Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

When the German Reformation began, it started with these words.

The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God. (Thesis 62, The Ninety-five Theses. 1517)

For Luther the preaching of Gospel was the announcement of freedom and fulfillment in accordance with God’s will for all creation. The word of the gospel cuts two ways. It proclaims freedom “from” and freedom “for.”

When one reads Paul such as we heard him in his letter to the Galatians, we hear a gospel that is, in fact, good news and bad news.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news that we have been liberated from the cosmic and unseen powers that dominate our lives. We are now a new creature. We are free from the powers of this world that cause us to believe that we are in control of our destiny, our fate. In other words, we are free from the illusion that we are gods. We become free from the ridiculous effort to be God and to bet everything on our own achievements--physical, occupational, social or otherwise.

The bad news for the old person is that we have been liberated from the cosmic and unseen powers that dominate our lives. We are now new creatures free for a life lived in obedience to God. This is bad news for all of us who still persist in our schemes of self -redemption and salvation. The old person must give up these schemes. Immediately there is an anxiety as to how to preserve ourselves. How does one live in freedom when we come to know ourselves as human beings created for God?

For Martin Luther the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ was the announcement of the fulfillment of every word of creation. Let there be light. Let there be a firmament. Let there be lights. Let there be living creatures. Let us make human beings. For Luther the gospel simply stated was, “Let God be God and humans be human.”

In every culture the gospel requires a new articulation. No one formulation will ever work. Some believe that the fretful repetition of one formulation will secure us in the relationship with God. Jesus is Lord. God is love. Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior. Jesus is coming. These statements can make gospel sense only when they are spoken into the human situations in which we live. In other words, the gospel is spoken as an interjection into the cultural scene in which we act out our lives.

When I was young, I began to look for my niche. I wanted to figure out what I could do best. I learned quickly that a near-sighted kid with or without glasses was never going to be a great athlete. Not being from Lake Wobegone, I realized that I was not the best looking guy on the block. I never could sight-read music. I therefore knew that I would not become a star. I did not see myself as particularly smart.

Still I wanted to do something. I wanted in some way to make a place for myself in the world. I wanted some recognition from family and peers. I finally figured out that I was a pretty darn good hard worker. So I committed myself to a life of working hard.

This came to a head when I was in high school. I would get up in the morning and go to student council or other meetings. Then there would be class. Then I would work in other projects for choir, the student annual, etc. Then I would go to basketball or track practice. Then I would go home, eat, and start working on homework. I pushed myself while in my youth way into the morning hours. I was going to win through Herculean effort!

This seemed to work all too well for me through my sophomore year. At the end of the year I had earned a 98% overall average (in an average school). I was proud of myself. I was growing in certainty that this lifestyle was going to be my salvation. I now knew what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.
Then suddenly it hit! My body rebelled. It was as if the bottom fell out. I went into total collapse. I could hold nothing down or in. I could crawl sometimes to the bathroom. I began to sleep for unimaginable hours. I was helpless. Whatever sense of triumph or self-satisfaction I had, evaporated as I lay in bed wondering what was to become of me. Somehow I knew to pray, “Jesus, have mercy on me.” Of what I had learned in church up until that time, the most profound was that I am human and that God is God.

From that summer on whenever I would move into a triumphalistic mode, my body would “speak up,” warning me that I was but human, made from earthen clay. I was aware that this earthen vessel in someway relates to the transcendent glory from which we all come and to which we all go.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. (2 Corinthians 4:7)

Dear brothers and sisters, the treasure that we possess is “the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.” The gospel we receive as we assemble together releases us from the deadly ways we live and makes us free for life in the holy and sacred cloud that surrounds us. If we live, it is because the God who created us also raises us from death to life.

The gospel is none other than the presence of Christ whom God raised from the dead so that we too might be raised from the dead and deathly ways. Let us cling to Christ made known to us through the means of grace. The old self will hear the bad news, but the new self will rejoice in the good news that we belong to God in Christ Jesus.

Amen.