"Salvation by faith alone." Martin Luther did not always believe that. If he had, he might never have gone into the priesthood.
Many of you know that famous story. The year was 1505. Luther was traveling from his home to the university at Erfurt, Germany. In his heart he was struggling with his relationship with God. Would he be acceptable if he were to appear before the Judgement seat of God? He wondered. Suddenly a violent thunderstorm filled the sky. A bolt of lightning struck. He was thrown breathless and terrified to the ground. He cried out: "Saint Anna, save me!" He was so fearful he made a vow: if his life were spared, he would become a monk.
That's not so uncommon, is it? Is there anyone of us who has not made a promise to God in a time of great distress? Luther was a young man of character, though. He kept his promise. To the anguish of his family who wanted him to be a wealthy lawyer, he entered the priesthood. With sadness and apprehension he left his home and made his way to a monastery named "The Black Cloister."
It was a troubling time for Luther. He had said good-bye to family and friends, he had thrown off all his worldly possessions and pretensions, he had entered the restricted and reverent life of a monk, but still he felt the terrible weight of his sins. Perhaps he wasn't doing enough. Perhaps he should give himself to more self-denial, more discipline, more fasting, more praying, more reading of Holy Scripture. And he did and still the fear of damnation and eternal torture haunted him. He read the Bible constantly, but what he read there only made him feel more strongly God's righteousness and his own wretched sinfulness. He repented of his sins as best he knew how, but found it impossible to believe that he was really pardoned.
Then, seven years after forsaking the outside world for the cloistered life of a monk, Martin Luther was sent to Rome to transact some business with the pope. This was a high moment of expectation for him. He was going to what he imagined to be the center of both piety and power for the church he loved.
Surprise. When Martin Luther arrived in Rome, he received a terrible revelation. Instead of finding a church of exemplary devotion and conduct, he discovered a very worldly church weighted down by corruption. His mind and heart went reeling. How often that has happened to idealistic young men and women when they discover that the church they love is not always what the church ought to be.
A shaken Luther made his way to the cathedral and began climbing the Scala Sancta, the "sacred stairs." As he climbed the stairs he kissed each step as was the custom. In a few minutes a verse of Scripture began to ring out in his memory, "The just shall live by faith--the just shall live by faith." What was he doing kissing these stairs? he wondered. "The just shall live by faith." Thus began a transformation of Luther's heart and life. It was a transformation that was to shake the Christian world forever. Later he would write: "It was as if the gates swung open, and I entered into paradise."
Luther went on to lead the Protestant Reformation, as you know. He also made an important contribution to German literature with his translation of the Bible. He wrote more than four hundred works, from pamphlets to large books.
He wrote catechisms for the common people and introduced singing by the congregation. Of the 125 hymns that he wrote, the best known is "A Mighty Fortress is our God."
Quite a string of accomplishments for a young man who entered the priesthood because he was afraid of lightning. The body of Christ can give thanks this day for that providential storm and his misinterpretation.
And yet, half-a-millennium after Luther, there are many followers of Christ who still have not made the discovery that transformed Luther's life.
In one of his books, Norman Vincent Peale tells about a young man in North Carolina named Samuel A. Mann who was tramping through the countryside. Being somewhat in a hurry he decided to go through a swamp rather than make a wide detour. He had on high hip boots and was slogging through the wet ground when he came to what looked like an area of dry sand. As he tried to cross it, suddenly he sank down to his knees. As he tried to get back, a powerful suction gripped his legs like a vise, dragging him down deeper. In a moment of complete horror he realized he was in a great pocket of quicksand. He remembered what the natives always said, "Nobody ever gets out of those quicksands alive."
For a moment he was paralyzed by panic, sinking deeper and deeper. To his left he saw some marsh grass growing, each blade perhaps half an inch wide. He thought to himself, "If I could just reach that grass, perhaps a handful would have the strength of a rope." He reached out his hand, but there was a gap of about three feet between his fingers and the marsh grass. He knew that if he lunged for the grass and missed it, he would disappear under the treacherous sand. If he did nothing, though, he was doomed.
By now the sand was almost over the top of his hip boots. Suddenly he realized it wasn't the sand that was holding him. Rather the sand was holding his boots, which in turn were holding him. With shaking fingers he undid the straps that were holding his boots to his belt. Then, taking a deep breath and asking God to help him, he did it. He flung himself full length out of his boots across the deadly sand. His fingers touched the marsh grass. Desperately he grasped several strands. Then slowly, carefully, inch by agonizing inch he pulled himself out of his boots onto the solid earth. He was safe. It had been an enormous struggle, but he was safe.
That is how many people regard Christian faith. "Are you a Christian?" someone asks, and embarrassedly we answer, "Well, I try to be." "Let me just stretch for a few more strands of grass, and I think I'll make it." And we miss the joy of the Gospel.
The Gospel is not about our desperately reaching out to prove our virtue to God. Rather it is about a God who reaches down in love and mercy and forgiveness to us. It is He who pulls us out of the quicksands of sin and self-destruction. It is not an accomplishment which we somehow pull off.
Douglas V. Steere tells about a long visit he had about fifty years ago with theologian Karl Barth in his home in Bonn. During the conversation Steere spoke of the role of private prayer as a means of putting us into the stream of grace. He spoke of how impressed he had been by the daily devotional life of the Benedictine monks as a means of expressing that grace. Steere obviously expected this great theologian to be as moved by these vital signs of piety as he had been.
Barth would have none of it, however. Barth denied that either prayer or ritual had anything at all to do with redemption. Neither of these will save us, he insisted. He said that for himself he knew that he hung suspended between heaven and hell. He knew that the weight of his sins would most certainly sink him to hell. Only the intervention of the supreme act of grace wrought in Christ would ever be sufficient to lift him. Only Christ could overcome the terrible gravitational force of his sin. He implied that this act of Jesus Christ was enough, that anything else was utterly irrelevant, and that anyone who wasted his time or trust on these practices was to be pitied.
Barth obviously overstated his case. There is a very meaningful place for prayer and personal devotion in the Christian life. But, the point is well taken: Our prayers won't save us. Our perfect attendance in worship won't save us. Only one power in Heaven or earth can save us--that is the love and grace of Jesus Christ. This means that ultimately there is only one prayer to be prayed. It is "Yes. I accept my acceptance." For you see, no one loves us like God loves us. No one wants us to experience the healing and wholeness of grace like God wants us to. Even our own mothers and fathers don't long for our salvation like God longs for it. And He has provided a Way. That Way is Jesus.
Somewhere I read about the manager of an opera house who received a telephone call from a woman following a performance. She had lost a diamond pin. Might it still be in the theater? The manager asked her to wait on the line while they looked in the area where she had been seated. Sure enough, in a few minutes someone came across the beautiful piece of jewelry. When the manager returned to the phone to tell the lady the good news, the line was dead. She had hung up. Amazingly, she never called back, either. Though the pin had been found, the manager was unable to return it to her.
How sad. How sad it also is to realize that the eternal God has provided a way for us to know our sins forgiven and to know the joy of His presence in our lives, but many of us still live defeated lives, desperate lives, empty lives because we refuse to hear the good news. Somebody once said that Columbus discovered a new world, Copernicus discovered a new heaven, and Luther, a new God--a God gracious for the sake of the work of Christ. Salvation is by faith alone. Believe on Him and you will be saved.
