(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “One Third of Eternity” originally shared on October 23, 2024. It was the 334th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
One day bothered me, and it bothered me for
a few days. Another day made all of us new, and it made us new forever. Today
we’re going to find out what they both have to do with Halloween.
This is the 334th podcast that
Sally and I have produced for Streams of Living Water since the beginning of
the pandemic. That’s more than one third of one thousand videos!
I’ve had many birthdays. Only one bothered
me, and it wasn’t even actually a birthday. It was the day I realized that I
was 33 and 1/3 years old. That’s one third of a century!
That bothered me. Not when I was 25, or 50,
or even 75 years old, just being one third of a century bothered me.
This coming Sunday is Reformation Sunday in
Lutheran Churches all over the world. It will be the 507th
anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. That’s over half of a
millennium! More than 77 million Lutherans will celebrate it, but I don’t
think that it will bother any of us.
Reformation Sunday is celebrated the Sunday
before Reformation Day.
Reformation Day is always October 31st, the day in
1517 when Church reformer Martin Luther began the movement to reform the Roman
Catholic Church of his time by nailing 95 theses, or statements for academic
debate, regarding the corruption of the Church to the door of the castle church
in Wittenberg, Germany.
This was not an act of vandalism. The church
door was a public bulletin board, and public notices were routinely nailed on it.
Was there
anything significant about October 31st that Luther
chose that day to nail
the 95 Theses to the church door? Why yes, there was. And it’s related to another holiday.
All Saints Day is on November 1st. It’s a day to celebrate all
the Saints. A worship service was scheduled for the night before, and Luther knew that the
church would be packed. His challenge to the Catholic Church would be seen by a
lot of people!
But when Luther posted the 95
theses, the reaction was way beyond what he expected. It set into motion events
that changed the world.
Reformation Sunday is a
celebration of our freedom. We are set free
from sin, death and the power of the devil by God. There won’t be any costumes or
lawn decorations, no specially themed movies or TV shows or parties. It is a
celebration of the recovery of the good news, the Gospel. It is a celebration of
our born again day.
I don’t think
I’m exaggerating or engaging in a bit of Lutheran chauvinism when I say that we are celebrating events that changed our lives. All of us.
A few years ago the History Channel asked its viewers for their
opinions of who were the most
influential persons of the past 1,000 years. Martin Luther was second. Guttenberg and the invention of the
printing press was first, and it’s interesting that they both happened at about
the same time.
Martin Luther protested the
abuses of the Roman Catholic church of his day, and he was called a “protestant”.
It wasn’t a very nice thing to call somebody then. He was the first protestant.
All other protestant churches followed Martin Luther’s witness.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr.
was born Michael King, and named his son Michael King, Jr. But when the Senior
Rev. King traveled to Germany for a Baptist church conference in 1934, he was
so impressed with the legacy of Martin Luther that he changed his name to Rev.
Martin Luther King, Sr. and his five-year-old son’s to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Today, if you say that you are
a Lutheran, many people will respond, “Oh yeah, Martin Luther King, Jr. I’ve
heard of him”. So this is a good time to refresh peoples’ awareness of who is
who. 😊
Martin Luther had been a young man on
the move in the 16th century. His father wanted him to be a lawyer and be rich,
and that’s where young Martin was heading.
Then, Luther was
walking across a field one day when he got caught in lightening storm. He
prayed to his saint, Saint Ann, as a good Catholic young man would, and said
that if she saved him from the storm that he would show his gratitude by
becoming a monk.
He was not hurt and, much to his father’s
chagrin, he became an Augustinian monk.
The more he studied the scriptures, however,
the more Luther became
absolutely convinced that he was a sinner and that he was going to hell. Even
when he spent an entire day praying, going to Mass and reading to the Bible and
came to the end of the day feeling good that at least he could say that he had
spent one day without sinning, he realized that he had
committed the sin of Pride.
His superiors sent him to teach the Bible at
the University of Wittenberg, because teaching something is a very good way to
understand it. 😊
And in his preparation, he discovered
a verse where the Latin
vulgate had translated from the original
Greek the word “metanoia” (“to turn around” or “to repent”) into the Latin word
“poenitentia” (“to do penance”). That is, the Roman Catholic Church, the Church in the West, was
teaching that you could get into heaven by doing good works, and not by repentance
and faith that then produces good works.
