Reformation Sunday
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I was talking with a good friend the other day and he reminded me that the state of Washington passed a law that requested to permanently stay on Daylight savings time. That would be great for all of us we we look into the inevitable swing next week. We had hoped it would take effect but congress has yet to act.
As I look at my own life, I see my own two sons and consider how I have attached many hopes to them. Hopes that they might succeed where I haven’t, that they might further improve my already great childhood. These hopes are unrealized.
I was talking with another one of you when you mentioned that scientists have figured out how to grow a kidney inside a pig and then transplant said kidney into a human. We had hoped that our own organs would make it a single lifetime.
I was talking with one of you the other day and you mentioned that we had hoped that with the advent of vaccines and summer that COVID would be done by now. Then you mentioned that we are no longer in the COVID crisis but the COVID era. We had hoped - but our hopes have failed.
We have enslaved ourselves to false hopes. Whether it is daylight, our children, our bodies, our technologies - we have attached ourselves to news that may be good but it certainly isn’t eternal.
In Luke 24 the resurrectedJesus is walking beside the disciples and asking them what they were talking about. We hear this stunningly relevant quote:
But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.
Did you catch our line in there? We had hoped.
Compare this to the reading of future events in Revelation 14.
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.
Did you catch that? An Eternal gospel - there is no, “We had hoped” In Christ, our hope has achieved its end. Our hope has literally met its maker. The word gospel means ‘good news’ to paraphrase NT Wright- it is a past event that has changed the outcome of the future.
What’s more about our readings today is that our hopes are not far off.
The Psalmist recounts:
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Our dear Dr. Luther built the hymn we just sang on this very premise. God is still acting through Christ and the Spirit. I love the last line of v.2 in a Mighty Fortress, He Holds the field Victorious.
He Holds the field victorious. How different is this from the line “We had hoped”? He still holds it. He is still winning. We are still winning.
Church these last years, days, and breaths we have abandoned the gospel and hoped in false Gods. We have hoped for salvation apart from Christ.
We have tried to legislate, innovate, and meditate our way out of despair. We have enslaved ourselves to false Gods. This is nothing new.
The letter to the Galatians was written around 50 AD and Paul starts off with this striking condemnation: Gal 1.6
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—
See the church in Galatia had turned to a different hope, they were reinvigorating their practice of the Mosaic code, circumcision in particular. In other words, they were literally trying to take the law into their own hands.
Here is the problem with any law - it does not accomplish what we want it to. We cannot legislate hope The scriptures support this.
(for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.
The law is supposed to help us realize our false hopes and point us to a greater hope.
The point of the law of God has always been to show our need for a savior, to curb our reliance on self, to recognize our chains.
The greatest marketing scheme ever created was the tagline from home depot ‘you can do it, we can help’ and then it shows a happy little couple remodeling their $100,000 kitchen. I don’t know what you pay an electrician, carpenter or a plumber but I guarantee you it is not enough.
Home depot wants me to just get in over my head enough that I have to hire a professional who will gut all my shoddy work and do it correctly. Then I’ll have to pay them twice, once for my garbage and once for the right work.
See, herein lies the gospel though. In every circumstance in life, when you or I make a mistake, when we sin - we pay for it at least twice. Once when we commit our error and then continually as we try and undo our faults.
Like a Chinese finger trap - finger toy that tightens more as you try and loosen your hands. It tightens the more you work
This is what Paul is getting at in Romans 3.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
This is the freedom we have in Christ. You and I are set free from this continual enslavement of sin, trying to un-sin our sin, trying to work out our sin but ed up digging ourselves deeper into confusion and frustration.
At the core of all of this - all laws and our self destruction is the fact that we all believe we know better. This last year has turned us all, mostly me, into an epidemiologist that moonlights as a politician who miraculously has the time to also be a vocal opponent of the atrocious Designated hitter and Pinch runner.
I spend so much time being right I have no time to consider that I was ever wrong. I am a slave to self righteousness. The reformation was about being set free from the works of the law- today we need to be set free from selfish hopes.
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Dale Bruner has a wonderful reflection on this:
The Gospel of John: A Commentary 8:34–36. A Serious Warning
The precondition to believing and following Jesus as Savior and Lord, Jesus seems to be saying, is disbelieving and ceasing to follow—or at the very least, beginning to doubt—one’s prior heritage or oneself as savior and lord.
This is freedom, to disbelieve the internal voice that is either always justifying or always condemning you.
Christ is Lord. His voice is consistent - in a world of changing laws and in a mind that does not trust itself Christ alone stands supreme.
Today, on this reformation, let us reform our hope.
Let us remove anything that perishes,
Let us relish the Lord of Hosts that is with us.
He is our fortress.
Today calls for you to refresh your mind body and soul with hope,
REAL hope, lasting expectations that come to fruition.
Today Requires us to proclaim the eternal gospel that does not change, shrink or decay.
Friends, May there be a continual reformation and revelation in our world- the hope of Christ, Master of all who dwell below the skies.
Amen.