses fit what the Small Catechism says about baptism.  Instead, they just say it.

          We confess that baptism works the forgiveness of sins.  We do because Peter said on Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This is the same reason that early Church confessed in the Nicene Creed, “I believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.”

          Baptism works the forgiveness of sins because it delivers what Jesus has won for us.  During Lent we prepare to remember Christ’s suffering and death.  Last week in our reading of the Lord’s passion according to St. Luke we heard Jesus say at the Last Supper, “For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.”

          Jesus quoted words from Isaiah chapter 53 which speak about the suffering Servant.  He identified himself as the One who took our sins in order to receive God’s judgment.  On the cross of Good Friday Jesus was the object of God’s wrath in our place.  God offered his Son as the sacrifice for us.  Because he did, we now have forgiveness.  Paul told the Colossians, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

          Jesus died as the suffering Servant for us.  But he was also raised up by God on the third day for us.  We saw last week that it was the risen Lord who instituted Holy Baptism as he told his Church to “baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  The crucified and risen Lord now uses baptism to give us the saving benefits of his cross.

          St. Paul told the Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

          Notice how Paul says that through baptism we have been baptized into Christ’s death.  He says that we were buried with him by baptism into death.  The apostle says that something actually happened through water and the word in baptism.  We have shared in the saving death of Christ.  His death has become ours and so we have received the forgiveness that Christ has won.

          Yet baptism is not only about Christ’s death.  It is also about sharing in his resurrection.  Through baptism we have shared in the death of the risen Lord. And so the apostle tells us, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”  Your baptism is the guarantee that you will share in Jesus’ resurrection on the Last Day.

          And on this we can say even more.  Paul told the Colossians that you have “been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”  Through baptism and faith you are in Christ.  You have been joined to him.  Paul says that not only have you shared in his death but you also already share in his resurrection.

          The Small Catechism says that baptism rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation.  Baptism delivers forgiveness.  It joins us to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Because of this we have been rescued from death and the devil.  We have eternal salvation.

          Paul expressed this truth when he told Galatians, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”  Through baptism you have been clothed with Christ.  The saving righteousness that Jesus won by his death and resurrection now covers your every sin.  When God looks at you, he does not see your sin.  Instead, he sees what Jesus has done for you.  You have been cleansed by the washing of water with the word. You are holy in his eyes.

          The Church does two things in order visually to remind us of this fact.  First, at baptism we place the chrism gown on an infant. The white gown reminds us that through baptism the child has put on Christ and his righteousness.

          Then at funerals we place the funeral pall on the casket at the beginning of the service.  This white parament recalls the exact same truth.  Through baptism the Christian was clothed with Christ.  The person was baptized into Christ. Therefore, the individual died as a forgiven child of God who is with Christ, and will be raised up on the Last Day.  This is true because baptism works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this as the words and promises of God declare.