What is a Lutheran?
at Epiphany on
Grace, mercy and peace are yours through the life giving,
soul saving message of the gospel. Amen.
Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is living and
active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul
and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered
and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
A collector of rare books ran into an acquaintance
who told him he had just thrown away an old Bible that he found in a dusty, old
box. He happened to mention that Guten-somebody-or-other had printed it. "Not Gutenberg?"
gasped the collector. "Yeah, that was it!" "You idiot! You've thrown away one of
the first books ever printed. A copy recently sold at an auction for half a million
dollars!" "Oh, I don't think this book would have been worth anything close to that
much," replied the man. "It was scribbled all over in the margins by some guy named
Martin Luther."
Though there are millions of Bibles around today, the Bible is still a rare book.
It is different than every other book there is in the world. The Bible isn’t just
any old book. It isn’t just a good story like a J.K. Rowling or John Grisham novel.
It isn’t just a book of facts like a Farmer’s Almanac or an encyclopedia. It isn’t
just a self-help book to help overcome addiction or depression. It isn’t just a
book of history or poetry or wisdom or a diary. And it isn’t valuable only if it
was once owned by Martin Luther himself.
The Bible may contain great action sequences, read like a non-fiction novel, contain
important historical facts, improve your life, overcome your problems, plus contain
wise sayings, hymns, prayers and poetry. But it is so much more than that. The Bible
says of itself that it has the words of eternal life: “But these are written that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may
have life in his name.” (John 20:31) God’s Word guides us through this life into
the next: “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” (Psalm 119:105)
The Bible is the holy, inspired, inerrant Word from God Himself: “All Scripture
is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for
every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
God’s
Word is a mighty weapon: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than
any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and
marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing
in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare
before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
A surgeon will use a scalpel to cut out a cancerous tumor or remove a ruptured appendix.
A Lutheran Christian uses the double-edged sword of God’s Word to remove sin and
win freedom from the devil.
This month we have been examining the question “What is a Lutheran?” Let me ask
you, what is the difference between Lutheran preaching you will hear from this pulpit
and preaching you will hear in other non-Lutheran churches? You might say: “Lutheran
preaching is unique because it proclaims what the Bible says.” That’s not enough.
Every self-respecting church makes that claim.
Good, solid, Lutheran preaching has two sides – Law and Gospel. The sword of the
Spirit is double-edged. If either one of those edges is blunted, if either one of
those two messages is muted, the sword of the Spirit cannot do its work.
Good, solid, Lutheran preaching will cut you open with the sharpened edge of the
Law. This is painful. As your pastor, when the Law is being preached and hearts
are being torn open and lives are being exposed, I notice how people’s head bow
a little, eyes drift down, seats shift uncomfortably in the pews.
God loves us enough to open us up with his Word that reveals the truth about ourselves.
God’s Word is “living and active.” It is alive, filled with the vitality of God
himself and therefore is indestructible and imperishable. It accomplishes great
things in the lives of God’s people. It isn’t passive or outmoded, but always up-to-date
and effective as God himself said in Isaiah 55:15, “It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
The Word works, whether it was in an adulterous king, a murderous Pharisee, a demon-possessed
man, a dead girl, or a thief on a cross. The Word is effective whether it is in
a child at the baptismal font, the nervous confirmand making her commitment, a worried
father praying over the hospital bed of his young child, an overworked businessman
or overwhelmed mother, or a shut-in on his death bed. God’s Word is living and active.
God’s Word “penetrates to dividing soul and spirit.” Yet God’s Word slices through
our physical and spiritual life like a sharp scissors glides through thin cloth.
It “divides joints and marrow.” God’s Word penetrates deeply into our inmost being,
exposing all our secret sins. The people who heard Peter’s Pentecost sermon knew
about the penetrating action of this double-edged sword. After Peter had condemned
the people for killing the Son of God with their wickedness, Acts 2:37 tells us,
“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter, ‘Brothers,
what shall we do?”
God’s Word “judges thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” We will stand accountable
on Judgment Day for the thoughts and attitudes God finds hidden in the depths of
our hearts and minds. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything
is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
Under God’s sword scalpel, nothing remains hidden. Everything is uncovered, open,
and bare – that private pet sin, that top-secret temptation, that little speck of
decay, that slow shifting away from God and his Word. The sword cuts your selfishness
and greed; it slashes away your prideful, self-righteous attitude; it hacks away
at your inborn sinful nature; it slices the gossip, hate, contempt and vile speech
that flows so freely from your tongue; it severs your ties to the devil.
These incisions, these cuts, this slashing and severing takes place every time you
sit in these Lutheran pews. This surgery takes place in our Lutheran classrooms
and Lutheran homes. That is why it is so difficult and uncomfortable to sit here
on a Sunday morning. Surgery isn’t easy. It isn’t comfortable. It isn’t fun. But
it is necessary. And that is why you receive phone calls, letters, and reminders
of the importance of WLS, Sunday School, Bible classes, and worship services. It
is for your own good. It is for the good of your soul.
