The Bell: Thoughts on the Protestant Reformation

This weekend marks the 500^th anniversary of the young Augustinian monk, Martin Luther’s nailing 95 Theses on the chapel door of the Wittenberg Church.  The theses were not demands or creedal declarations, but an invitation to debate abusive practices of Church officials who were selling certificates believed to reduce the time in punishment in purgatory for sins committed by the purchasers themselves or their loved ones.  This issue shined a light on an essential element in Christian faith, an issue that had quietly slipped from view, namely that people are saved by simple trust in God’s unmerited grace, which flows through the work of Jesus Christ rather than dutiful observance of the requirements of the Church sacramental system.

Luther’s Psychological Crisis

This makes Luther’s bold act sound a bit academic.  Much more personally, Luther was a man in personal crisis.  His inner turmoil was his overwhelming anxiety that God had not forgiven and accepted him.  It’s not that Luther had committed some horrible sin.  Rather, Luther as a fallible human being committed littly sins almost hourly.  Martin’s conscious of this continual transgression left him feeling like a condemned man.  In the midst of this overwhelming anxiety, Luther’s spiritual director instructed him to become a full time student of the Scriptures.  It was in this study, especially in Paul’s letters, that Martin Luther recovered the breathtaking good news that God indeed loved him not by any works under the law or church, but by virtue of pure grace.

At length, Luther realized that the church, the Medieval Roman Catholic Church, held forth a message that missed the graceful heart of the Good News.  Hence the 95 Theses.  What followed rocked Europe.  The tradition of the Protestant Reformation continues to unfold in the energy that was released by that young monk.

Here I Stand

My personal encounter with Luther’s story came when I was 19, and read Roland Bainton’s, Here I Stand, the classic English language biography of Martin Luther.  Reading Bainton brought a glorious clarity to my own faith.  Bainton tells a story in his book that encapsulates the life of Martin Luther, the life that we celebrate this weekend.

The Bell

Roland Bainton tells of a man stumbling up the spiral stairs of a dark bell tower.  His hand falls upon a rope that he uses to pull himself upright.  The rope is the bell rope.  In pulling on it the man begins to hear the sound of a great bell sounding overhead.   For miles around the clear ringing can be heard.  One man’s quiet struggle suddenly has an impact on the whole countryside.

This image is as good a summation of the Protestant Reformation that I’ve yet heard.