Reformation Service

St. John 12:35-38

So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”

When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

“Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. On their surface, those words from Jesus in our text are clear enough. The LORD said, “Let there be light” in His creating of the world, and He gave us eyes; because we’re meant to be able see. To not see is a disability for a person. But Jesus is talking about more than a person’s physical sight, as He has just recently come into Jerusalem on the week in which He would be arrested and crucified.

Old Testament Lesson

Our Old Testament lesson takes place during a time in Israel, when the people were walking around in spiritual darkness. Of their previous king, Ahaz (King David’s son), it says that contrary to his father, in his sixteen years as king, [Ahaz] did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord (2 Chronicles 28:1). He had set up metal images of false gods, even burn[ing] his sons as an offering (like the ungodly people around tended to do). The writer notes, that the Lord humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had made Judah act sinfully and had been very unfaithful to the Lord (28:19). He had led them wrongly.

Ahaz only got more wicked and idolatrous as the years went on. Before his death, it says of him, that he gathered together the vessels of the house of God and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and he shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, and he made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. In every city of Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods, provoking to anger the Lord, the God of his fathers (28:24-25).

This text from 2 Chronicles is our Old Testament lesson for this Reformation Day, because it’s about a time of spiritual darkness among God’s people, like the Reformation time was. The people were being led away from the light of God’s grace as proclaimed in the coming Messiah, into the darkness of false teaching and unbelief, led from safety into danger.

Reformation Time

Again, similarly, in Martin Luther’s time, in the late 1400s, people were being led away from the light of Jesus (God’s grace for them, the One Who makes them right with God), into the false teaching that said they must make themselves right before God, whether by their works, or even in the buying of indulgences—purchased-entrance into God’s kingdom. Many other false things people were being led to believe, demonstrate that it was a time of spiritual darkness for God’s people. They were walking in darkness, not knowing where they were going.

Of the time’s ungodly teaching, that people must pay honor to relics of saints—even praying to those saints and relying on them for help getting to heaven, Martin Luther would write:

The Word of God is the true holy thing above all holy things. Indeed, it is the only one we Christians acknowledge and have. Though we had all the bones of all the saints or all the holy and deconsecrated vestments gathered together in one heap, they could not help us in the slightest degree, for they are all dead things that can sanctify no one. But God’s Word is the treasure that sanctifies all things. By it all the saints themselves have been sanctified (LC, Third Commandment, 91)

Martin Luther had grown up afraid of God, unsure of his place with Him, unsure whether in his future he would be experiencing the joys of heaven, or the flames of hell. His insecurities had gotten even worse in early adulthood. He was so afraid of being consigned to suffering in Purgatory (one of the time’s fictional teachings), that he determined he must abandon the world, and seek to earn his way into heaven within the monastic life. As a monk in a monastery, He would pray, and study, and work, and even sort of punish himself, punish his body. He was doing it with the thought that if he did it to himself, less might be done to him by God.

A common theme in these texts, then: people being led away from the light of Christ, and into the darkness of false teaching. In the same chapter in which Jesus says the words of our text—before He says them, one of the things that’s happened is that, as people are curious to see Lazarus, whom, recently, Jesus has raised from the dead, the chief priests—these spiritual leaders—have been planning to kill Lazarus in order to end the talk. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.

Our Time

How can it happen, that people who have the light end up in the darkness? Jesus said, as recorded in John’s gospel: the light has come into the world [speaking of Himself], and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed (John 3:19,20). Jesus (the light) would say to Pharisees and Scribes one time (who were concerned about whether or not his disciples washed their hands before eating): it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person (Matthew 15:11)…out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone (15:19,20).”

He was commenting on the condition that all human beings share: their inherited sinful nature. All that’s needed for there to be a time like that described in our Old Testament lesson, and like Martin Luther’s time is for there to human beings present. All of them are corrupted with sin (you and me, too). Jesus’ urging in our text to, Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you, is as relevant as when He said it—as relevant for you as for them.

After all, Jesus would have your whole heart (Prov. 23:26). Has it ever really been the case? Has it been the case when you’ve thought of how to spend your time, how to spend your money, how to use the gifts and abilities He has given to you? Twice in our text, Jesus says the words: while you have the light. Before our text, He’d advised people, that anyone wanting eternal life must follow Him (12:25). Here, He kind of continues that thought. He’s instructing them to focus their attention on Him while they have opportunity to do so.

But the LORD fights for your attention amongst a lot of other things. Out of your own heart comes all of the sins Jesus mentioned. At times, your own life has been spent walking in the darkness, avoiding the light in this time when it is available to you.

Not so your Savior. His attention was always directed toward God’s kingdom, as exemplified in His statement as a twelve-year-old: “Didn’t you know I had to be in My Father’s House?” (Luke 2:49). Every morning when He woke from sleep He was on His way to God’s kingdom. He was on His way to ascending to glory in heaven, even knowing what would precede that ascension, knowing the cross and grave looming in the distance. On His way to it He would see what was necessitating it, see the hearts of people who were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36), of spiritual leaders—even, whose envy would cause them to plan to kill Lazarus, and ultimately…Himself.

It didn’t deter Him even for a moment. He’d predicted His death twice just before our text, stating it as His purpose for having come. It was for you, who have walked in the darkness, not knowing where you were going. It was for your forgiveness and eternal life.

God’s people in our Old Testament lesson saw a reformation of sorts in their time. God sent the good king, Hezekiah, who oversaw the cleansing of God’s House, and the bringing back of His things that had been discarded under the wicked king—the one who’d been leading the people into darkness.

God’s people of Martin Luther’s time saw a Reformation. God sent Luther and other godly men, who restored Jesus to His rightful place among the people—the true teaching of Him from Scripture. The light was brought back to people who’d been walking in darkness.

There was the same need in your life, and all peoples’ lives, of being led from darkness into the light. For you personally, it came through your Baptism, or through your conversion through the hearing of God’s Word. Through those means, the Holy Spirit enabled you to see, see that in Jesus there’s no need to be fearful of God. He has made payment for all sins. He has opened God’s kingdom for you to enter without the doing of any works, without the further payment of any indulgence. Forgiveness for your sins was all that you needed; and you have it fully and freely in Jesus. God be praised. Amen.