Most people naturally equate Oct. 31 with Halloween and a day to take the kids door-to-door and fill up with candy to keep the family dentist in business for another year.
But, few people know that October is much more than just a day for costumes and candy. The origin of Halloween comes from what is observed on Nov. 1, namely All Saints Day, when the church pauses to thank God for the lives of His “saints,” who now rest with Him in heaven. Halloween literally means, “All Hallows Eve.”
For many of us in the church, Oct. 31 is a day in which we give thanks to God for one of His faithful servants, Dr. Martin Luther, who began what, over time, has become known as the Protestant Reformation. At Hope Lutheran Church, we will celebrate the Festival of the Reformation with services at 8 and 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 27, at 2001 N. Park Road. We also will join with five other Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregations at 3:30 p.m. As we do this, we look forward to Reformation Day, Oct. 31, 2017, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
The goal of Luther and the other reformers of his day was not to form a new church body, much less one that bears Luther’s name. His goal was, as seen in the word, “reformation,” was to reform those primary teachings. At that time, the Roman Catholic church had strayed from what was taught in Scripture.
Foremost among those areas of difference that led to Luther’s actions as stated in the “Book of Concord” is that “we cannot obtain forgiveness of sins and righteousness before God based on our own merits, works or sanctifications, but we receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God by grace for Christ’s sake through faith.” Basically, what was said then still holds today: We cannot buy or earn God’s forgiveness. In Luther’s day, the church was in the practice of selling what was known as an “indulgence,” payment given to the church for forgiveness. Today, that practice is carried out in various forms, as well as through the practice of “penance.” We need to draw comfort from God’s Word, as recorded by the prophet Jeremiah (31:34): “For I will forgive their sin, and I will remember it no more.” We see that God is the one who forgives, and for us to think or do anything else for that forgiveness is like looking at the cross and telling our Lord that what He did for us that Good Friday simply was not enough.
There are many other areas which the early reformers of the church voiced their disagreement with the practice and belief at the time, but this is the most central teaching of Scripture and one that we in the Lutheran church today holds central to all that we believe, teach and confess.
Let me encourage you, this Reformation, to celebrate the gift of free grace that God offers to each of us and to give thanks to God for the work of all the early reformers in the church who labored and even gave their lives that the message of God’s unlimited, free and abounding love for us in Christ could and would be freely shared by all, because it is God’s desire that all people be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.
The Rev. Dean R. Pfeffer is the senior pastor at Hope Lutheran Church, Plant City. For more, email him at hopepcpastor@gmail.com.