Christ Is the Truth that Sets You Free Indeed

Reformation Sunday

October 30, 2016

John 8:31-36

Christ Is the Truth that Sets You Free Indeed

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Today is an accident. We shouldn't be here today. I don't mean that we shouldn't remember the Reformation, but rather that the actual day that became “Reformation Day” isn't a day Lutherans picked. (Ask me about this accident at the potluck.)

The proof's in the pudding that we never actually eat, so to speak, since you have never read the 95 theses, today or any other day. Now maybe this because we are Americans, who have been taught to disdain the actual happenings and documents of the past. For example, how many of us read the Declaration of Independence on Independence Day? (Or have ever read it?)

We are lazy Americans and like to keep things simple: the British were bad, George Washington was good, we won, fireworks. We are also lazy Lutherans: the pope was bad, Martin Luther was good, we won, trick or treat and/or potluck.

Jesus didn't set us free to be hazy about what truly happened in the past. In fact Jesus sent His Holy Spirit and His unworthy pastors and parents and grandparents to speak the Truth to us. This Truth—which isn't a what, but a who—is Jesus.

³¹To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, "If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. ³²Then you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.” ³³They answered Him, “We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” ³⁴Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. ³⁵Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. ³⁶So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31-36 NIV 1984)

Just before this back-and-forth between Jesus and the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus explained their big problem: they loved the big lie that the Devil had planted in their hearts. This lie said that they were going to heaven because they had the right family tree: Abraham was their father! (Abraham lived 2000 years before Jesus was born. The Lord promised that the Savior of the world would be born as one of Abraham's descendants. We call the family tree of Abraham the Jewish people and the Jewish baby born in Bethlehem, Jesus.)

These Jews speaking with Jesus thought they were protected from hell by Abraham's biological blood flowing in their veins. They thought they were the chosen sons, the princes who would inherit heaven simply by momentum.

Jesus exposed this big lie and He told them that He is the always-existing God. His holy blood would save them, not Father Abraham's. And so they tried to murder Him right then and there:

⁵⁸Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I AM!” ⁵⁹At this, they picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus hid Himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. (John 8:58-59)

Whenever Jesus as the God who dies for sinful humans is preached, either by Jesus Himself or by one of His followers, suppression of this Truth, sometimes by the attempted or successful murder of the Truth-tellers, always follows. But these attempts to stop the Truth always fail. The Word always remains and the preaching of Jesus' bloody dying and then His rising from the dead will endure on earth until Jesus returns, hopefully sometime later today, but you never know.

Just as the Devil twisted the fatherhood of Abraham—a good thing—into a false sense of security for Abraham's lazy children, so the Devil also twists Luther into something he is not. The world hates and loves Luther, but they are always hating or loving a Luther that they have fabricated.

Let me offer an example by way of explanation. George Washington is someone who tells the truth. How do you know this? Because he cut down the cherry tree and when confronted by his daddy, little George confessed: “I cannot tell a lie—it was I.”

This story is completely made-up. It was invented by one of Washington’s first biographers, Mason Locke Weems. After Washington’s death in 1799 people were anxious to learn about him, and Weems was ready to supply the demand. Weems’ biography, The Life of Washington, in its fifth edition (1806) included this completely made-up story. (mountvernon.org/digital-encyclopedia/article/cherry-tree-myth/)

Luther did actually post these 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church. These theses were 95 logical points against selling God's forgiveness for money. And as Luther's preaching and teaching declared in the years that followed, God's forgiveness is a free gift to us that Jesus earned with His blood and death on the cross. And then this forgiveness is given freely to sinners of all shapes and sizes—sinful babies, sinful kids, sinful grown-ups, and sinful seniors—through God's Word with water, with speaking, and with Jesus' true body and blood.

The Devil and the unbelieving world tries to use Luther to proclaim anything, but Jesus. They demand that Luther symbolize freedom from Jesus. Next year you will hear much about Luther as a genius who introduced the modern era. Don't buy it. Luther cared about Jesus, the One who first cared about him and died for him and rose for him and baptized him as a little baby in a little church over 500 years ago.

The Reformation was not about making it easier to get to heaven. No, if anything the Reformation showed us just how hard it is. For man, it is impossible. Not an indulgence or offering, not a pilgrimage or mission trip, not circumcision or uncircumcison, not a monk's prayer or prayers of prayer warriors, not an active life in the church or just having your name on a membership directory, no, nothing you do can improve your standing before God.

But if God's Son sets you free, you are free indeed. These words are Christ's words and He is the one who inspired Paul to write the little word “indeed.” Everything needed for forgiveness is in deed done, for our dear Lord has done it, not on accident, but on purpose for you.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!