Pentecost 24

And as Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings! And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
This is our text.

“What great stones” remarked one of the disciples, as they made their way out of the Jerusalem temple. They had just come from the temple, a structure that began construction under King Herod the Great about 20 years before the birth of Christ and took about 80 years to complete. As Jesus and his disciples were there for their visit on that day, the temple would have still been in the midst of construction. But the stones were magnificent – some of them as large as 37 feet long, 18 feet wide, 12 feet high. Polished smooth and then decorated with gold. They would have been a site to behold. Beautiful and impressive. They were taken by the beauty of the construction.
Surely you have had that experience before. Perhaps you were visiting a friend, attending church with them on a Sunday after a brand new construction – and they were walking you through, giving you the guided tour. Explaining the long process of coming up with a building plan, describing the construction phases and then proudly displaying the finished product. The experience must have been similar yet perhaps on a lesser scale for those disciples on that day.
Typically you and I are impressed with new constrictions, with brick and mortar, plaster and stone. Jesus was not. He acknowledged their beauty and the fine craftsmanship. Indeed they were impressive. But they would not stand. Not forever. The day was soon to come when those magnificent stones were thrown down and the temple would stand in ruins.
Jesus was speaking as a prophet. The Jerusalem temple would be destroyed. The Romans would pull it apart only about 40 years after Jesus stood there on that day. Perhaps the disciple who asked the question would have been there to witness it. But that was not the point. Nor is it the point for us. The thing that gives beauty to the walls of a house of worship is not the skill of the craftsman who assembled them. Nor is it the stones, the windows, these days we might even add the technology. Rather what gives God's house its beauty is the Word of God that is spoken inside it. Temples, cathedrals, basilicas and churches rise and fall, they come and go. But it is the Word of the Lord that stands forever.
Many of you surely recall the old church building that used to stand just down the way. Is was nice in its time. It served its function and purpose but needed to be replaced. And so our current building was constructed. But there was much in that old building worthy of remembering. Even the stained glass window has been preserved here for us to look at and remember. And now we have our current facility. Every time I have the pleasure of guiding someone through it for the first time, to a person they remark at how beautiful it is.
This is good. A house of worship should be beautiful. After all, remember what happens here. Remember whose house this is. This is not a tool shed, nor is it simply an assembly hall. This is sacred space where God comes to deliver his gifts of forgiveness to us. When we gather together here it is for “Divine Service” - the Divine, serving us. God comes to serve us in His Word and Sacraments. God comes to wash away our sins and to bless us with eternal life. This is, as we pray, a “foretaste of the feast to come”. That is to say, Christian worship is the appetizer for the feast of heaven.
Perhaps you do that for your family feasts. In a few weeks you will sit down with your family around your thanksgiving table. Some times the family chef allows some of the goodies to be served before hand to stave off the hunger pains and whet the appetites for the feast to come. This is what God does in true Christian worship. He serves us from His table. It's not about what we do – our singing, our praising, our praying. Not what the pastor does: how good he is at writing or making public presentations. It's what God does. We might perform these activities, but it is because they are His that he commands; things that we do, but as we do them He is in them working through them to serve us and forgive us. Every Sunday, God, our serving god, our giving god, ties on his apron and assembles his collection of serving utensils so that he can give us a feast of forgiveness.
The thing that makes this happen, that brings all of this about, is not the building, it is not the people, it is not our singing or our praying or our sincerity or excitement. What makes this house a house of worship, what makes these people God's people, what makes us the Church, is best said by the Augsburg Confession: “The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.”
It's the Word of God. His Gospel taught according to how it is given in His Word. His sacraments according to how they are commanded in his word. We teach the Word of God, We preach the Word of God and as a result these walls are beautiful.
But we often get confused. How tempting it is to lay these truths aside. How tempted we are to believe that its the shine and the polish on the stones that makes this house God's house. How tempted we are to think that if we want our church to be successful in its mission we need something other than the pure and true Word of God.
I have been to churches with impressive buildings. Brand new, polished and shined. Top of the line fixtures and technology, lighting and chairs. The aesthetic experience was as good as any theater you would attend for a show or a concert.
I have been to churches where the members were intentionally friendly – there was a team of people coached to look for visitors. They walk right up to you, shake your hand, introduce you to people, give you information, point you to the bathrooms, the coat rooms, invite you to the upcoming church activities. All good things.
I have been to churches where there is a high level of enthusiasm among the members. They are pumped up and excited and happy to be there and eager to see their church advance and grow. The are enthusiastic in their worship and in their singing.
I have been to churches where their news and notes are thick with pages and announcements for all the activities and programs that they have going on during the week. There are programs for men, for women for youth for children, for singles, for couples, for couples with kids, for everything you could imagine.
All these things are good things. They are worthwhile things. It is good for churches to have shiny new buildings. This can be a great blessing. It is good when church members are zealous and eager and excited. It can be good when churches offer many actives and programs for people to be involved in. But while these things are good, they are not the church. Why is it that we so often think that they are the church? Why is it that when we visit a church we come away impressed by all these extras? Why do we come away from church and the thing that sticks in our minds is all that other stuff. The extra stuff, the un important stuff. Why don't we focus on the Word of God?
God's Word does two things. It tells us about our sin. It tells us about our savior. When we go to church, those are things we should be looking for, eager to hear, celebrating.
Consider this, when you go to church, listen for the Word of God. Listen for God's word of Law that points out your sin. In our worship we often begin with a confession of sin. We tell God that we have sinned against him in our thoughts in our words and in our actions. We confess our guilt before him and ask him for forgiveness.
There are many who will tell you that if you want your church to grow, if you want to attract new members you should throw that part of the service away – it makes people feel bad about themselves. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that it really only tells us what we already know. We have sinned. We have sinned against each other and we have sinned against God. The Word of God tells us this and we know it in our hearts. When we come to church, when we come to meet God, we tell him what He already knows and what he has told us in His Word. We tell him that we have sinned.
But our sin is not the focus of our worship. We don't come simply to admit that we have messed things up. We come to hear about God's forgiveness. Remember, God's word does two things. Telling us about our sin is only the first thing. It is that second thing that is really amazing.
God's Word tells us about our Savior. God's Word tells us about what God has done for us to erase that problem of sin. God's Word tells us that God has not held that sin against us. He has chosen to deal with us in mercy and compassion. He has given to us His promise that He loves us and that he will bring us to heaven, that he has reserved us for eternal life. We come to church to receive from God the fruits, the results of that promise.
God did not leave us to manage our sin by ourselves. That's what the government does: they tell you that you have broken the law, that you owe taxes, and then you have to fix the problem yourself. You have to fix what you have broken and set right what you have done wrong. That's not what God does. God takes your wrong and he does it right. He makes it right. He sent Jesus to do what is right for you. To live the right and righteous life in your place. And then, all of that wrong that you have done, all those sins that you confessed at the beginning, even the ones you forgot to confess or perhaps didn't care to confess, he has taken care of them too.
This place. These walls, the house, this is the place where God has invited you to come. We built the building, we keep it up and running with our work and our effort, but God has set it aside as His house, his forgiveness place. This house is the location where God has said, I will be here for you every time you come. Ever sin that you carry through the doors will be piled up on Jesus. He died to pay for it. In exchange, say the Lord, the God of Heaven, I will give you forgiveness and eternal life and salvation.
This house is a forgiveness house. This house is God's house. This house is the place where the Word of God is in full operation.
You want to talk beauty? You want to talk magnificence? You want to talk glory and splendor? Don't get dazzled by shiny rocks flickering lights. Look to the Word of God; the Word of God that diagnoses your sin and then in the next moment scoops it up to forgive you for all of it. Look for the Word of God that delivers to your ears the forgiveness of Jesus and the Eternal life that we have in his name.
Amen.

