Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today we observe Reformation Sunday, recalling the famous events of October 31, 1517 when Dr. Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the Castle Church Door in Wittenberg. When Dr. Luther did this, he had no idea what a monumental event it would prove to be. Dr. Luther only wanted to help people see that Jesus Christ is not an angry Judge who is eager to send sinners to hell, but rather He is the world's Savior from sin and eternal death. And if Jesus is our Savior from sin, and if His blood alone can declare us righteous and holy in God's sight, then that means our good works don't contribute one bit to our salvation-rather, salvation is purely a gift of God's grace, to be received by faith.

So for Dr. Luther and for all Lutherans since then, Reformation Sunday is all about Jesus and His free grace and mercy. We can see Dr. Luther's Jesus-focus in the often overlooked words that introduce the 95 Theses: "In the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen." (AE 31:25) Dr. Luther began his work of reforming the Church in the name of Jesus, the name that means "The Lord saves," which is why the angel Gabriel told Joseph, "You shall call his name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). The name of Jesus is the name about which St. Peter proclaimed, "There is salvation in no one else [besides Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:11). So for Luther and Gabriel and St. Peter, it was all about Jesus, all the time, and so it is for us today even on Reformation Sunday: Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus. Reformation Day is not a Lutheran 4th of July, but another "Lord's Day," another day that we are given the privilege of basking in the grace and forgiveness of "Our Lord Jesus Christ."

And so this morning we turn to our Epistle, Romans 3:19-28, which also is all about Jesus, how much we need Him and all that He has done for us. And after meditating on this text, we will turn and look at how the Lord's Supper helps us Reformation Lutherans keep their eyes firmly fixed on Jesus. We will see that the Lord's Supper is one of the best ways for us to keep Jesus front and center, which is why Jesus has given us this precious Meal.

But first, we need to learn from St. Paul to shut our mouths and listen to God's judgment against us sinners. In Romans 3, God, speaking through St. Paul, levels a devastating charge against all humans. He says, "We have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one" (Romans 3:9-12). Ouch. It doesn't feel good to be called unrighteous, averse to God, worthless evildoers does it? But that is what we are in God's sight on account of our sin. No matter how it feels to say that, it is true, and it is something we must say "Amen" to.

And how do we know that we are such wretched sinners? By the Ten Commandments, God's Law, which we have not kept. Since we are God's creatures, He has placed us under His unchanging Law, and we have broken it. And so Paul concludes in our text, "Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law [that's us!], so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God" (Romans 3:19). Shut your mouth, Paul says. Or better, God has shut our mouths by His judgment, for our good.

But we sinners usually aren't content keeping our mouths shut; rather, we are swift to open our mouths in defense of our actions; we always are trying to justify ourselves in the sight of God and others. We sinners are so often like children caught red-handed who open our mouths to protest before we have even heard the charge against us. When one of my daughters was younger, I would peek in at her in her room, playing by herself, and if I saw her doing something she wasn't supposed to, I would say, "Emma." And before I would even ask her what she had been doing wrong or accuse her of something, she blurted out "Nothing!" and ran over and said, "I love you, Daddy." That is us. "Nothing, God! I was doing nothing! And God, I sure love you a lot, so don't be mad at me!" But God is no dummy, and His Law simply says, "Shut your mouth and face the music." He says that to all of us. As St. Paul says, the whole world has been held accountable to God-we have to answer to Him for our misdeeds.

And because of our sin, we are liable to judgment and condemnation in hell. So no amount of excuses or works is going to get us out of this one. Paul continues in Romans, "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." People often assume that God has given us His Law, the Ten Commandments, to teach us the way to work out our own salvation. I remember a billboard back in Spring, Texas near my grandparents' place that had a picture of the two tablets of stone, and it said, "The Ten Commandments: God's Roadmap to Happiness." But St. Paul says that God gave the Law in order to give us knowledge of our sins, and there is no happiness in realizing how sinful we are and how severe God's judgment on sin is. But at least when we have reached that point, we can recognize that we have no hope of gaining eternal life on our own and that we need a Savior from sin, since "Through the law comes knowledge of sin."

