This year during the reformation season we are going to be worshiping under the theme “Echoes of the Hammer”. I am borrowing the phrase from a comic book about the life of Martin Luther that has the same title. The comic book is well done, and I have recommended it to adults and children alike. But the reason I am borrowing the title of a comic book for a sermon series is, this year instead of focusing our attention on what God accomplished through Martin Luther 500 years ago, I thought it would be good for us to appreciate what God is still doing through the Lutheran church today. Instead of celebrating the nailing of the 95 theses to the castle church door, I thought it would be good to celebrate the echoes of that reformation hammer that still reverberate among us today.
The first echo of the reformation hammer that we are going to celebrate is the understanding that we have a loving God. Now, because love can mean different things to different people, I am going to start by defining the term love. The English language is rather sloppy in defining love - I mean, think about it, we can use the same word to describe how we feel about french-fries and our spouse. Either we have a disturbingly inappropriate relationship with our food and family’s or the word we use to describe those relationships is sloppy. - In contrast, the Greek language, as you may know, is much more precise in its definition of love. Whereas the English language has one word for love the Greek language has several. The three most common Greek words for love are ἔρως, φιλέω, and ἀγάπη. Ἔρως love is a passionate love which desires the other for itself. It is a saucy sassy sexy love that properly exists between a husband and a wife. We get our English word erotic from ἔρως. In a different category is φιλέω love. Φιλέω is a thoughtful love which seeks the good of others. It is a considerate, kind, helpful love that is often found among family members or close friends. Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, gets its name from φιλέω. Finally, there is ἀγάπη love. In the word ἀγάπη we find neither the sexiness of ἔρως nor the comradery of φιλέω. Instead ἀγάπη love is a condescending love, not in a negative sense, but in the sense of the higher reaching down to lift up the lower, though the action of doing so comes at a cost. Aγάπη love is a selfless, sacrificial, giving love. The word for love that is used exclusively and extensively (28 times in total) in our lesson for today is ἀγάπη. In verse 8 and again in verse 16 John uses the word ἀγάπη to describe God. John writes God is ἀγάπη; “God is love”.
Aγάπη love is what John says our God is, but that is not how the church has always portrayed God. Five-hundred years ago people saw God the Father as an angry judge Whose Son was an unyielding punisher. This threatening view of God is why so many people sought to hide behind Mary and the Saints. They were too afraid to approach such an angry God directly, so they began to call upon Mary and the saints to intercede on their behalf. Sadly it is a blasphemous practice which unfortunately still continues today.
Martin Luther was among those who saw God this way. Listen to how Luther described his view of God. “Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!”” Luther saw God as a punisher who inflicts pain and threatens wrath.
Is that how you see God? There are many people still today who don’t see God as a loving God. They speak of disaster, disease, and death and ask, “if God is loving why does He allow such things?” But you have heard Romans 8:28 too many times to ask such a question; you know that in all things, even in disaster, disease, and death God is working good for those who love Him. Accusing God of being unloving because we are enduring the consequences of our own sin is the shallow argument of a simpleton.
I don’t think it is disaster, disease, or death that are preventing you from seeing God as a loving God. I think your struggle is far more personal than that. I think you have something in common with Luther. I think, the more you learn about this God stuff the more unsettled you become. There has always been this nagging feeling inside you, has there not? It grew into a persistent uneasiness upon your confirmation in the faith. Over the years it has become an anxious distress. Yes, you have the same problem Luther had. The closer you get to God the more you see your sin.
The more you see your sins the harder it is to ignore the fact that you have fallen short of God’s righteous demands. For a long time, Luther tried to meet those demands as he clutched his cowl while fasting and flagellating his flesh. Maybe you have tried something similar, maybe you have tried to meet the demands of your righteous God by clinging to your confession as you sit your butt in a pew and put your bills in a plate. But no matter what Luther tried to do no matter what you try to do you just can’t overcome the fact that you are a sinful creature standing in the presence of the righteous God. I would not be at all surprised if, like Luther, you have hated, or at least been frightened of, the righteous God who punishes sinners.