Doing penance meant you could do good stuff in this life to make up for
the bad stuff. The Church was raising money to build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Indulgences
were a written promise that you could buy, for a contribution, time off from purgatory
for yourself or even for a loved one (‘cause you wouldn’t want Grandma to be in
purgatory, would you?) that the Church had figured was a place for those
who weren’t bad enough for hell, but weren’t good enough to
be in heaven. Purgatory was a
place where you could serve time to work off the penalty for your sins. The Church said that the pope could decide who could get out of
purgatory.
Luther argued that the sale of
indulgences was in conflict
with the fundamental teaching of scripture that we are put right with God
through faith, through a gift of God’s grace. Furthermore, Luther taught that
purgatory wasn’t in the Bible and didn’t exist. Every penalty for sin was fully
paid by Jesus on the cross. But if it did, Luther asked, why didn’t the pope
let everybody out by pure Christian compassion and not for money.
Luther drew his beliefs from
texts like in Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, in Romans 1:16-17,
16 For
I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For
in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is
written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”
And Paul’s letter to the church
at Ephesus, in Ephesians 2:8-9,
8 For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it
is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so
that no one may boast.
And all of this is related to
Halloween, coming up 8 days from today, a holiday that has nothing at all to do
with how it is celebrated today.
The gospel reading that will be
shared in the vast majority of Lutheran churches throughout the world this coming Sunday
is John 8:31-36, and it tells a lot about what Halloween is really about.
In John chapter 8, starting with
the 31st verse, we read
31 Then
Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word,
you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the
truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Did Jesus say, “the truth will make you
free”? It’s a phrase often thrown up in Christian’s faces to support some
non-Christian’s personal cause. It’s a way to say that what they believe is the
truth and Christians better get with the program because Jesus said, “the truth
will make you free”. But did Jesus say that?
Jesus did say it, but not in the way most
people think it means.
Jesus says,
“the truth will make you free” at the beginning of this week’s Gospel text. But
those words are the end of what begins with a great big “If”: “If you
continue in my word.”
What will
happen then? “you
are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
What is the truth? Jesus. We see, in John
14:6,
6 Jesus
said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me.
The customs of our celebration of Halloween are
rooted in the beliefs of a time in Europe when people who had been saved by
Jesus on the cross were moving out of paganism and were seeing the world with a
Christian worldview instead.
Pagans had been holding rites at the end of
summer to appease the lord of death and evil spirits. Christians were recasting
them in a festival of life. Dressing up as evil spirits to disguise themselves
and hide from them was then becoming dressing up as evil spirits to mock them.
You know those round glowing things above
the heads of certain people in Christian art? That’s right, “halo’s”. They are
there to show that the person under them is a saint, or holy, or hallowed, as
in “hallowed be thy name”.
All Saints Day was called All Hallows Day in
those times. The night before this day was All Hallows Eve. It was shortened
over time to Halloween.
People during this time in the Middle Ages
believed that the forces that defy God were allowed to come out on the night
before All Saints Day to scare Christians.
Christians would dress up to mock them to
show that they had nothing to fear from them and to mock-scare each other.
Those forces were then required to return to
whatever hole they came from at midnight, because that was the beginning of All
Saints Day.
They were mocked in those days. Today, in
our secular society, people seem to celebrate them, pretending that scary
things are fun. Yet some of those same people are frightened, especially when
left alone.
People in our times decorate their lawns,
they invest in elaborate costumes, they go to horror movies and torture houses.
Terror as entertainment. They spend an enormous amount of money on the
decorations, the parties, the costumes, candy, greeting cards, and so on. In
fact, Americans will spend 11.06 billion dollars this year, down almost
5% from last year, which was up more than15% last year over the previous year.
Christmas season spending is about 10 times
that, but very little of Christmas spending is done for a specifically
Christian purpose anymore.
Ironically, I think that many adults in our
times are comforted by this devilish terror. They think that if they invented
it, it must not be real. If everyone around them seems to be enjoying torture
and death, superstition and decay, evil forces and crushing despair, it must be
OK to not mock them but to celebrate them as harmless entertainment.
This is a form of delusion in which our
current culture finds itself. Author C.S. Lewis once said, “There
are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the
devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and
to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”
Our response is that they have no power over
us.
Our Gospel reading for next
Sunday from John 8 concludes, starting with the 33rd
verse,
33 They answered
him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What
do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
34 Jesus answered
them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to
sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place
in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So
if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
On October 31, 1517 , Martin Luther nailed
95 theses (plural of thesis, as when a Ph.D. Student comes up with an original
idea, or thesis, that he/she must
successfully defend in order to qualify for his/her degree) to the
doors of the church to argue against indulgences.
