Reformation Sunday; October 28, 2007; Bethel Lutheran Church, Rochester.
Romans 3:19-28.

Dear Friends in Christ, Grace to you and Peace, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. AMEN.


This coming Thursday, November 1, All Saints’ Day, is the 252nd anniversary of literally an earth-shaking event.
The year was 1755. It was about 9:30 in the morning. In Lisbon, Portugal there was a tremor of the earth, not much more than a rumbling sound like that of “exceptionally heavy traffic in a neighboring street.” There was a brief pause followed by a devastating shock--an earthquake of an enormous magnitude lasting over two minutes which brought down roofs, walls, facades and the towers of houses, churches and palaces alike in one dreadful and deafening roar of destruction. A dark cloud of choking dust blotted out the daylight. Innumerable fires broke out all over the city. The waters of the river Tagus rocked and rose menacingly and then poured in three mighty waves, a hundred or more feet high over a major part of the city.
The final death toll was about 10,000; small by comparison with the 100,000 or more killed in Southeast Asia by the tsunami of 2004. But the Lisbon earthquake shook the whole of Europe to its core. Nothing of the kind had ever happened like that before. Europeans were living in an age of unparalleled confidence, enlightenment, prosperity, comfort and complacency. Such an earthquake was the very last thing they expected to happen to them. But it did happen and it shook the continent to its foundations. People all over Europe flocked to churches, many for the first time in their lives. In much the same way, many people came back to the church or to church the first time after 9/11 in 2001.

Then there is the event we celebrate this day. Reformation Day. No earthquake, no terrorist attack--and yet world-changing just the same. Who would have thought that a young priest living and working in the middle 1500’s would turn the world upside down when he posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg church in Germany? Yet it was truly a monumental event.

There is hardly a place on this earth, particularly the western world, that has not been touched by the movement launched on that day long ago. An event that changed the world. Still, the posting of the 95 Theses on the Wittenberg church door is but a pale reflection of the one central event in human history--when Jesus Christ was nailed to the tree of Calvary. That is why on this day we turn to Romans 3 and we celebrate the good news that, because of Christ’s death upon the cross, we have been made right with God. This is the heart of reformation faith--we are saved not by our works, no matter how virtuous they may be. We are saved by the free gift of God’s grace though Jesus Christ. The message of our text is clear.

So what is clear? First, Paul argues that we are all sinners. There is the rare religious zealot who somehow believes that he or she is not a sinner. Anyone who is deluded in that way just isn’t looking at the evidence. The very best among us have faults. The very best among us have impure thoughts. The very best among us neglect to always serve one’s neighbor and looks only to him or herself. Do you need evidence? I went to the online version of the Post-Bulletin one day last week, and here were six headlines in a row!:
Rochester business broken into twice
Man slams door on would-be robber
Man allegedly leads officers on chase
Man jailed for sexual misconduct
Police investigate reports of children being followed
Robber takes woman's backpack, lunch as she walks to work
We really take the cake, don’t we? This is all in our back yard.

Okay, you probably don’t need convincing that you are a sinner. The next part is tricky, and it is the heart of the Reformation. Your escape from the consequences of sin doesn’t depend upon what you do—it rests solely on what Christ has already done! And it is this concept that caused the earthquake in Martin Luther’s time. We humans have always wanted to justify ourselves. We want to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We want to make it on our own. And we will get into heaven just fine on our own, thank you. We just have to work harder.

You can’t work that hard. You can’t do it. You just can’t do it. Instead, someone has done it for us. We are justified as a gift of grace. And that is so hard for us to understand, to accept. Why would God do that for us sinners? A loving God. That is the only good answer—a loving God.

Here is another earthshaking proposition. This loving God, because of the sacrifice of atonement through Jesus Christ, believes that his children are perfect. Now I have heard about parents who are blind to the faults of their children, but God really believes that we are perfect!

Who on earth thinks you are perfect? Oh, I know that those of you who are married have told each other at some point, “You are just perfect.” But I also suspect that that sentiment didn’t even make it to the altar. You had given up on perfection far before you were married because you knew too much about each other.

I know many new parents have looked at their newly born babies and cooed, “You’re so perfect.” Yeah—that is before they go home from the hospital and find out that the baby is an incubator for sleeplessness and generates more mess than a half dozen adults! Really—do any of you students out there think that your parents believe you are perfect?

And, of course, we all know that our bosses believe we are perfect. That is why we get perfect reviews and double digit increases in salary—every month!

Newsflash—God sees you as perfect. That should rock your boat and shake your earth!

One night, Pastor Richard Wurmbrand of Budapest met a soldier named Borila. Borila loved to talk about his violent exploits during World War II; he was especially proud of the number of Jews he had killed. He relished telling Pastor Wurmbrand about his killing of hundreds of Jewish children. Instead of attacking Borila, Pastor Wurmbrand decided to befriend him. He invited the soldier back to his apartment to listen to Ukrainian folk songs, Borila’s favorite kind of music.
After the men had listened to a few songs, Pastor Wurmbrand commented that his wife and baby son were sleeping in the next room. They were Jewish, he said, and had lost all their family in the war. There was a good possibility that Borila had killed at least a few of them. Borila immediately took offense, but Pastor Wurmbrand pressed on. He assured the soldier that if he were to wake his wife right now, she would get up and welcome Borila into their home and make a meal for them. She would show him the same love and forgiveness that God had shown her.
Borila was overcome by the thought of such undeserved mercy. He knelt and prayed, pouring out his grief over his sins. At this, Pastor Wurmbrand woke his wife, and she did welcome the soldier with open arms and cooked him a fine meal. From that day forward, the soldier Borila was a changed man.

In fact, Borila had undergone an earthshaking experience—the experience of being forgiven, even though he did not deserve to be forgiven. And that kind of news will last longer than any California earthquake or California fire. For when God shakes the earth, God shakes it with love. AMEN.