But! Paul says. Hold on, there is hope. Yes, you are sinners who deserve hell, But! "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe" (Romans 3:21-22). That is a mouthful, but here is the point: God did not give the Ten Commandments to show us how to become righteous and be saved, but instead He sent His Son to obey the Law perfectly in our place. God the Son came down from heaven and gladly became a man, born of the Virgin Mary, and then He faithfully followed God's Law from womb to the cross, from cradle to the grave. And so "all who believe" in this Jesus Christ as their Savior, they are given the righteousness of God, the salvation He has accomplished for them.

But Jesus did not only gain righteousness for us, but for everyone! Paul continues, "For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and [all] are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (Romans 3:22-25). Again, that is a mouthful, but here is the point: Since all sinned, God showed His amazing grace and mercy by sending His Son to die for all sinners, completely as a gift. We were slaves of the devil, but Jesus bought us back by shedding His blood, redeeming us from death and hell. His death and blood turns away God's wrath against us; that's what it means that Jesus is a propitiation-He is the one who takes the punishment for the sin of the world and who satisfies God's demands for justice. And so if we have been washed clean of our sin and justified by Christ's blood, then He covers our guilt so that when God looks at us, He sees only the righteousness of Christ instead of our sin. And Paul says that God intends all of this Gospel "to be received by faith." Believe it, trust in Jesus Christ, and you have the benefits of the Gospel. Reject it, and you don't.

Paul continues, "[All of] This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins" (Romans 3:25). In the Old Testament, God had forgiven believers of their sins because He knew Christ would come someday and take the punishment for those who came before Jesus, and for all who came after Him. That salvation arrived in Christ, as Paul says, "It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:26). God did not simply overlook our sins, but justice had to be served; someone had to die and take the punishment, and that was Jesus! This isn't really fair according to our human standards, but it is just in God's way of doing things, God's righteous way of saving us!

And because our salvation is all a gift of God, Paul asks, "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Romans 3:27-28). We have no cause of boasting of ourselves, but we can boast only of the Lord's goodness to us. We cannot say, "Look how much I believe, how much I have done for the Lord, all the works that I have done." Repent. Boasting places us back under the law, enslaved to works, justifying ourselves. But it is God who justifies us, for the sake of Christ. He does this without us doing a thing; we are given Christ's forgiveness through faith, as a free gift.

And that is what brings us to the Lord's Supper. Because if the Lord's Supper is a new law and a work of ours, then it is actually opposed to faith, since St. Paul writes that "we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." Some people will tell you that Lord's Supper doesn't forgive our sins because it is a law Christ has given us to fulfill, a work to perform. But that cannot be right, for Jesus clearly says, "Take, eat, this is My body given for you...Take, drink, this is My blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins." Wherever God delivers to us the forgiveness of sins, He is also giving us eternal life and salvation, so if Jesus promises that eating His true body and drinking His true blood gives forgiveness of sins and justification, then it must not be a work of ours, but instead it must be a gift to be received by us in faith.

And that's the point Paul makes in Romans when he says that "God put forward [Christ] as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." On the cross Jesus gave His body and shed His blood to accomplish forgiveness of all of the world's sins, and in the Lord's Supper Jesus presents that very body and blood to us under the bread and wine as a pledge that His forgiveness most certainly applies to each of us. He makes the same promises in Baptism and Absolution, as well. He takes His own body to cover our guilt; He takes His own blood and sprinkles it over us, to justify us, and His gift to be received by faith.

Back in Livingston I was called to the hospital one Saturday night when the wife of our organist fell and hurt her knee, and while we were waiting for her to come out of her CAT scan, the organist and I were talking with his neighbor, who described herself as a "hard-shell Baptist." She told me that in many of the Baptist churches she had been in, the pulpit was in the center of the chancel area, and she was wondering why Lutheran pulpits are off to the side. I explained to her that it is because the altar is the central, focal point of a Lutheran Church. This is because the altar is where the Lord Jesus comes down to meet us in His true body and blood. I also would point out that our baptismal font is right here as a focal point, because it reminds us of how we became God's children, in the washing of Christ's blood over our sin.

