Young man Luther

Have you ever considered how old Dr Martin Luther was when he nailed the famous 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Church in Germany? Luther is often drawn or painted as an old professor, but he was actually 33 at the time.

With youthful courage, Luther published his complaint about problems in the church of his era by nailing a list of 95 doctrinal statements to his local church’s door. In one of those 95, Luther wrote: ‘Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church – this is the gift of God.’

All of God’s grace for all people! That is the heart of Luther’s message: all for all. We don’t earn God’s grace bit by bit. We are not divided into the worthy religious and the unworthy sinners.

Rather, God gives ALL for ALL.

This is what we commemorate when we have Reformation Day as a festival in our church year. Luther’s central message is what I like to call the ‘Big Arrow Down!’ God comes down to us in Christ Jesus.

If our Christian faith were about earning God’s grace and love, that would be the ‘Big Arrow Up’, where we suppose that God wouldn’t come to us unless we first step toward God.

But what is true is the opposite of that ‘Big Arrow Up’. God comes to us. Because of God’s grace to us in our baptism into Christ, we live by faith in all he has done for us through his cross and resurrection.

There is another hidden Reformation message that I have already mentioned.

Luther made his discoveries of the gospel and this ‘Big Arrow Down’ as a young person studying the Scriptures at university. We know this because he did that nailing of his 95 Theses at 33.

Therefore, the festival of the Reformation is also a celebration of the courageous faith of young adults.

Let us, therefore, teach the witness of Reformation Christianity to our young people, so they might capture the courageous faith of Luther and the courageous faith of all those young women and men who have been faithful witnesses to their Lord Jesus Christ down through the ages.

Luther wrote his gospel conviction in a hymn of comfort used in many churches for Reformation Sunday. This is Luther’s hymn ‘A Mighty Fortress is our God’, and in verse two he taught us to sing:

But for us fights the valiant One,
Whom God himself elected.
Ask ye, Who is this?
Christ Jesus it is,
Of Sabaoth Lord,
And there’s none other God;
He holds the field forever.

Pastor Paul Smith
Bishop of the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand