The same message 500 years later

In recognition of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's bold statements in the 95 Theses

If Martin Luther were to preach on this the celebration of the 500th anniversary he would tell us that the message needs to be about Jesus, the one we call the Christ, and Jesus' cross needs to be in the center of it all. Not because we understand this divine drama of cross and tomb but because if God is to be found anywhere, God will be found in the very hiddenness of the cross, the God of mystery and majesty.

As humans we struggle with God; we try hard to bring God down to us, thinking that God's ways are our ways, only nicer and kinder.  Therefore we think God only loves those who love God in return, and is looking for any opportunity to rain down destruction on imperfect human beings.  We think God shapes us through fear and punishment.

At the same time, we are busy building a ladder to ascend to God - each rung signifying a good work, good intention, clean living.  This way we can prove our worth and secure our place at the table and in God's kingdom.

The truth is our lives are lived somewhere in the middle.  We know that most of our suffering is a result of our own choices and we are not as good as we would like to have others believe.  We live in a place where confession and absolution are gifts.  So most of the time we are confounded by this Divine Creator, awed by our encounters with God and a little fearful of the power which lies behind it all.

We cannot understand this God who is all mystery and majesty, but we do believe that everything began with a love powerful enough to bring into being all of creation, a love powerful enough to breathe life into our clay bodies, and powerful enough to offer itself to us in the eternal gift named Jesus.

God tucks the great Divine in surprising places.  It is tucked in, with, and under the human infant from Bethlehem; it is folded in, with and under a first century Jew named Jesus, and in the end, it is hidden from all but the eyes of faith in the face of the suffering Christ on the cross. This is the God whose love is powerful enough to empty a tomb and open a path for all to return to their origins in God.

This is the God who so loved the world that he gave.....eternally withdrawing from the Divine Treasury - not merits so we can earn our own salvation, but instead God withdrew the beloved son and then offers Jesus - offers God's very own being - as a gift....and an invitation...and a model....and our eternal hope.  This is the self-giving God who tucks the divine in, with and under the bread and wine of a peasant's meal.  Thus an ordinary meal of peasants becomes a holy encounter with the Savior.

We gather in worship of this God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who meets us in the waters of baptism, pulling us out of the death of darkness and welcoming us into the life of light.......again and again, forever and ever.

Nothing can separate us from the love of the God we know in Jesus Christ our Lord: the one born as a pauper so that even the poorest among us might be made holy; a compassionate Jesus who made all flesh holy and opened the way to the heart of God for rich and poor, male and female, Jew and Greek, straight and gay, black and white.  This is the Jesus who insisted on justice from the powerful and stood shoulder to shoulder with the weakest.  This is the cruicified Jesus who accepted death as a criminal out of love for a creation imprisoned by bars of our own making.  And, in the last, the risen Jesus, a vision of God's power and plan for the new creation to come.

500 years later, Martin would tell us that all we need to know is Christ: crucified and risen, for it is Christ alone who can bring us into the Divine life, it is through grace alone that this gift comes to us; and our lifelong task is to hold fast to this faith alone.

Dr. Luther once wrote "if you see yourself as a little sinner you will inevitably see Jesus as a little savior" Instead, Jesus is the gift of all eternity, forever mystery, forever love, forever life.