This cutting of God’s Law doesn’t bring comfort. It is a message that isn’t merely
spoken to scare or wound, but to kill and damn. It is, however, a message that must
be heard. August Pieper, a now sainted professor from our Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary,
once declared, “Whoever does not believe his own sinfulness, does not believe in
the Savior.”
It is painful to see how sinful we really are. But then once everything is open
and laid bare, then God can begin his restorative surgery. God removes the cancerous
sin from us. He eradicates the leprosy of our iniquities. He removes the guilt that
made our soul sick. He takes that fatal disease called sin upon himself. That sin
sickness caused Jesus to die so we may live.
Just as a doctor will pour clean, sterile water to cleanse a wound, so Jesus poured
his cleansing, pure blood upon our bleeding hearts. The doctor will use peroxide
or beta dine to keep the wound clean, so Jesus uses repentance and forgiveness to
cleanse our soul. The doctor may use antibiotics or salve to fight infection, so
Jesus places the salve of his love, mercy and forgiveness upon our open wounds.
Jesus takes this fatal disease called sin upon himself and then he repairs our heart
and soul with his blood transfusion of love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and the
promise of eternal life. He then sews us back up again with the good news of his
Gospel. Jesus, the Great Physician, has died to heal us of all our sins, no matter
how awful or helpless we may feel we are. None of this happens without the sword
of the Lord, God’s Word in our Bibles.
A generation ago, Harry Truman once opined, “I don’t see why there are so many different
churches. They all teach the same thing: ‘Do unto others as you would have them
do to you.’” You will hear much of the same things in other churches. You’ll hear
how to live, what to do, what not to do. You will hear a lot of moralizing. It is
really the warm fuzzies.
A pastor friend of mine who is also a connoisseur of fine beers once said, “Most
Americans like their theology as they like their beer: watered down and mass marketed.
They don’t like their theology or their beer to be dark, flavorful or demanding.”
I’m not so sure about comparing theology to beer, but he does make a valid point.
There are so many Christian denominations in
What you hear from Lutheran pulpits is different than in other church bodies. You
will hear Law and Gospel, sin and grace, guilt and love, hell and heaven, salvation
lost and salvation regained. You won’t hear just what you need to do. You will hear
what you failed to do, but what Jesus accomplished for you. That is good, solid
Lutheran preaching. And that’s what you need to hear. You need to feel the hurt
and then you will receive the comfort.
What you hear in Lutheran churches is so different because Jesus says that he has
come to divide, not to unite. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on
the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) Then he
goes on to explain how he divides homes and families over his Word. When we hear
the truth about Jesus in the Gospel, we are either for him or against him. The Bible
makes it clear that we cannot pick and choose certain doctrines. He didn’t come to offer
us a new set of laws or a new philosophy of life from which we can select parts
that we accept and reject others. He confronts us with himself as God in the flesh.
We must, by God's grace, either believe or reject that claim of his. And if we believe
it, the line is forever drawn against everyone who doesn't believe in him as God,
Lord, and Savior.
Which
side of God’s Word are we going to be on: creation or evolution; eternity or nothingness;
that all life is precious or it is survival of the fittest, leading to abortion
and euthanasia; all sex outside marriage between a man and a woman is sin or we
live perverted lifestyles; either Jesus paid for all our sins or salvation is based
on our own work-righteousness. It is either or. No compromises. One of the other.
You see,
when we are confronted by the reality of the Word made flesh, life's basic issues
are at stake. Saved by his grace, once dead in our sins but now alive in Christ,
we are forever changed. The unconditional sacrificial love of Jesus compels us to
take up our cross and follow him. He reminds us that we must die to live, lose ourselves
to find ourselves in him. He divides rote religion from right relationship, the
secular from the sacred, the temporal from the eternal, this world from the next,
the saved from the unsaved, the lost from the found, darkness from light. He is
himself the divide between heaven and hell. Though he is the Prince of Peace, by
the very nature of who he is, our Lord Jesus also brings with him a spiritual sword
that divides souls, people, and even households.
We loudly
and proudly sing that “God’s Word is our Great Heritage.” It is God’s Word that
cuts you to the heart in the confession of sins. It is God’s Word of forgiveness
that heals your soul in the absolution. It is God’s Word that convicts and comforts
in the Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle and Gospel lessons. You respond that “these
words are written that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”
It is God’s Word that is contained in our prayers, paraphrased in our hymns, and
preached and applied in our sermons. It is the visible Word of God that comes to
you in the sacrament of Holy Communion.
Unsheathe
this sword of the Lord. Use it. Share it. Go into battle with it. With this sword
of the Lord’s Word, we lose our life to find it. We take up our cross to follow
Jesus. We die to sin and rise with Christ to newness of life. This sword cuts and
kills, but also heals and saves. Lutherans use the sword of the Lord. Amen.
We are
not ashamed of the gospel because it is the salvation of everyone who believes.
Amen.