How is God re-forming me?

     Reformation Sunday is one of the celebrations in the church year that has one set of readings, which means that we hear the same readings every year.  The readings all center around Martin Luther's radical, new-to-the-time teaching that creation is saved by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone.  Luther called this 'the absolute truth by which the church stands or falls.'  We find this teaching particularly in Romans 3, and it is underscored by the prophecy in Jeremiah 31, and is highlighted by Jesus' teaching from John 8.
     We often use big words on reformation Sunday, words like justification, righteousness, and sanctification when we talk about our faith.  Exactly what do we mean when we use these words?  Theologian Carl Braaten has a wonderful book on justification and in it he talks about how the church uses these words, and says:

 The presupposition of Paul's message [about justification by faith] is the Old Testament idea of God as the judge who calls for righteousness. Paul also holds that human beings are slaves of sin and stand guilty before God.  He rejects the kid of optimism that believe it possible for people to fulfill the law of righteousness.  On the other hand, only the righteous can enter into true fellowship with God.  Only the gospel can break this impasse.  The gospel declares that God acts to communicate God's own righteousness that no effort on the part of human beings can possibly attain.  This happens at a particular place and time, namely, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  This puts an end to the way of the law.  God's act in the death and resurrection of Jesus is the final and full revelation of God's justice and mercy.  Faith is the way that an individual person receives the righteousness of God in Christ, and therefore not on the basis of law and merit.  The state of being righteous in the sight of God is radically a free gift of grace, never the result of human achievement.  Faith itself comes of the Spirit of God.  To say that faith is reckoned as righteousness apart from the works of the law underscores the absolute gratuitousness of God's generosity.  God gives what [God] demands, both the righteousness and the faith by which it is grasped.*

During worship on Sunday we will celebrate the rite of Affirmation of Baptism, in which 14 young people will affirm their baptisms.  

In the Lutheran doctrine of baptism, infants are not only regenerated.  They are simultaneously declared to be justified, and this, not because they believe, but in order that they may believe.  The pardon of God rests upon this child as the creative basis of its emerging faith.**

Justification, God's free gift of declaring us sinless and giving us new life in Christ, is a thing worth celebrating.  It is also something of which we need to be continually reminded, and Reformation Sunday is the perfect opportunity.

     It is the opportunity for us each to examine our own lives and contemplate how we have been re-formed in God's love and grace.  How has God's free gift of forgiveness and life changed you?  It is also a perfect opportunity to examine our lives and see if there is something that presently needs re-forming.  Perhaps you are struggling with a particular sin in your life - gossip, trusting in something other than God; perhaps you struggle with an addiction to pornography, alcohol, gambling; perhaps you are in need of healing from a past hurt and hold a bitterness in your heart.

     For Martin Luther, the reformation was not simply the posting of his 95 theses on the door of a church in Wittenberg.  It was a continual process by which the church examined its teachings, prayed for the Spirit's discernment, and then took courage to make changes where necessary.  We are still going through the reformation, albeit with a different outlook on our own faith and God's grace.

     So God has given you freedom - you don't have to do anything to receive it.  It just is. For me and for you and for the whole world, given through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The question is now, what will we do with this gift?  I am left pondering the mystery of how has this gift re-formed my life?  How is God re-forming me? 

*Braaten, Carl E.  Justification: The Article by which the Church Stands or Falls.  Augsburg Fortress: Minneapolis, 1990.  p 82

**p 34