Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Dearly beloved fellow heirs of the Reformation:

You and I are reminded nearly every day that we should cherish our freedom. We are often told that it is our greatest achievement, freedom is something we or someone else has worked hard to get. Our liberties as American citizens came to us at a great price. Our independence, which was won for us by the men and women in the armed forces of yesterday and today who made real sacrifices, it is all something we should treasure.

We think of similar sacrifices as we, the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, celebrate the Reformation. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther put up a notice of academic debate, and from that point onward, the Christian Church has celebrated freedom and independence from Roman Catholic superstitions and the iron-fisted control of the pope. Once again, such freedoms were very difficult to attain. Many suffered death by burning at the stake—something that Martin Luther, however, escaped. Others were innocent bystander casualties of violent mob-uprisings and bloody wars. And yet the freedom of the Gospel they fought for is now our most prized possession as Lutherans.

And so we are reluctant to believe it, or we are downright offended, when we hear that this freedom is actually something you receive as a gift. It would then turn out that you didn’t work for it, or possibly that you didn’t need to struggle for it. Saying that our freedom is something that God has already given us would also say that it was for nothing that those colonists fought the Revolutionary War, or that brother fought against brother in the Civil War. If you were to admit that Christ has achieved our freedom for us, then what need did we have of Martin Luther, or all the other players in the Reformation drama?

A gift is really demeaning to your proud sinful nature, if you want to be perfectly honest. It’s almost a game some people play at birthdays and Christmas to try quickly to match each other equally in their gift-giving. And nothing can be more satisfying but also at the same time offensive than when you have given better than what you got in return. Offensive because you know you deserve better and the other person is able to give better than they have. Satisfying because you’ve proven yourself to be the more generous, benevolent soul, and you have won the game of giving.

So God’s gift of freedom that He gives willy-nilly through His Son Jesus Christ is a gift that puts you on the wrong end of the game. It means you are not in control of yourself; you have no way of making your sinful nature proud. If you were free by what you yourself have done, then your freedom is on your terms. Freedom would be what you deserved as a birthright, just like the Jews imagined when they were talking to Jesus. “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.” They understood that if Jesus were to give the gift of freedom, then they, the recipients, would have to acknowledge that they were in a truly miserable position from birth. Not only were they in political bondage because Palestine was under strict control of the Roman Empire, but they were also in spiritual bondage to sin, death and the devil. The Jews’ claim of lineage from Abraham gave them the bragging rights to freedom in both political and spiritual realms, so they believed. They really earned it and no other ethnicity had those same bragging rights—and the Jewish religion has basically the same pride surviving to this very day.

Remember, though, that this gift of freedom is for you, too, no matter how much you also want to regard it as an achievement. You in your heart know that if your freedom in the Gospel can be thought of in your own terms, then you are independent. You would owe nothing to anybody. It would just be you and Jesus. You would then have every right to come in here, sit in the pew that you have claimed and reserved for years, you then fill ‘er up with the forgiveness that God has to give you as an individual, give just enough to cover your own part, and turn around and walk right out and drive home without having to do anything else. You get all the credit for going to church, and you still have time in the day to do something useful.

That is one kind of freedom, namely, freedom from everyone else. You are an individual, free from sin. This is how you normally think of it when you read the Bible—how does this apply to my personal relationship with God? What are the certain things I must do every day? I must repent of my sins, seek God’s forgiveness, and believe that He has given it to me. And you would be right. Christ has freed each and every individual you out there. You are His child, washed in the blood He shed on the cross and baptized into His name. No one else can believe for you. No one else has control over the salvation that you have. God the Father has specifically forgiven you and given eternal life to you.

But that’s when the devil wants to take over. He wants to capitalize on that individual, one-on-one concept that you have in your mind, and push out everything else. Satan keeps you focused on the time and commitment that you have given, and then he turns your attention to compare yourself against the others sitting in church with you. Something about them may distract you and the devil attempts to use it to pull you away from your Lord and your neighbor and they make you an isolated individual. And so the good of God’s freedom in the forgiveness of Jesus is twisted and contorted to be your declaration of independence from your brothers and sisters in the faith. In the end, that turns freedom into a bondage that says, “I can now do whatever I want,” but really you are fooling yourself, for you would then do what sin wants and what your Old Adam wants and your freedom would be lost.

The true freedom, the freedom for which Christ died and shed His blood, and the freedom that He lavishes upon you, is not only freedom from sin but also a freedom for living as His new creation. It’s freedom for being a disciple, so that your very existence is for the good of someone else. Because the waters of your baptism not only are your individual promise from God that your sins are forgiven, but they also kill the individual in you and remake you in the image of Jesus, joining you to His Body, the Church. The Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion are not just an extra assurance of forgiveness above and beyond all the forgiveness you already get in the rest of the church service. Even more than that assurance of forgiveness is the fact that Jesus joins Himself to you, giving you the perfect holy life and freedom that He is, right into your mouth! And along with Jesus giving Himself to you, He gives you to each and every other person kneeling at the rail with you, who believe and confess the very same faith you do and are joined to the very same Jesus that you are joined to. This is true freedom: freedom for serving each other.

Rather than a declaration of independence, this freedom for which Christ died and that He alone gives to you is a declaration of dependence on your fellow believers. In this new relationship, you bear one other’s burdens, trials, griefs and difficulties, but also their joys, love, and eternal hope, because those are the things that will last into eternity. The bad stuff will all be gone soon. This is why Jesus denied the Jews of their claim to true freedom by being the descendants of Abraham, because it was only freedom for themselves as individuals. But it also applies to you. If the freedom you have from the promises of the Lord is only your individual freedom from sin, then it really isn’t the true freedom Jesus is talking about, the freedom for serving those around you without expecting anything in return. If you don’t have this freedom for, you never really had the freedom from to begin with.

Martin Luther wrote that as a Christian you are completely free, subject to none—that is the first kind of freedom that I talked about, freedom from sin and death. But he also balanced it with the freedom for, saying that the Christian is also in a new type of bondage, a servant to all in the love given through Jesus Christ. In this understanding of freedom, there is still forgiveness, especially for you. Your sins of selfish pride and individualistic attitude are wiped away, and God remembers them no more. And as you live in true freedom, freedom for each other, remember that you do such nice things not because you have to put in your time like it was community service, but because there is nothing more free and natural than to help someone else. Jesus has won the eternal life that you could not earn. His freedom is yours, and when you sacrifice yourself for the good of someone else, something that your heavenly Father wants you to do in the first place, you still get rewarded, even when you had nothing to do with it! Test Him in this, He says, give up a little of yourself for others in whatever way you can, and you still get hundreds of times back what you gave. That is the true freedom of the Gospel: countless blessings above and beyond the forgiveness that is already yours.

So, fellow redeemed, the Church of the Reformation on this the 500th anniversary, stand fast, therefore, in the freedom by which Christ has made you free. Cherish it, not because you worked for it, but because it is God’s gift to you. For you are no longer under the yoke of bondage, but you are free for the benefit of one another, and you wait for the promised freedom of heaven, when you will be set free from the grip of sin, death and the devil for good. Thanks be to the Truth, our Lord Jesus Christ!

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.