Reformation Day (6)

Some years ago I shared a meal with a Roman Catholic priest. Naturally, I asked him what he thought about Martin Luther and the Reformation. His answer surprised me: “Luther was correct. His reforms were necessary, but he was wrong to divide the Church. He should have stayed with Rome, even though it did have false teaching.” When I pressed him further, he basically told me that loyalty to the institution of the Church must come before loyalty to Christ and His Word. For the sake of unity, Luther should have been willing to submit to the pope and tolerate his errors. In time the Church would have eventually returned to the true Gospel. As proof of that, he reminded me that the Roman Church had now begun reading the Scriptures in the common language and the laity were permitted to drink the Blood of Christ at Holy Communion. What Luther lacked was patience. Had he been willing to suffer damnable false doctrine for the next 450 years, the Roman Church would eventually have accepted some of his reforms.

Luther is commonly blamed for being the man who fractured the Church. Before Luther, there was one Church. Well, ok, not including the Eastern Orthodox, who had divorced from the Western Church some 500 years earlier. But at least, in Luther’s day, there was only one Western Church. And Luther’s bull-headed insistence on pure doctrine is what brought about the splintering of the Church into thousands of little pieces.

This is simply an example of how the devil operates. He seeks to divide the Church by sowing the seeds of false doctrine, but then he tries to pin the blame on those who notice what he has done. “What’s that? You don’t like my false teaching? You are dividing the Church!” Just as wicked king Ahab called the prophet Elijah the “Troubler of Israel,” so Satan seeks to convince God’s people that the troublers of the Church are those who expose his lies. The devil has done this so successfully that many Christians mouth his own satanic mantra, glibly saying, “Doctrine divides!” whenever God’s Word is taught and cherished. No, doctrine does not divide; false doctrine divides, and the ones crying the loudest about division are often the ones causing it. Satan has convinced much of Christendom that the chief Christian virtue is niceness, that the best pastor is the one who causes the least trouble, and that, in our unique context, the Church Militant will be more successful as the Church Effeminate.

The Roman priest couldn’t find any flaws in Luther’s teaching, so he had to pick at Luther himself. And so it is today. “It’s not what you said, pastor, it’s how you said it.” This is the script of those who dare not speak directly against Christ and His Word, and so choose to find fault with the messenger. “He should be more loving. He shouldn’t be so black and white. He should be more winsome.” But as Jesus tells us in the Gospel text, the sinful nature will always find some reason, even contradictory reasons, to complain against any messenger who bears the words of Christ: “He’s too old. He’s too young. He’s too short, too tall, too loud, too quiet…”

“To what shall I liken this generation?” Jesus asks. “It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we mourned to you, and you did not lament.’ For John [the Baptist] came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ” Of course, John the Baptist was a sinful man, as have been all the prophets and pastors until now. But what if the Messenger were perfect? What if He were literally, God Himself, in human form? How was His message received by the people of God?

It might be easy on Reformation Day for us Lutherans to take potshots at the Roman Church, thinking how grand it is that we have the truth and they don’t. To be clear, the pure doctrine we have received is a priceless treasure. But we must remember that we too could easily fall prey to the same thinking that led the Roman Church to choose the preservation of its institution over faithfulness to the Word of Christ. This is a problem on the synodical level, yes. Positions of leadership often turn good churchmen into spineless synodocrats whose only goal is peace at any cost. But this wicked tendency is present within our congregation, present even, within your own sinful heart.

When the stern preaching of God’s holy Law that rightly calls you a sinner deserving of death and hell arouses hostility within your heart, when you find the hymns too Lutheran, the service too reverent, the moral standards of the Bible too alien to your unique context, then consider that Reformation Day has come to you. Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as did your fathers in the wilderness” (Heb 3:7) Do not reject the words of Christ because He has chosen a flawed, sinful man as His messenger. Do not choose faithfulness to an institution or to the way things have always been done around here over faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Church is not a social club. It does not exist to perpetuate itself as an institution, nor to preserve the legacy and traditions of our grandparents. God used the Reformation to teach His people once again that the only foundation for the Church is Christ and His Word. Nothing else can save you. Nothing else matters. Nothing else will last. If we lose sight of this, we become the papists of our generation, no matter how enthusiastically we celebrate Reformation Day. But so long as we cling to the doctrine of Jesus, we remain the true Church, even though Satan and all his hosts assail us.

The apostle John saw an angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth (Rev 14:6). The Reformers were convinced that this angel was a prophecy concerning Luther, a messenger sent by God bearing the saving gospel. They were right. This unnamed angel of Revelation chapter fourteen is Martin Luther, just as he is also John the Baptist, Elijah, Moses, and every prophet and pastor who has labored faithfully to deliver the eternal message. And though Satan rages, though he stirs up hostility against the messengers because they stand in the stead of Christ, Satan shall not overpower us. He cannot prevail against our Lord Jesus and the Church He builds upon the foundation of His holy Word. This world’s prince may still scowl fierce as he will. He may take our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, but the Church will stand unshaken upon the eternal doctrine of Christ.

Reformation Day is not about the birth of Lutheranism five-hundred years ago. It is not about our tradition against their tradition. It is a commemoration of our return to the saving words of Jesus, a return to the inheritance given us in baptism, a return that must happen again and again in the life of a every Christian until the Final Day. Reformation is simply another word for repentance and a return to faith in Christ and Him alone. May God grant His Church to continue in this pure doctrine, in the eternal Gospel of our Lord Jesus, until the day of His return. Amen.