2026-10-25 Reformation Observed
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen!
Kurt Browning. I’m sure a few of you recognize that name. He is a Canadian figure skater. He is also the very first skater to land a ratified quadruple jump in competition. He’s a four-time World Champion and a Canadian National Champion. He also competed at 3 different Olympic Games. These kinds of accomplishments make him … famous! He’s so famous that one of our friends saw him walking through an airport and she frantically ran through the whole place, pushing through the crowds, making a big scene, to get his autograph on a napkin!
Fame. Celebrity. Glitz. Glam. A person who achieves broad public recognition and renown for stuff like sports, entertainment, politics, business or social media. We even have people who are famous … just for being famous! They didn’t really do anything great, but somehow managed to ride the fame wave to the top. It’s a truly wild concept when we step back and consider this idea of celebrity and why we celebrate people.
Celebrity and fame and all this, truly they can be and usually are the handmaiden of pride and ego. Getting to the top has a rather sinful way of getting to our heads as well. Some 500 years ago, the whole western Church had become rather star struck. It wasn’t Elvis, or Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber no, no. It was none other than the Pope! He had been elevated to pretty much god-like proportions. He was the definition of fame and notoriety.
This volcano of pomp and circumstance had been building for hundreds of years already by this point. The head of the church of Rome thought he had the place of prominence over all the rest of the church leaders in Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The early church always had regional leadership - Bishops that were the shepherds and overseers of an area to organize the spread of the Gospel into all the world, fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission to go and Baptize All Nations. They were all equal in this task, with none being greater or lesser. A hierarchy of equals, we might say.
They gave the Bishop of Rome the “primacy of honor” - “first among equals” - as the direct successor of the Apostle Peter. Because Rome was the historic capital of the Roman Empire, its bishop naturally accrued fame and prestige, political contact, and a weighty voice in inter-church disputes. Pope Leo the Great in the mid 400s AD then actively formulated the doctrine of papal plenitude of power, asserting that the Bishop of Rome held supreme authority over all other bishops. Then, in the medieval times, the papacy shifted its self-conception of a Bishop and Overseer of Rome to the undisputed “Vicar of Christ,” claiming absolute rule over the global ecclesiastical hierarchy.
As you can well imagine, this was the TSN Turning Point. Humble service, Pastoral care and Shepherdly Oversight was swapped for authoritarian rule. Papal supremacy. It reached its zenith in 1870 at Vatican I which defined papal primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church and papal infallibility. You can see where two thousand years of fame, pride and ego ended up.
Among other things, it was this Papal celebrity and authoritarianism that would eventually drive the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther crazy and torment his conscience. Instead of preaching the Gospel, the western church was caught up in selling salvation - autographed indulgences from the all famous Pope! This was way better than a napkin signed by Kurt Browning in the airport! The Pope himself removes your sins for the low, low price of only a few ducats! And not only that, if you call now, right now, because we can’t do this all day, you can get Grandma out of purgatory too! “Once the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs!” What a great marketing slogan!
This is why we commemorate the Reformation as Lutheran Christians. It’s a very serious matter. The Papal authoritarianism, the selling of salvation with indulgences. The pride and ego and fame and celebrity had transfigured the western church into cesspool of iniquity. In Luther’s response to this, it was never his intent to flip the world upside down and start a new church, let alone a zillion protestant denominations. He simply wanted to knock the Pope off his high pedestal, repent of his wickedness and false doctrines. That was the goal of the 95 Theses nailed to the Castle Church door in Wittenburg on October 31, 1517.
We are all well aware this didn’t happen. And it’s important to note, essential really, that Luther never wanted the publicity or his ensuing celebrity that followed him. He is rolling in his grave right now to know that this is called a “Lutheran” church. He wanted the term evangelische - evangelical from the Greek word for Gospel. He wanted nothing preached but Christ crucified and resurrected for sinners like us. Yet people will be people, the poor, miserable sinners that we are. And as such, celebrity status and fame came to Martin Luther.
But there is a famous Reformation painting by Lucas Cranach that shows a big crowd of people on the left, a giant crucifix in the middle and then Luther with one hand resting on the sacred text and the other hand pointing to the cross. You can almost hear his voice saying “The Reformation movement isn’t about me, it’s about Jesus! Look to Him!” And it’s true. It’s all about Christ crucified and resurrected. This is the real heart of the Reformation. It’s just like our Revelation scripture reading appointed for today: “Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.”
In fact, this angel mentioned in the reading has long been interpreted to actually be Luther himself. How’s that for celebrity? However, I’m sure Luther would likely slap the people who came up with this interpretation with a bratwurst! I’m sure he’d say something to the effect of “get off it. It’s not about me! I’m a poor, miserable sinner, guilty of death and damnation. I’m no angel! Look to the Gospel, not the messenger!” It’s just like John the Baptist who proclaimed the way of the Lord: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (JN 3:30).
The Reformation brought to light all of the darkness of the papal celebrity. It rightly brought God’s people back to the real message of the scriptures: that death has been conquered and sin has been forgiven by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Real hope exists for sinners like us who constantly fail in life, who continuously make a mess of things. And that hope is that we have a Savior whose blood covers our multitude of iniquity. Faith is what connects us God’s promised Messiah. Not autographed indulgences from the Pope, not 500 years less in the spiritual fat-camp of purgatory, not praying the Lord’s prayer 17 million times trying desperately to win God’s favor and stave off His wrath.
By faith we believe in Christ Jesus our Messiah. By Holy Baptism we are clothed in His righteousness. By faith we receive His true body and blood in, with and under bread and wine. Jesus is the real celebrity. He is the one we ought to flock to. He is the one we ought to be screaming and fainting over. He’s the most popular man on earth ever! And He is our God.
This ‘untouchable’ celebrity bids us to come and see Him, to touch Him, to hear His voice in His Word and even to have supper with Him. He invites us to come up and join Him on His pedestal. We, the lowly, the unpopular, the sinful, the dead. We are invited to come and brought up on stage with the real King. We are invited to come to Him for the healing of sins and iniquity. We are invited to come to Him for eternal life and promise that lasts forever. He gives us His celebrity status not simply by association, but by joining His family as His most precious children.
His autograph of the cross has been written on our foreheads and our hearts to mark us as ones redeemed by Christ the crucified. And, the best promise of all is that what we see and experience now by grace through faith, we will see and experience in all of it’s fullness when we see Jesus face to face in eternity! To God be the glory, now and forevermore! Amen!
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