He didn’t want to leave the Catholic church and he didn’t. He wanted to
reform it. He wanted to debate the idea of indulgences. The Church,
particularly the pope, who Luther saw as unnecessary, did not want to hear it.
Under trial for heresy, the punishment could
have included excommunication, imprisonment, torture, and death.
At the end of one of his trials, in Worms,
Germany, Luther was being tried before the head of the government, the Holy Roman emperor and
was accused of being vague in his defense of his written works. Luther replied,
“Since then your serene Majesty and
your Lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, neither
horned nor toothed. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or
by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone,
since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves),
I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my
conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant
anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God
help me. Amen."
“My conscience is captive to
the Word of God.” “It is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.” That
was Luther’s defense.
The Bible is our only source
and norm for human life. It forms us and it speaks to us through the Holy Spirit,
and everything in the Bible points to Jesus.
Luther’s argument may seem mild today, but
to those hearing it, or hearing of
it, it was
mind-blowing.
Luther lived when the Church and its
teaching were everything and in everything. One of its teachings, in a time
when the Church and the State were almost indistinguishable, was that both the
pope and the emperor were put in their positions by God. To go against either
one was not to enter into a dialogue over a reasonable disagreement, but to go
against God.
It was seen as a revolutionary
act.
I think that we can draw a
straight line from Luther’s idea that the individual is responsible for acting
on his or her own conscience, not the dictates of those in authority, to the
idea of democracy in the West.
Luther was convicted, by the Church and declared a heretic, and by the Holy Roman Empire and
declared an outlaw and, at one
time, the pope declared that anyone who murdered Luther would not be committing
a sin.
Luther came along at the right time,
however. The German princes were promoting nationalism, a breaking-away from
the Holy Roman Empire, so they protected Luther. They figured that anything
that weakened the Roman church would weaken the Roman empire.
And, the printing press had just been
invented. Luther’s 95 theses were printed in bulk and in two weeks were being
read in Spain! That was viral media in those days. Luther later published such a mountain of work that there are now 61
volumes of “Luther’s Works” published in English, with more releases planned
through at least 2026
And, in the course of the Reformation,
Luther brought in revolutions.
Does your congregation sing during worship?
Thank Martin Luther. He brought in congregational singing, which had previously
been done by monks.
He declared the
freedom of priests to marry, something for which I am grateful.
Can you read the Bible? Luther translated the
Bible into German, the language of the people, and for the first time in 1,000
years, people could read the Bible in their own language, not Latin, the
language of the educated which were at the time pretty much only priests.
Principles of translation he invented are still in use today.
Luther recovered the Biblical
good news of salvation by faith alone, through grace alone (not by our
efforts), revealed by the Bible alone and not by any human authority.
Luther taught that God ruled
the world through two kingdoms, the kingdom of this world so that governments
are to be measured by what God is calling them to do, and through the Kingdom
of God at work in the Church, to be measured by what God is calling it to do.
Luther taught that every form
of legitimate work had value and dignity, that every person has a vocation, a
calling, and that none is holier or more valued than another.
Luther even reformed beer. The
Roman Catholic Church taxed the herbs and botanicals that had been used to brew
beer, and some people in Germany had already been using hops in protest. Luther
promoted the use of hops as a superior alternative and so contributed to the
way beer tastes and is preserved today.
Today we say that the Church is always
reforming. It is in no less need of reformation than it was in 1517. It
constantly needs to be called to scripture alone as the only source of our
belief and conduct, to teach salvation through faith alone through God’s grace
alone.
This week, I recommend that we
spend some time in “Reform School”. This is a good week to read a book or do an
online search for something about the Reformation and what it has given to us
and to the world. Even better, in the spirit of the Reformation, spend some
time reading the Bible. And consider what in the Church needs reforming today.
Consider what it means for us to say, “my conscience
is captive to the Word of God” and resolve to live by it.
The Holy Spirit continues to open our
hearts to the Word of God. It was poured out on the Day of Pentecost, almost 2,000 years ago, and none of us was bothered by that. We celebrate it! It was the
birthday of the Christian Church.
It reminds us that we were set
free from sin, death, and from all the forces that defy God.
Jesus has set us free,
so we are free indeed!
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