It was
just 500 years ago this coming Tuesday, on the day that we call Halloween, that
the Protestant Reformation officially began. On October 31, 1517, a young monk
named Martin Luther nailed a piece of paper to the door of the church in
Wittenberg, Germany. It was a list of 95 theological points that he wanted to
debate with church officials. Although he didn’t know it at the time, the sound
of his hammer would echo throughout Europe; and the Protestant church would eventually
split from the Roman Catholic church because of the response to Luther’s
thinking. Martin Luther caused an awful fuss 500 years ago! In fact, the fuss was
so violent that thousands of Christians died in the resulting conflict. We are
called “Protestants” because our ancestors “protested” the abuses of the Roman
Catholic Church of their time; and that church reacted violently! The paraments
are red this morning in honor of all those people who were martyred during the
Reformation. Some were burned at the stake, while others were beheaded or put
to the sword. It was a dangerous business to be a Protestant in those days. Many
Protestants said nothing; but Luther refused to be silenced. He was eventually
called before a Roman Catholic council to explain his beliefs. The council
participants didn’t really want to hear what he had to say. They wanted a
reason to declare him a heretic so that they could arrest him and execute him! And
Luther knew all of that; but he refused to back down from his beliefs. His
closing words to that council are well-known:
“I put no trust in the authority of Pope
or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted
themselves. I stand convinced by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and
my conscience is taken captive by God's word. I cannot and will not recant
anything. Here I stand. I can do no other.”
Martin
Luther wasn’t the first person to put his life on the line for what he
believed. Paul did the same thing nearly 1500 years earlier. He tells us in I
Corinthians (11:23-33) that during the time that he preached the gospel, he was
jailed, whipped, stoned, and beaten with rods; and all of that because, as you
heard in this morning’s scripture reading (I Thessalonians 2:1-4), he was “not
trying to please people, but God.” Both Paul and Martin Luther preached things
that the religious leaders of their times didn’t like one bit; but their
beliefs were non-negotiable.
What
were Martin Luther’s beliefs, anyway? They aren’t very different from what we
Protestants believe today; and they are as non-negotiable for us in the 21st
century as they were to Luther in 1517. Perhaps the most important of those
beliefs is that Jesus Christ is the head of the Church. That sounds innocent
enough; but read between the lines. If Jesus Christ is the head of the Church,
then no one else can be its head. No person, no council, no government can tell
the Church what to do; only Jesus Christ can do that. That infuriates people
who want that authority for themselves! Sometimes those people are church
leaders, and other times they are politicians or other secular leaders who want
the church to behave as they think it should! But as Protestant Christians, our
response to all of them is the same. “Jesus Christ is the head of the Church;
and you are not. Here I stand. I can do no other.”
But
Jesus isn’t here today, is he? At least, he isn’t here in the flesh. That means
that we can’t call him on the phone to ask for his advice if we’re not sure
what we should do. So, how do we find out what Jesus wants of us? We go to the
Bible. That’s another one of Martin Luther’s points. The church leaders of his
time didn’t like that, because they wanted to be the ones who read and
interpreted the Bible for everybody else. But Luther said that we should all be reading the Bible – and reading
it with our minds in gear, so that we not only know what it says, but also interpret
what it says intelligently. If anyone tells you that you don’t need to read the
Bible because he will interpret it for you, you tell that person that you’ll do
it yourself, thank you very much! Reading and interpreting the Bible for
ourselves with the guidance of the Holy Spirit is one of Luther’s
non-negotiables; and it should be one of ours, too.
So, Jesus
is the head of the Church; and the Bible is the ultimate authority of how Jesus
wants us to behave. Those are two of the non-negotiable beliefs that got Martin
Luther in such big trouble with the Church of his time. But there’s another one
that was just as much of a problem: God’s grace. The Church taught that
everyone had to come to them for grace; and they decided how much you got on
the basis of how good you had been. Luther’s response was something like, “Nuts
to that! God bestows grace; and the Church has no say in it whatsoever!” That
was the most troubling of all for the Church. After all, if you don’t have to
rely on the church to receive God’s grace, you are free from all the rules and
regulations that the Church sets up! But Luther had read about God’s grace in
the New Testament; and Luther believed that Jesus Christ, who offers grace to
everyone, is the head of the Church; and Luther wouldn’t give an inch! “Here I
stand,” he said, relying on God’s grace – the grace that the Church refused to
allow him because he was so threatening to their power.
In the
end, Luther wasn’t executed by the Church, because he had powerful friends. One
of them grabbed him before he could be arrested and whisked him away to an
isolated castle in a Medieval “witness protection program”; and he lived there
until it was safe for him to come out again. But many other Protestants were
not as fortunate, and they paid for their beliefs with their lives. Christians
who say boldly, “Here I stand. I can do no other” still suffer the consequences
of holding fast to their beliefs, especially in places where Christianity is scorned,
or even outlawed; but although the powers of the world will always be against
us, God stands with us, and God will triumph in the end! Martin
Luther wrote the great Reformation hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” for
Christians who were risking their lives by joining him in proclaiming, “Here I
stand!” You might want to read its message again: God is a mighty fortress who
never fails! This world may be filled with devils who are trying their best to
frustrate what we do and shatter our faith; but God will get the last word in
Jesus Christ! Although we may be killed for what we believe, God will be with
us through it all.
I hope
that you believe that. I do. Here I stand.
No comments:
Post a Comment