October 27th 2024 John 8:31- 36
This is reformation Sunday, the Sunday we celebrate the reforms of the church and honor the life of Martin Luther. For those who are true students of history you will know that there were other reformers who have been working as hard as Luther and even before Luther to reform the abuses of the Roman Church. Martin Luther however is probably the most famous reformer of all of them…
I think it is appropriate and right that I begin my sermon this morning with a quote from Luther.
Luther says in his little book, "Christian Liberty" the following: "A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all." Luther is saying we are free and at the same time we are slaves. How can that be???
There was a pastor who was riding with a coachman one day. He turned to the coachman and asked, "Friend, if your team were running away with you, after you had done your best to stop them what would you do if you suddenly learned that a person sitting beside you knew exactly how to control your team and save you from disaster!. "
The coachman reified, "I’d instantly hand over the reins to him!!" Then replied the pastor’ "Why haven’t you handed over the reins of your life to Christ, since he is the one who can save you’ from eternal disaster."
Do you see what Luther is trying to say. Yes, we are free because of the freedom we have in Christ, but at the same time we are slaves, slaves to Christ and to the people we serve in Christ’s name.
In our gospel lesson this morning Jesus is talking about this same subject. He says we are slaves to sin, but at the same time he is telling us we can he free in and through him.
Luther’s famous saying that we are saint and sinner at the same time comes to mind here. We are saints, believers in Christ because of Christ’s action in our lives through Baptism, but at the same time we are sinners, never having fully arrived at our sainthood until we come into the glorious presence of Christ at the gates of heaven.
Our lives are an ongoing process of becoming what Christ wants us to be. He is constantly molding, shaping, forming, developing, guiding us so that we can be free in Him to serve Him and our neighbor.
So there is a paradox to the Christian life. I am free in Christ to become what God truly created me for in His image, but at the same time I am a slave to sin, because that nature is always with me until through Christ at the gates of heaven it is finally removed.
Paul says in Romans. 7:19 "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me." But he goes on to says in Romans. 8:1,2 1 " There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.
Maybe the following story will help us to understand this paradox to Christian living.
" A man named John Elliott was caught in a blizzard high in the Rocky mountains. He became lost, and finally he saw a cabin and crawling to the door with his last ounce of strength, he found it to be unlocked and he crawled in. But being dazed and near exhaustion, he didn’t light a fire or take off his wet clothing. He laid on the floor sinking into oblivion, paralyzed by the pleasure of the storm’s icy caress. Suddenly, his St. Bernard dog came into the cabin, for he too had become loss from his master. He saw his master lying on the floor, and became to arouse John from his near comatose state. The ranger said later, that the dog saved his life.
John said, "When you’re freezing to death you actually feel warm all over, and don’t wake up because it feels too good. "
Some people are like that in their spiritual lives. They actually don’t realize the state of sin they are in, because everything seems so good. They don’t see their need for Christ because they feel they are really handling their salvation pretty good by themselves. But as Paul says, it is only through Christ Jesus that we can be free from sin death and the power of the devil. As Luther says not my work but the work of Christ in me that sets me free. Or as Jesus says in our gospel lesson, ’ So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."
As we continue to surrender our sinful selves to Christ, we will become free in Him to live the kind of life he has called us to live. There is that daily surrender, that daily drowning of my sinful self in the waters of my baptism and then letting Christ raise me as a new and cleansed person.
But it seems to me we Lutheran have not taken as seriously this part of our understanding of Baptism.
Each day I surrender my sinful to Christ, he grabs me, pushed me down into the water of my Baptism, cleanses me, and raises me to a new life so that I might serve Him and my neighbor. I must surrender to Him daily. I must acknowledge my sinful self daily
But I think a lot of us like to straddle the fence on this one. We don’t really see that daily we need to do this, or we don’t like to admit to ourselves that we are really sinners in daily need of Christ’s forgiveness.
Yes, there is freedom in Christ, but at the same time, a struggle to remain captive by Christ. True freedom in life only comes when we are captive by Christ, when we are as Luther says, "A Christians a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all."
Subject to all, subject to Christ and subject to our neighbor. There is freedom and life in our willingness to be captive by Christ and in being captive by Christ, we have a freedom to live, a freedom to risk, a freedom to be and use all the potential God created in us.
A woman was awakened one morning by a strange sound. She went to the window and saw a butterfly flying inside the window pane in great fright; outside a sparrow was pecking at the pane and trying to reach the butterfly. The butterfly did not see the glass pane and expected every minute to be caught, the sparrow did not see the glass and expected every minute to catch the butterfly. All the while the butterfly was safe because the glass was between it and the sparrow. While the butterfly was being captive by the glass it was safe.
As you and I are captive by Christ, he protects, saves and gives us life. Yes, make me a captive Lord, so then I will be free to live.
Amen