Our altar is at the center because the Lord's Supper is a central part of our Sunday Divine Service. Of course the reading of Scriptures and preaching are wonderful gifts and we should never play these gifts off against each other, but the Sacrament of the Altar is the closest we get to heaven while we are on earth because the risen and ascended Lord Jesus comes to meet us here in His true body and blood, to deliver forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to us in our own mouths. Dr. Luther once said, "The Sacrament is the Gospel." In other words, the Lord's Supper is the most concentrated form of the Gospel available to us each week, since it is delivered to each of us personally, individually.

The altar is at the center because the altar is where you hear the Words of Christ, the Gospel promises, "This is My body, given for you...This is My blood shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins." At the altar Jesus gives His very body and blood but also through the Words brings into your mind what He has done for you to redeem you from sin, death, and the Law. That is why He told His church to "Do this as often as you eat and drink it, in remembrance of Me." Whenever we celebrate the feast He has left for us, it brings to mind all He did on the cross for our salvation. "Do this in remembrance of Me," He says. With His Words, "Given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sin," He brings His death for our sins into remembrance, and as Dr. Luther explains in the Small Catechism, "Whoever believes these words has exactly what they say: forgiveness of sins."

Note well that even those who have not yet been admitted to Communion fellowship at our altar still benefit from the celebration of the Lord's Supper, because Christ's words of promise are spoken to everyone to be received by faith. I'll never forget the story one of my seminary professors told about a woman who had grown up in Communist Russia, where the Lutheran Church was not allowed to hold public worship. She had been baptized as an infant but the Church's worship had been forbidden by the time she was a child, so she had never been admitted to the Lord's Supper.

Yet this faithful woman's parents had raised her right. She had her Catechism hidden under her pillow, which over the years she read over and over again and memorized by heart. And because she believed the words of the Catechism, she knew that Christ's body had been given in death for her, and His blood shed to forgive all of her sins and give her eternal life. She knew she was a Christian, one of God's chosen ones, yet she longed to actually receive the Lord's Supper, but because she lived under Communist rule, she was prevented from going to the altar to receive the Lord's Supper. But finally, after the collapse of Communism, Lutheran Churches began to have the opportunity to hold public worship, and it has been a remarkable thing to see how many people in Russia were like this woman-they had held to their Lutheran faith among their families in private, by the simple faith of the Small Catechism.

So this woman, in her old age, eventually found out that a Lutheran Church had begun holding services several hours away from her, and she made arrangements to go by train for a Sunday. They were celebrating the Lord's Supper that day (just imagine her disappointment if it had been a non-Communion service), and the pastor of the church there later said that even though the woman had not been to the Divine Service since her childhood, as he was saying the words of institution for the Lord's Supper, she was saying them right along with him, because those words were so firmly etched in her memory and believed in her heart.

Dr. Luther says in the Catechism, "Whoever believes these words has exactly what they say: forgiveness of sins." The Russian woman had always been saved and justified as a baptized believer in Christ, even when she was prevented from going to the Lord's Supper, but look at how her joy was made full by finally being able to taste and see the Lord's goodness in His Holy Supper. I bet when she sang the Nunc Dimittis after Holy Communion she was truly ready to depart and be with her Lord. "Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation," we sing, because of Jesus Christ and His precious body and blood.

So the Lutheran Reformation isn't about us being proud of being Lutheran, but it is all about Jesus and the grace He has shown us on the cross, at the font, and at the altar. Let us give thanks to the Lord today that He has put us in a land where we are free to gather here week in and week out to fix our eyes on Jesus, and hear His words of grace, mercy, and peace. This morning, as Jesus says, "This is My body given for you…this is My blood shed for you," let those words sink deep into your ears, so that when Satan accuses you, saying, "You've done it again, you poor, miserable sinner. Your sin disqualifies you from the kingdom of God," you can then respond, "Be gone Satan! Sin, death, and hell can no longer threaten me or cause me fear, because Christ has given His body into death for my sin, and He has shed His blood to wash away all of my guilt and justify me before God the Father." No matter what happens the Kingdom, ours, remaineth. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.