A Balm, Not A Bomb

I guess we expect some fireworks from the pulpit on Reformation Day. It’s become sort of a tradition in Lutheranism. It’s our brag day, a day to blow our horn a little bit, to remind the world that we’ve got the message of Jesus straight and by golly we’re just a little bit better than a certain southern European, medieval church organization that we might or might not name but that everyone knows we’ve had our differences with—you know the one led by the guy with the big white hat…

It’s a tradition, and we Lutherans love our traditions. If we’ve done it a certain way for more than 25 years—that becomes the way it is! It’s just the way it is, and we like it! The old saw about how many Lutherans it takes to change a light bulb comes in here: it takes ten—one to change the bulb and nine to say how much they liked the old one better, how it just gave a slightly warmer, yet at the same time brighter glow…

So we come this morning looking for some fireworks, expecting the pastor to toss a couple bombs our way, stir the pot, light it up…

I’m not going to do it this morning though. Oh, I confess I’ve yielded to the temptation in the past a time or two. But when you study the history of the thing, you find that Reformation Day, Oct. 31 and all its attendant fireworks and bombshells is really not the old Lutheran way. Nope. It’s really a 17^th century, not a 16^th century thing. Came well after the Reformation itself, when a different and more rigid cast of mind had gripped the Lutheran Church.

This is the thing about our love of traditions: we sometimes can be blind to the fact that our church really didn’t always do it the way we do it today. That we’ve actually made lots of changes to our traditions and even to our doctrine and practice over the last 5 centuries of our history. Some of the changes might be good, but some are more questionable. Like the Reformation Day fireworks…

For one thing, the 16^th century Lutherans hated the name “Lutheran”. They weren’t followers of Martin Luther. They were disciples of Jesus Christ! They were Christians who followed the universal, that is the catholic faith that Christ committed to His Apostles. The Faith based solely on the Gospel of Jesus Christ—the glad tidings that our sins are all forgiven by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and that thereby we have life and salvation. They called themselves “Evangelical Catholics”. That is, they were followers of the catholic, the universal faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The very name “Lutheran” suggested they followed men rather than the Lord and that was not the case!

For those old 16^th century guys, if there was a day to celebrate, a day to remember the good that had come of the terrible struggles of Luther and his colleagues for the Gospel, it wasn’t October 31. Luther had very little regard for the 95 theses he posted that day, truth be told. He would dismiss the whole argument about the papacy, purgatory, indulgences and the rest some 8 years later in Bondage of the Will as “trifles, not real issues.” Nothing all that special about October 31 for those old guys.

No, the day they remembered, the day on which they dedicated the Book of Concord in 1580, was not October 31, 1517. It was June 25, 1530. That was the day they confessed the Gospel before Kings and Emperors and the whole Church. That was the day the Augustana was presented. Because for them it’s always all about the Gospel, confessing the free and freeing promise of Christ Jesus the Master. That was a good day. A day to remember.

For them, the Gospel of Christ was a balm not a bomb--the Gospel is a soothing word, a healing remedy, the medicine of immortality. It is not fireworks to lob, or a club to beat your enemies about the head with, or some secret formula you alone have discovered like Coke Classic to peddle and sell and promote and use to prove your inherent spiritual superiority. The Gospel is not something that makes you better. It is something that makes you well—it heals the disease of sin, and gives new life in Christ Jesus to poor sick sinners like us. It’s the cure for the spiritual cancer that kills us all. Not a nuclear super-weapon to blast our foes.

That it became that for us sometime later is our fault. Something to confess today. But it’s an old problem and we see it pop up in our Gospel this morning. Jesus tells the Jews who believed in Him—not the Pharisees or scribes or the Jews who gave Him grief and trouble for being kind to sinners and hanging with them—but the faithful Jews who heard His Word and believed it: Jesus told them, “Hey, you guys are right with Me! If you abide in My Word you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.”

And the disciples answered Him: “Whoa, there bub! Hold on a second! What’s with this future tense “will be made free”? We are Abraham’s seed, pal! We are good Lutherans who learned our catechism by heart in 8^th grade! We’ve got Luther rose tatts on our shoulders and wear them with pride! We are free already by our pure doctrine and superior knowledge. So how can You say: “You will be made free”? We feel free all the time! Couldn’t be any freer than us. No sir!”

And Jesus answers them: “Truly, I say to you: whoever commits sin is slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. So if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed!”

Jesus puts the soothing balm of the Gospel on us and we bristle. How dare the Lord treat us like sickos and charity cases! Doesn’t He know who we are?! The Gospel for us then is no balm—it’s the bomb, a weapon to use on the foes who would enslave us.

But that’s not the way it really is. For the Jews then or us Lutherans now. The Gospel’s a balm not a bomb. Use it like a weapon and it melts in your hands. Receive it as the medicine of immortality, balm for a poor sick sinner like me, and it becomes a fountain of living water welling up in me to eternal life. It’s a fountain, not a flood. It doesn’t kill—it heals.

And it heals me. It heals you. Because we are the ones who sin and fall short of the glory of God. We are the ones who are proud and arrogant. We are the ones who fight and feud with God and our brothers and sisters. We are the sinners who are enslaved to sin and cannot free ourselves. We need a balm not a bomb.

So Jesus gives It again today—by Word and Sacrament, He gives to us Himself, His cross, His sufferings, His humility, His body and blood. A balm, not a bomb.

So He takes away our pride, our boast, our sense of superiority. It doesn’t matter who our fathers were—Abraham, Paul, Luther, Chemnitz, or Pieper. All that matters is who our Savior is, Christ Jesus, the Shepherd of our Souls. Him alone we hear. Him alone we follow. Not because we are strong, but because we are weak. Not because we are smart, but because we are so easily led astray.

At His Table, the miracle happens again. The healing balm is given. At the beggars’ banquet, by Christ’s body and blood, we sick, enslaved sinners became sons again just like Jesus—which brings not pride, but Peace, that surpasses all understanding and guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.