Happy Reformation Day
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re ready for the big holiday today!! I thought the “Day” would never get here! Gonna be awesome!!
"Huh?! Halloween?!"
No way! I’m not talking about THAT awful holiday!! I’m talkin’ ‘bout Reformation Day! Every year! October thirty one!
I don’t mean to be all “opinion-y” but I think that a holiday when folks put freaky, creepy stuff in their yards and freaky, creepy stuff hanging out of their trees so that sweet little kids see all that freakiness and creepiness and wake up crying from freaky, creepy dreams, well, I think the whole thing is freaky!
And creepy!
Why would you have a holiday where the whole point is to be scared?
Wanna know where Halloween comes from? Ready? Sure? Well, a long time ago…
Oh, forget it. It’s not worth talkin’ about.
Speaking of a long time ago…
A long time ago, the normal lives of normal folks were scarier than ours is today. They thought there were goblins and spirits, ghosts and devils behind trees and rocks. They believed God was impossibly angry. Their best hope, after escaping this dangerous world in death, was to spend years and years in a dark and painful somewhere, waiting to make it to heaven when they were purified and qualified enough of all their lingering yuckiness.
They were scared every day of the year. Not just on one day.
Some took advantage of this and of them, promising less dark years between death and Heaven, if they’d donate money to this church or that cathedral.
But a young German Augustinian monk was reading…
reading…
reading the Bible…
reading the New Testament…
reading Paul’s letter to the Romans...
And he discovered something that few knew! When you believe in Jesus, you’re forgiven for good and forever! When you die, you don’t stop over for centuries in any dark place! You go home!! You don’t even really die! That’s when you really start to LIVE! The moment you believe, the God Who loved you every second all along the way, becomes your Dad! He cares for you all the time! You never have to be afraid again! You don’t have to fear today or tomorrow!
"At last, meditating day and night, by the mercy of God, I ... began to understand that the righteousness of God is that through which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith… Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open."
-Martin Luther
On October 31, 1517 “All Hollows Eve”, the day before “All Saints Day”, he nailed 95 thoughts to the big wooden door of the Wittenburg Church. “God’s righteousness is free! You can’t buy it! You just take it! And it’s yours! And it isn’t right, true, or good that someone would make money by telling you that you could try to pay for it!” (More or less that’s what he wrote)
Those thoughts “went viral” and hearts were freed of their fears, knowing Jesus was all they needed!
When he was put on trial for writing these things, he could have been afraid, but with Jesus in his heart, he wasn’t! In front of the court and the Emperor, he said…
"Unless I can be instructed and convinced with evidence from the Holy Scriptures or with open, clear, and distinct grounds of reasoning ... then I cannot and will not recant, because it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me! Amen."
Paul says that when you accept Jesus, you don’t have ”a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear” (Romans 8 15)
Why celebrate a holiday where the whole point is being scared?
So Happy Reformation Day, everybody! It’s the holiday for those who (praise Jesus!) aren’t scared of anything!
And if you get a chance, tell your neighbors it’s time to get that freaky, creepy stuff back in the attic!
Or in the garbage!