Rev. Cary M. Richert
Reformation Sunday (Series A)
October 30, 2005
Freedom's Attachments
John 8:31-36
Each year on the last Sunday of October, many Lutherans around the world celebrate the Festival of the Reformation. Five hundred years ago the Lord raised up Martin Luther to point a church gone astray back to the basic truths of His holy Word ... especially to the great Asolas@ of salvation: sola gratia (salvation is by God's grace alone) B sola fide (salvation is received by faith alone, apart from works) B and sola Scriptura (salvation is preached and taught on the basis of Scripture alone).
Luther observed that the church had enslaved its people by its rigorous rules, by its strict demands, by its threats of punishment, and by its preaching of a righteousness based, at least in part, on good works. Luther's own tortured conscience bore witness to his fear and dread of being condemned to hell by an angry God ... a Righteous Judge who knew Luther's every sinful thought, word and deed ... and would hold him personally accountable for them.
Our Reformation text today speaks of freedom ... freedom that proceeds from the truth of God's Word ... freedom that comes through the Son. Our freedom in Christ can be easily misunderstood. Like the Jews to whom Jesus was speaking in today's text, we often think of our spiritual freedom as the absence of attachments to anything that would keep us from doing whatever we please.
Our Lord wasn't teaching about a freedom that releases us from attachments. Rather, He teaches of a spiritual freedom that comes from B and remains rooted in B critical, life-sustaining attachments. What are these attachments?
FIRST, the freedom Christ speaks of in today's text comes through His own attachment to the cross. At the cross, God reconciled the world to Himself in Christ, by making Jesus, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Christ, we who are sinners might become the righteousness of God, [2 Corinthians 5:19, 21].
At the cross, God showed His love for sinful mankind by giving His only-begotten Son, Jesus, as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life, [John 3:16].
Attached to the cross, Jesus endured the full wrath of God that you and I deserve. Attached to the cross, Jesus pleaded to the Father for our forgiveness. Attached to the cross, our Lord said: It is finished, [John 19:30]. Everything necessary for your forgiveness, salvation and spiritual freedom was accomplished by Christ's attachment to the cross.
SECONDLY, the freedom Christ speaks of comes through our personal attachment to Him in Holy Baptism. In Baptism, we're united to Christ in His suffering, death and resurrection, as the apostle Paul describes in today's Epistle Reading, [Romans 6:3-8]. In your Baptism, what Christ did on the cross centuries ago for the whole world becomes personal for you. Your sins are washed away. Jesus places His Holy Spirit into your soul ... and gives you the gifts of faith, forgiveness, new life, and salvation.
Through your personal attachment to Christ in Holy Baptism, you became a child of the Father ... a son or daughter in the family of faith ... a precious lamb in the flock of the Good Shepherd. In Baptism, Christ equips you and me to serve Him and each other. We're united as one in faith. And, as one in faith, we strive together for spiritual maturity and peace, [Ephesians 4:1-16].
THIRD, the freedom Christ speaks of comes through His attachment to us in Holy Communion. Gathered as one body around the Lord's table, you and I receive by faith Christ's body and blood into our own bodies, for the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith.
And because the crucified, risen and ascended Christ attaches Himself to us through the bread and wine of Holy Communion, you and I B who by nature are enslaved in our temptation and sinfulness B are reassured that some day we'll be set free from our slavery to this body of sin and death ... and given a perfect and sinless body that we'll live with in heaven forever.
Christ's attachment to you and me in Holy Communion also reassures us that you and I are included in the new covenant of God's grace that the prophet Jeremiah described in today's Old Testament reading ... a covenant of freedom in which Jesus binds Himself to us so much more strongly than we could ever bind ourselves to Him!
FINALLY, the freedom Christ speaks of comes through our attachment to His holy Word. Jesus is crystal clear about this is today's text: If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, [John 8:31?32, NKJV].
Jesus teaches of a freedom greater than any earthly freedom. He teaches a freedom from the guilt and punishment of our sin ... a freedom from salvation by works dictated in the Law ... a freedom to serve God and others out of love, rather than obligation ... a freedom found only in His teachings, as set forth in His Word.
An old story tells of a friend who stopped by to visit well-known comedian W. C. Fields, and was surprised to find Fields reading the Bible ... a book the comedian usually had little use for. The surprised friend asked Fields, AWhat in the world are you doing?@ Fields replied, ALooking for loopholes.@
There aren't any loopholes in our Lord's Word. Martin Luther discovered this in his study of Scripture. For him, God's Word was the one and only thing necessary for Christian life, righteousness and freedom. He believed that the soul could do without anything except the Word of God. Where God's Word is missing in a person's life, Luther said, there's no help at all for the soul. [LW 31:345]
Did you hear the seriousness of our attachment to the Lord's Word? There are many who don't hold to Jesus' teaching. They leave their Bible unused on the coffee table or high on a shelf. Their Baptism means little or nothing to them. They rarely, if ever, receive the Lord's Supper. They ignore God's forgiveness of their sins. Like the Jews to whom Jesus spoke, they're enslaved by their lack of true faith and trust in Christ ... shackled in the chains of unbelief, hypocrisy, self-absorption, and sin. [ Rev. Wm. Cwirilla, AThe Festival of Reformation@ in Gottesdienst, Michelmass 2002, 4]
But to those who truly hold to Jesus' teaching ... those who anchor their lives upon it and continue in it by faith, to them Jesus gives His wonderful promise of grace: You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free!
Freedom's attachments: Christ to the cross ... us to Christ in Holy Baptism ... Christ to us in Holy Communion ... and, us to our Lord's Word. Five centuries ago, Martin Luther came to understand the critical importance of freedom's attachments, for without these attachments there's no freedom in Christ at all ... only bondage to sin and judgment and death. May we today, who've inherited the legacy of Luther's courageous work, also know, that the truth of our greatest freedom is in these same attachments. God grant it for Jesus' sake. Amen.
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NOTE: I am indebted to the Rev. Professor William Weinrich of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN for introducing me to the concept of the attachments of freedom at a worship service in the Kramer Chapel conducted 19 January 2005 in conjunction with the 2005 Exegesis and Confessions Symposia Series. Rev. Weinrich preached a homily on Matthew 17:24-27 titled AA Vision of Freedom.@