For a long time saw God as a punisher who inflicts pain and threatens wrath. Thankfully, before Luther tried to run away or hide behind the merits of Mary and the saints, the Holy Spirit drew Luther even closer. As a professor of theology Luther was able to do what very few people in his day could. Luther could read the bible. And as Luther studied the scriptures, he began to see God as more than a punisher of sin; he began to see God as the sender of his savior. He began to see God as saint John describes Him in our lesson for today; he began to see the ἀγάπη of God.
Through the Scripture the Holy Spirit showed Luther the ἀγάπη of God. Through the Scriptures the Holy Spirit seeks to show Lutherans the same. In 1 John 4:9-10 saint John writes, “ “9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” In the sending of His one and only Son we see the ἀγάπη of God.
Firstly, saint John tells us God sent His Son “so that we might live through Him”. Jesus is the real-life personification, embodiment, and manifestation of love. Jesus loved people and I mean He ἀγάπη loved people; He reached down in order to lift others up. The King of creation condescended to surround Himself with commoners. Most of his disciples were fishermen[1]. He gushed over the widow’s mite.[2] He invited the little children to come to Him[3]. He healed the sick and consoled the suffering[4]. Not only did Jesus condescend to surround Himself with commoners, but His love for people caused Him to reach down even lower. The holy Son of God surrounded himself with sinner. He ate dinner with a thief He found in a sycamore-fig tree[5]. He refused to throw a stone at a prostitute who was thrown at His feet.[6] He asked the Father to forgive the soldiers who knew not what they were doing.[7] Jesus surrounded Himself with sinners, but His love for people caused Him to reach still lower and that is where He found me, that is where He found you. Jesus found us hiding from our righteous God behind the molehill of our own merits and He offered to be the mediator who stands between us and the righteousness of our God[8]. In the sending of His one and only Son we see the ἀγάπη of God who reached down to lift us up.
In the sending of His Son, Who reached down to lift us up, God has shown His love to us and for us. But this was not, as John writes in his gospel, “the full extent of His love.”[9] Secondly saint John tells us, God sent His Son “as an atoning sacrifice for our sins”. As is the case with ἀγάπη love, there is a cost. There was a cost to Jesus’ condescending in order to lift us up. The creator was conceived. The ancient of days had a birthday. He Whose ears were filled with the continuous adoration of the cherubim and seraphim was serenaded by the bleating of sheep. He, Who among the trinity of the Godhead, enjoys a fellowship that is beyond our understanding was betrayed by His friends, condemned by His church, and executed by His government. The King of kings wore the crown of our condemnation on his head. The Prince of peace opened his hands to be pierced by our transgressions. The Author of life spent His last breath in payment for our sins. In the sending of His one and only Son we see the ἀγάπη of God who sacrificed a great deal in order to save you.
The church has not always portrayed God as a loving God. There are many people still today who don’t see God as a loving God. It is likely that there are times when you struggle because of your sin to see Him as a loving God. But by the grace of God one of the echoes of the reformation hammer that continue to ring in our ears these 500 years latter is the understanding that we have a loving God. Once Luther finally saw the ἀγάπη of God he wrote, “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates… And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word “righteousness of God.”” Because of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of Martin Luther we Lutherans see God as more than a punisher of sin; we see Him as the sender of our Savior. We see the ἀγάπη of our God Who reached down in order to lift us up; though the act cost Him dearly. Through the Scriptures the Holy Spirit showed Luther and continues to show Lutherans the ἀγάπη of God. Amen.
[1] Mark 1:17
[2] Luke 21:4
[3] Matthew 19:14
[4] Luke 5:17
[5] Luke 19:5
[6] John 8:11
[7] Luke 23:34
[8] 1 Timothy 2:5
[9] John 13:1