Free indeed

John 8:31-36

Reformation Sunday

Albertville

back

Rev. Michael A. Trask

Today as you know is the day we observe Reformation Sunday. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther nailed the his 95 theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg German. In his 95 theses, he had some rather serious questions. Questions about what the church was doing with something called “Indulgences: pieces of paper,signed by the pope that supposedly let you out of purgatory if you gave some money

You see, the Church of Rome, the only church in that time, had lost its way; not just on the sale of indulgences but the most important truth in all of the scriptures: that is that God saves sinners. He saves them not for money; not on account of their good deeds; not because of their rank or position in the church, but by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. You and I of course, know this of course, because we are standing on the shoulders Martin Lutheran

Our bulletin for today has a picture of 34 year old Martin, smoothing his theses with one hand and holding a hammer in the other. He’s about to make the hammer blows that would be heard around the world. Of great moment are the words on that picture “You will be free indeed”. That’s from the Gospel lesson, which is the text for my message today: John 8:31-36 “Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free ...... if the Son of man set’s you free, you will be free indeed.” “You will be free indeed” it says but at this time, Young Martin was not yet free; that would happen two years later.

Before I tell you that, Let’s take a moment or two to consider what Jesus means when he says we will be free indeed Originally, he was talking to some Jews who were well on their way to becoming his followers. He turned to these guys and said “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” And their response is most interesting. They took umbrage at Jesus’ insinuation that they were not free. “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves to anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” This they said, living in a conquered nation with Roman soldiers marching here and there. How blind they were.

But what would we say if Jesus stood among us today? Imagine if we didn’t know all we know about Jesus, and he was just a new public speaker and that we’ve just become intrigued by him and started to listen to him. And suppose that he insinuates that WE are not free! WE who go wherever we want; WE who do whatever we want; buy whatever we want; think whatever we want; watch whatever we want; eat whatever we want. What if he suggested that we were not free? Can you hear us? “Come now Jesus! Slavery has been abolished in this country for well over 100 years!” “We are a Americans!” “We live in the land of the free and the home of the brave!” “Our nation was founded on the principle of Freedom” “We ARE Free Jesus!”

Like the Jews who believed in him, I think we would also take umbrage at the mere suggestion that we were not free. And like the Jews before us, we would deserve the same response from Jesus. He looked at them, and he looks at us and he says: “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin”. Anybody here who does not sin? Anybody at all? I didn’t think so. So we and the believing Jews before us were indeed slaves.

A number of years ago, five men escaped from a prison together. Four of them were back behind bars in a matter of hours. As the reporter related this fact, he remarked, “but one is still free”. Was he really still free though? An escaped convict enjoys almost none of the freedoms for which this country is known throughout the world. He will never truly be a free citizen until he has returned to prison and finished his sentence and now the new one that is added because of his escape. He is still virtually in chains even though he is out of prison. Freedom may come to him, but it will come to him from someone else, from a judge who says he’s paid his debt to society.

When Jesus said “everyone who sins is a slave to sin” he’s saying we have similar chains. Sin is what makes us kind of shifty eyed when it comes to God. Sin takes the smile off our face and puts the worries in our minds. Sin embitters our lives and lives of others. The sin, dwelling within us makes us do things and think things that we know that we shouldn’t. Sin even makes us do things and think things that we hate to do! And, as the Bible says “The wages of sin”, [that is the the big payoff that we get for serving sin and doing its bidding for our entire lives] “is death.” Now doesn’t this sound like slavery to you? We are not truly free. We are slaves.

We cannot free ourselves. Freedom must come from someone else....it comes as a pronouncement from the judge who says that our debt has been satisfied. Our debt has been satisfied by Jesus who went to cross to die the death of all men. This is why Jesus said, “If the Son of man sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

That’s what was lost by the church in Luther’s day. That’s the Gospel....that people are saved by grace, through faith in Christ Jesus. Two years after he nailed his 95 theses to the door, Luther would rediscover this Gospel in a most personal way. Luther was sitting alone in his study at Wittenberg, thinking as he was taught to think, of God’s terrible and certain justice directed at sinners. His Bible lay open him and his eyes fell on a passage from the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Verse 17 says, in part “The righteous shall live by his faith”. He read this passage many times before, but he didn’t get it. He thought it meant.... “if you want to be righteous, that is, acceptable to God, you better be faithful!” And for Luther this just piled on more and more guilt because he knew he had not been faithful...he had not been perfect and was certain he was going to hell because of that.

But then all at once, it was given to him to understand. He understood that righteousness was something that God wanted to give him! Righteousness was something that Jesus earned and won for him on the cross, and by faith, this righteousness was his! By faith....not by his deeds! Luther describes his feelings in this way: “All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates!” Martin Luther was now a free man! As he continued in Jesus teaching, he truly became a disciple. He learned the truth and the truth set him free.

This is what the reformation was about. It was the rediscovery of the Gospel: the good news that God saves us freely and fully through his Son Jesus. This is why we we call ourselves Lutherans; we agree with Luther, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the central teaching of the Bible and that the only way we can be set free is by this Gospel: by Grace through Faith in Christ Jesus. We believe that. We proclaim that. We teach that. AMEN