Sermons for the Month
Pivotal Moments - Grasping Who God Is For Us
DATE: October 26th, 2003
SERVICE: Reformation and Confirmation Sunday
TEXT: Romans 3:19-28“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
We all experience pivotal moments in our lives, times when our direction changes or it's as if a light is turned on, or it is a moment after which things are not the same.
Today nine of this congregation's young people will participate in the Affirmation of Baptism, or Confirmation, service. They will make a public confession of their faith and of their intension to continue living out that faith as God's transformed children.
Will today, October 26, 2003, be a pivotal moment for them? I hope so, but only time will tell. To be honest, I'm not sure the day of my Confirmation was a pivotal moment in my life, although I remember it as being important.
There are certain things I recall about that Palm Sunday back in 1972. I remember what my dress looked like and that my class was large - about 30 young people. I recall that I received Holy Communion for the first time that day and that I accidentally dropped that tiny glass, luckily after I drank the wine. I wore the watch that my parents gave me as a gift for many years. But, was it for me a pivotal moment? I'm not sure about that, important, yes, but pivotal?
As I think about that question my mind switches to the fact that today is Reformation Sunday, the day on which we remember Martin Luther and the birth of the Lutheran church. Martin Luther has been on my mind a good deal recently since we've been talking about him in Confirmation Class and went to see the movie "Luther" a few weeks ago.
He certainly experienced some pivotal moments in his life, but I do not know if his Confirmation was one of them. In fact, I'm uninformed about confirmation practice in the Roman Catholic Church in 16th century Germany, and since I did not take time to look it up, I can't really comment on the subject as it relates to Luther. What I can say, though, is that Martin Luther's life is full of experiences that people might label as pivotal.
For example, some might say that when he was caught in that lightening storm and promised to become a monk if he survived - giving up his study of law - it was a pivotal moment. Now, that may be true. His life certainly changed direction on that day. But, what if we narrowed our definition of pivotal moment? As I considered this issue this week, I began to think of pivotal moments as those times in my life when I began to grasp, to understand who God is for me.
From what I know about Martin Luther I'd say that he experienced a pivotal moment in the midst of an intense spiritual struggle. It seems that as a young monk Martin battled his own imperfection. He understood that even though he made every effort to live a faithful life, he could never be good enough to deserve God's forgiveness. It seemed to him that he was destined for hell, or at least for a long stay in purgatory, that waiting room between heaven and hell. Because of this, he became angry at God, who expected too much of sinful humanity and gave so little.
Then he began to study scripture, a novel concept even for educated people in the 16th century. What he found there amazed him. The passage that we read today from Romans 3 was particularly important to Martin Luther.
Everyone - all of humanity - has sinned, has fallen short, and has missed the mark when it comes to hitting the bulls-eye of God's desire for us. It's like shooting an arrow, with the center of the target, the bulls-eye, being our goal. But we miss not only the bulls-eye but the entire target. Our arrow flies off in left field and falls way short of where we hoped it would land.
We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If that was the end of the story, there would be no hope for us because we are all terrible shots when it comes to hitting the bulls-eye of God's will.
It was what came next that amazed Luther. The church of his day had never mentioned these words of the Apostle Paul. "…they (meaning those who fall short) are justified (or put right with God) by God's grace as a gift…." The text goes on to say that because Jesus Christ took our sins on himself, and because we have faith in him, we are forgiven. It's as if Jesus shoots the arrow and hits the bulls-eye for us, and it counts, it's as if we did it ourselves!
Understanding that was a pivotal moment for Martin Luther. For the first time he grasped who God was in his life, and everything he did from that point on grew out of that understanding of God as one who loves and one who forgives graciously.
So, I wonder again about pivotal moments for us. When have we grasped who God is for us?
I can tell you that one of the first times that happened for me was just a few months after my confirmation. On a beautiful June day my older brother, then age 16, rode his bike in front of a pick-up truck just a few blocks from our home and died.
So it was that the prayer which had been said for me on Palm Sunday, as the Pastor laid his hands on my head for the confirmation blessing, came into effect. The prayer was that the Holy Spirit would be stirred up in me, and that my faith would be confirmed and that I would have patience in suffering.
In those days that followed, those pivotal days, I began to grasp who God was for me. I saw that God was not a Divine Santa Clause who gives us whatever we want, but a Loving Creator who suffers with us when we face the imperfection that having freewill brings into our lives, an Empowering Savior who gives us the strength to face what lies ahead, and a Comforting Holy Spirit who grants us faith in the face of fear and doubt. At the age of 14 I began to truly know God.
Maybe today will be one of many pivotal moments for those who are affirming their baptisms. I hope so. I know, though, that because of what is happening today our young friends will be ready when those pivotal moments arrive and they too grasp who God is in their lives.
Just think, when that happened to Martin Luther he proceeded to reform the church and change the world. May we never underestimate what can happen when we who are in God's grasp begin to grasp what that means for us, and for the world. AMEN