“Unlikely Heroes of Faith: Martin Luther”
Romans 1:17

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Reformation Sunday—October 25, 2015

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

This morning as we observe Reformation Sunday we continue our fall sermon series on “Unlikely Heroes of the Faith.”  Maybe sometimes you don’t feel or act like what we think a “saint” should be, a hero of the faith.  It may surprise you to learn that the great saints of old often felt that way too.  That was certainly the case with Martin Luther.

If you had told Luther’s father that his son would someday become a hero of the faith, he would have replied: “Little Martin?  No, you’ve got it all wrong.  I’ve got nothing against religion.  But, our Martin is not going to devote his life to the church.  He is going to get a good job and make good money, so that he can take of his mother and me in our old age.  That’s what our Martin is going to do.”

His fellow students at the university would have said: “Martin Luther, from Eisleben?  A hero of the faith?  No, you’ve got his program wrong.  He’s studying law, not theology.  He’s a top student, and he’ll be a very good lawyer.”

When he did enter the monastery, even his fellow monks would have replied: “Brother Martin, a hero of the faith?  Oh, I don’t think so. He’s a good monk, a very good monk.  Really outdoes the rest of us in many ways.  But, he’s so tormented about his sins.  He spends hours in the confessional, and still he has no peace.  Sometimes he even whips himself in his cell on account of his sins until he passes out from loss of blood.  At his first celebration of mass he was so nervous he spilled the wine.  They sent him off on a trip to Rome, the Holy City, and he didn’t even enjoy it.  Brother Martin is destined for a quiet life in the cloister.  He’ll make a good monk, but he’s just not cut out for any kind of leadership role in the church.”

A few years ago when the new movie “Luther” came out, the famous movie reviewer Roger Ebert wrote: “In this movie Martin Luther is portrayed not as bold and courageous, but as weak, neurotic, filled with self-doubt, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Where is the great hero of the Reformation?  I anticipated that Luther would be an inspiring figure, filled with the power of his convictions.  Are we supposed to believe that this timid, trembling, tormented man changed the world?”

But, in fact, that movie was indeed a very accurate portrayal of the real Martin Luther: timid, trembling, tormented.  He was tormented by his sins, by the wrath of an angry God.  Luther later recalled, “Though I lived as a monk above reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God and I had an extremely troubled conscience. I could not believe that God was placated by my works. I did not love, no, rather I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners . . . I was angry with God.”

Today’s hymns were all written by Luther, and the sermon hymn we just sang is autobiographical.  He is talking about himself, and he really means it PERSONALLY when he writes in this hymn:  “Fast bound in Satan’s chains I lay, death brooded darkly over me.  Sin was my torment night and day, in sin my mother bore me. But daily deeper still I fell, my life became a living hell, so firmly sin possessed me.”

The church of that day told Luther to find comfort in his good works, by which he was supposed to earn his own salvation.  But, no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, Luther could never find comfort.  For, he knew it could never be enough.  As he says in the hymn: “My own good works all came to naught, no grace or merit gaining.”

The old library Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, my alma mater, is a beautiful, Gothic building that looks like a medieval church.  There’s a puzzle included in the stained-glass windows around the old main reading room.  These windows have a series of elaborate letters that seem to make no sense—until you put them all together and solve the puzzle.  For, they spell out in Latin, Leca Verbum Dei, “Read the Word of the Lord.” 

That’s very appropriate for a Lutheran seminary library.  For, that was the only place Brother Martin seemed to find peace, immersed in books in the library of the monastery.  The head of the monastery saw this and very wisely assigned Luther to academic studies and he became a doctor of theology.

But, even when he knew it all up here [head], he didn’t have it here [heart].  He still had no peace, no confidence, no assurance of God’s love.  He was a monk, a priest, a doctor and professor of theology, but he still feared and even hated God.

What changed Martin Luther?  Leca Verbum Dei, “Read the Word of the Lord.”  Preparing to teach a class on the book of Romans, Professor Luther struggled to understand the meaning of St. Paul’s declaration in the first chapter, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Up to that point, whenever he saw the word “righteous” in the Bible, Luther had interpreted it as an unreasonable demand from God, a demand that by our own works we must prove ourselves righteous and worthy.  Luther despaired because he knew that was impossible.  For, as Paul also says in Romans, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. . .  there is no one righteous, not even one . . .  the wages of sin is death.” 

The phrase “Catch 22” wasn’t invented until Joseph Heller’s novel by that name in 1961, but that phrase describes why Luther hated God.  The dictionary defines a “Catch 22” as, “A situation in which a desired outcome or solution is impossible to attain because of a set of inherently illogical rules or conditions.”  To Luther, it seemed God had set up this kind of unfair trap for humanity: demanding of us nothing less than perfection, but then making perfection for us completely impossible.  That is why Luther looked on God as an unfair, cruel and angry judge, who delighted in damning people.

But, then Luther finally understood in Romans the true meaning, the Good News, of God’s righteousness: “For in the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed that is by faith, as it is written: ‘The righteous shall live by faith’ . . .  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. . . we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

“All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself.” Luther said.  “I now exalted in these sweet words, ‘the righteousness of God,’ with as much love as before I had hated them. This phrase of Paul was for me the very gate of paradise.”

For the first time in his life, Luther understood God’s solution to the “Catch 22.”  Yes, God demands perfect righteousness for us to be right with him and enter eternal life.  Yes, perfect righteousness is impossible for us to attain.  That’s the bad news.  The church of Luther’s day stopped there with only the bad news.  They had forgotten God’s solution to this “Catch 22,” the Good News of the Gospel.

As Scripture declares: “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not counting men’s sins against them”;  “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”;  “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world”’  “He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” 

That is God’s solution to what otherwise appears to be an insoluble “Catch 22.”  For, God didn’t just sit back and demand perfect righteousness of you.  As Paul says in Romans, “God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.”  God himself provided the way to make you holy and righteous in his sight and worthy of heaven, by sending his own Son to earn it all for you. 

Luther puts the Good News this way in our sermon hymn: “God had seen my wretched state before the world’s foundation.  And, mindful of his mercies great, he planned for my salvation. . .  He did not choose the easy part, but gave his dearest treasure. . .  God said to his beloved Son . . . bring to all salvation.  From sin and sorrow set them free.  Slay bitter death for them that they may live with you forever.”

The Apostle Paul declares in today’s Epistle Reading, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.”  That’s what the Reformation was all about, that’s why we celebrate Reformation Sunday.  Giving thanks to God for the recovery of the Gospel by an unlikely hero of the faith, the Good News that Luther brought back to the church that through faith alone you and all who trust in Christ receive eternal life, not by works, but as the gift of God.