The person who believes in what he or she is doing is nearly unstoppable. That was definitely the case for Martin Luther and his other reforming compatriots in Wittenberg following 1517. They had the vim and vigor of the Spirit driving them to share the Good News in new ways and with new audiences every day. After Luther blew open the issues of his day by posting and publishing his 95 Theses, there was no turning back and no slowing down. They got to work spreading the Gospel that once was lost but had again been found.
               
I have to be honest. When we, as pastors, were deputized by our Lutheran leadership to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation over a year ago, I was not very enthused about the whole thing. For one, I saw that there are many challenges that our church is facing in the present. Much of the talk about the 500th anniversary seemed backwards looking to a reforming movement that was, at the neglect of the reforms we need to bring to the church in our own time. I try hard to make sure that we do not treat our church like a museum, but the things I was hearing about this celebration of our history seemed exactly the work of museums. Our congregation is a living, thriving community of faith and we need to constantly live into that identity, even as we honor our past.
               
The other big issue that I had with celebrating Luther’s posting of his 95 Theses is that the real work of reforming the church happened in the years following 1517 – not in that year alone. It was not as though Luther nailed this document to the church door, walked away, and said, “Alright. Everybody good now?” On the contrary, that single act started him down a journey and career that would demand great energy, effort, insight, collaboration, and faith that God was calling him to serve the church by disrupting it. The Reformation was not a one and done sort of thing, it demanded seemingly endless effort by the guy our denomination is named after and all who supported him. It was no easy task to change centuries of church malpractice and lead people to stand on a Gospel that they were barely familiar with. Lutheran Reformers surely rose to the challenges of their day. Over the next decade, they would out publish their Roman Catholic opponents 10 to 1, and, to this day, Luther remains one of the most prolific writers in human history. His work in the years following 1517 proved that the movement was only just getting started.
               
Obviously, we did have a grand celebration on Reformation Sunday, but I want to let you know that I will not stop drawing on the legacy of the Lutheran reformers. They have left us a great example for our own time. Like the church in the 21st century, they had no clear way forward and had to fight the tide of their time to bring renewal to the church. The way forward for the church of the 16th century was almost entirely unknown. There was reason to doubt and despair over the massive upheavals that were threatening the social fabric of Europe and, seemingly, even threatened the very salvation of Christian souls. But, the Lutheran reformers were convicted by scripture and their faith in a loving God, so they pressed on anyway as I believe we must.
               
Martin Luther could not be stopped because he believed in the mission that God had set upon his soul, and his conviction was contagious. The Gospel mission that inspired the reforms he brought to the church was one worth fighting for, and the fact that he did not shy away from putting his life on the line for what he believed in is an example that is worth following into the unknown challenges of our own time. Press on in the faith my friends, and know that while our faith draws on the past, it will only propel us forward to the unknown paths that lie before us.
 
                                                                               In Christ,
                                                                             Pastor Seth

This month, 500 years ago, an Augustinian monk turned professor got on his high horse and called the church to account for its spiritually fraudulent practices. The author Alister McGrath, in his book Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, called Martin Luther an “accidental reformer”. I believe that this is an apt observation. When Luther posted his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, there was no reason to think that this little town with an unknown university would ever have a role in speaking truth to church power. There was no predicting how big this reformation thing would eventually become and there was no reason to think that Luther would ever have been anyone special.
               
But, we believe that Luther and his theology played an important role in freeing the Gospel from church falsehoods that had grown worse over time. The gospel of Mark tells us that, at Jesus’ death, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38). The ancient Israelites believed that God dwelt with them in the ark of the covenant which was housed in the holiest of holies, the innermost room of the temple which was covered by a huge curtain. When Jesus died and the curtain was ripped open, we believe that God’s presence was unleashed on the world. Yet, in the centuries leading up to the Reformation, the church used its authority to try to hide the presence and grace of God from ordinary people once again. They taught that priests, bishops, cardinals and popes were closer to God than everyone else, and that they were the only ones who could interpret the will of God. In turn, these leaders used their authority to exploit the faith and fear of the masses. People were charged if they wanted to receive God’s forgiveness and grand cathedrals and elegant church mansions were built using the hard-earned wages of the faithful poor. The effect of these abuses was an attempt to hide God behind a proverbial temple curtain, making people believe that salvation was only for the rich and powerful – not the everyday believer.
               
In essence, when Luther taught people that the Roman Catholic Church was perverting the Good News of Jesus Christ, it was similar to the temple curtain being torn when Jesus died. Though the church tried to hide the fact that God is generous and freely forgives everyone who believes, Martin Luther made this simple truth known to the masses once again. In so doing, God’s gracious love was revealed to the people by tearing open the veil of church corruption and false teaching.
               
500 years later, this is a fact still worth celebrating because churches and pastors continue to put up curtains to hide the truth of God’s gracious forgiveness and love. I have friends who have been told that they are unworthy of God’s grace because they got pregnant before marriage. Others have been excluded from churches because they love the wrong type of person or because they have gotten divorced. Others have been told they are unworthy of God’s love because they haven’t attended worship for a couple of Sundays. And still others, just like Martin Luther, are told that they are not worthy of God’s grace because they question and doubt things that some churches and pastors teach. For all of these who have been hurt and kept from encountering God’s grace in the 21st century, we celebrate that for 500 years we have been faithfully living into the truth that God loves us no matter what. Even if some of our churches try to keep us from the grace of God, there is no hiding the truth that God cares for each and everyone of us, no matter what.
               
​The power of the Gospel is Good News whose re-release 500 years has been worth celebrating for centuries. I can’t wait to see the Gospel moving in people’s lives for the next 500 years!
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth