Tuesday will be the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation.  In some respects this is a peculiar festival.  Lutherans didn’t observe October 31 as Reformation Day until 1667, more than 100 years after Luther’s death, and then it had some marked political overtones.

I remember well the 450^th anniversary celebration in Chicago. Tens of thousands of Lutherans packed the International Amphitheater for the festival.  Bishop Hanns Lilje of Germany preached.  We sang “A Mighty Fortress.”  There was a bit of triumphalism in that observation.  It had something of the spirit of  “We’re right and they’re wrong. Nya, nya, nya, nya, nya.”

I wish we could commemorate Luther’s “Tower Experience,” but we don’t know when that was exactly, probably around 1514 or 1515.  Luther was plagued by guilt over his sins.  He saw God as an angry judge demanding righteousness from human beings.  Then in reading Romans 1:16-17 he realized that God sets people right by faith alone.  We can never be good enough to do all that God requires of us, but merciful God imputes righteousness to us.  We are simply to trust God.  That is the great Reformation insight.  It’s what’s behind the tag line for these devotions:  “God loves you unconditionally.”

Lutherans say that justification by faith, the belief that we are set right before God by faith alone, is the article on which the church stands or fails.  If we ever forget what God has done for us, we will be lost.  Remember Luther’s courage in testifying to this fundamental Christian truth, and thank God for divine mercy and love.

Read Romans 1:16-17 and remember:  God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed-a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”  Romans 1:16-17