Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
507 years ago, on October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. He wished to spark debate among academics, he hoped that honest discussion might lead to honest reform. He had given his life to the Roman Catholic Church and had no intention of leaving it. It was dangerous to oppose it, and starting a new church denomination was seemingly impossible. Luther sought to reform the church he loved, to correct practices that were contrary to scripture, to leave superstition behind and to embrace a gospel of grace. The spark would ignite the Protestant Reformation and change the face of Christianity forever.
The 95 Theses were written in Latin. In 1517, the Bible used in Europe had been translated from Greek into Latin. In Germany, only 5% of the population could read the German language, the Bible in Latin was completely inaccessible to the common people. The only Bible known to the masses came from the lips of priests, the only Jesus they experienced was a vengeful fellow who was more likely to condemn them to fires of hell than he was to love them. The Roman Catholic Church used fear and superstition to control and oppress a poor uneducated population.
502 years ago, in September of 1522, a recently excommunicated Martin Luther would publish his translation of the New Testament. Since it was taught that salvation was impossible outside of the Roman Catholic Church, Luther had seemingly been condemned to hell already. Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into the German vernacular, the tongue and language of everyday people. The first edition of 3000 copies sold out quickly. Luther, with an assist from Johannes Gutenberg, had given the Bible back to the common people.
Tomorrow at Trinity Lutheran Church we will commemorate and celebrate the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. We will sing familiar Reformation hymns, we will raise our prayers to a good and gracious God, we will laugh and cry and encourage each other, and we will share the bread and wine of Holy Communion at a table where all are welcome. And we will read the Bible. What a gift to be able to read the Bible and muse upon the stories of scripture, taking good courage from the words and teachings of Jesus.
Like most of us, Martin Luther was a good but flawed person, he had great insights, he was brilliant, brave and productive. He was also complicated, sometimes broken, sometimes misguided, tainted by the prevailing racism and prejudices of his time. Luther is a giant in history, but Jesus is our role model and Savior. As Christians who happen to be Lutheran, we follow the Rabbi from the Galilee, not the 16th century Augustinian Monk.
We follow the one who ate with sinners, touched the unclean, offered a new beginning to every lost soul, and loved the broken hearted. We follow Jesus, a Jesus that might have remained largely misunderstood if weren’t for a man who took a stand for truth 507 years ago. “The truth will set us free.”
I will conclude by sharing two quotes from Martin Luther. The first is point number 82 of the 95 Theses:
“Why does not the pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and the dire need of the souls that are there if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial.”
The second is from the Heidelberg Disputation: “A theologian of glory calls good evil and evil good; a theologian of the cross calls a thing what it is.”
Blessed to be a blessing – you are the only Jesus many people will ever see.
Pastor Jim
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