2017 is the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. It’s a good time to ask, what does it mean to be Lutheran? Does it mean we have the best potlucks in town? Coincidentally, we do. But that is not what makes us Lutheran. Does it mean the back pews always fill up first? No; that happens everywhere. Maybe it means that we follow Martin Luther and obey everything he said. Not really. We obviously regard Martin Luther as a great theologian and reformer, but being Lutheran has more to do with doctrine than appreciating a mere man. In fact, Lutherans never really chose to call themselves “Lutherans.” It was a sort of pejorative term that ended up sticking. Being Lutheran is about doctrine. It is about a doctrine that is centered around Jesus Christ—who he is and what he did in his perfect life, death, and resurrection.
The year 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. To be honest, though, identifying a date for the Lutheran Reformation is kind of arbitrary. There was no specific date in history when the reformers said, “Let’s have a reformation, starting … now.” The Reformation was more of a process than a singular event, and it unfolded over a matter of years, even decades.
Nevertheless, 1517 is the year identified as the beginning of the Reformation. At that time, Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic friar and theology professor at the University of Wittenberg in Germany.
Luther was becoming more and more concerned with some of the teachings and practices in the church. Chief among his concerns was the practice of selling indulgences. For a certain price, people could buy a piece of paper declaring that their sins were forgiven. They could also buy indulgences for deceased loved ones to release them from purgatory. Not surprisingly, this was an effective fundraising technique.
But there was a problem: you can’t buy something that’s free. Christ’s righteousness is given freely to all who believe in him. So the Church is not authorized to sell forgiveness. Instead, the Church is commanded to declare it freely. So the great truth that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ, without any merit of our own, eventually became the great teaching of the Reformation.
In 1517 Luther hadn’t quite figured this out yet, but he was on his way, and he had come far enough to know something was wrong in the church. So on October 31, 1517, he posted his “95 Theses.” These were a series of propositions he was hoping to debate publicly. It was not as dramatic of an event as it is sometimes portrayed. It was more of the “butterfly flapping its wings” that happened to set off some momentum. Many of his colleagues at the university, as well as theologians and noblemen around Germany, joined his cause, and the Reformation spread.
It climaxed in the year 1530. That was when the reformers presented the Augsburg Confession. This was the first definitive statement of Lutheran doctrine, and it has remained the foundational definition of what it means to be a Lutheran. It was not an attempt to break with Rome, but to demonstrate that their doctrine was biblical and consistent with the teaching and practice of the Early Church. However, it did end up resulting in a split.
2017 is a great time to look back on the Reformation and consider what it means to be a Lutheran. Our history and tradition are certainly important and worth studying. But, most of all, it is our doctrine that defines us. Our doctrine is immensely valuable because it is biblical, historical, and it communicates Christ and his grace to us.
So this year we will take a little extra time to consider our doctrine. One of the ways we will do this is during the adult Sunday school class. On January 15 we will begin a study on the aforementioned Augsburg Confession, and see why it is such a valuable document for us. I hope you can join us for it.
The peace of Christ be with you all,
Dan