Pentecost 23

Truly I say to you that this poor widow put in more than all the others who were contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed from their abundance. But she from her poverty contributed all she had, the whole of her life.

So how much do you give? When you put your offering in the plate on Sunday morning, how much have you put in? Is it a lot? A little? Have you given freely and willingly? Have you held something back? How much do you put in?
And don't think I am talking about currency. Our coins and dollar bills have numbers on them to rank them in order of their value. Pennies and nickels and dimes. 5's, 10's and 20's. We count them up. We collect them. We store them away for when we think we might need them. We keep careful track of them – where we spend them, how much of them we have spent and how many of them we have left over. We compare how many of them we have versus how many of them we think we may need. And then comes Sunday morning. Time to put some of those hard earned and easily spent dollars into the offering plate. How many do we put in? How many can we afford to do without? How many have you put in?
When we begin to think about our offerings to God and to the church we always ask the wrong question. We think that the amount has to do with the little numbers in the corner of the bill – is it a 5, a 20, a 50 or even a 100? God doesn't care about those numbers. While those numbers mean everything to us, they mean nothing to God. God, after all doesn't have a buget. He doesn't need to save up for things. He doesn't need to earn things. Everything is already his to begin with. Our currency and the numbers we put on it don't impress God at all. Rather what impresses God is what is found in your heart. When you count up those dollar bills and place a few of them in the offering plate how much of your heart, how much of yourself have you placed into that envelope. That is the real question. That is the question that God is interested to answer.
In our Gospel reading for today Jesus and his disciples were witnessing the contributions given to the temple treasury. There were receptacle placed around the temple where people could come and deposit their gifts. Many, in a show of their abundant means and their great wealth, not to mention their supposed religious devotion, placed large sums into the treasury. (How impressive must that have been?) Yet Jesus was unmoved by their giving. Yes he saw what they gave, but more than that, Jesus saw what they did not give, Jesus saw what they held back in their hearts. And then a poor widow came to the temple treasury. She had two small copper coins in her hand. The sum total of her subsistence. She placed both in the temple treasury. Both of her coins. Every last penny she had to her name, the whole lot of it, she gave into the temple treasury.
We might pause to ask ourselves why. What was the point of giving those coins? Their value was small. Two pennies wouldn't do the temple much good, they wouldn't cover the cost of maintaining its building and structure. They wouldn't pay the wage for the priests. They would likely get lost in the shuffle. And for that matter, why give both of them? She had two. Why not give one and keep the second to buy a piece of bread?
Jesus knew. He understood her motive. He understood the reason for her gift. Again, Jesus was not impressed with the amounts, with the numbers, with the accounting of the coins. This woman was not giving her coins to God. She was not counting up the dollars and sense the way that we do. She gave herself. Everything she had. She held nothing back. She gave her gift to God and she gave it all. While everyone else at the temple was impressed with the numbers, Jesus was impressed with the heart.
So how about you? How much do you give? Today in our Stewardship Sunday, our pledge Sunday. Our board of Stewardship is interestd to encourage you to think about your gift to God – not just the amount. Not just the number printed on the paper that you put into the envelope. What is the condition of your heart? How much of your self have you put in to that envelope or offering plate? Have you given your all?
Let's be honest – with ourselves and with God. We haven't even come close. And I am not talking about the numbers on the bills or on the checks that you have put in. I am here talking about our hearts. We haven't even come close to giving our selves, our hearts, to God. We have held back.
These are lean economic times. I saw in the news paper that unemployment is up to 10%. That makes us nervous. That makes us feel like we have to
Stewardship sermons are always offensive to people. The pastor is going to tell me I have to give more money. Maybe we are paying him too much. Maybe we are paying too much for the school, for the teachers, to the district and synod. We might not have raised our hand either way at the voters meeting, but we still cast our ballot with our dollars.

Our currency
Every Five? Ten? Fifty? One Hundred dollars a week? Have you given enough? Could you or perhaps should you give more?
The widow in our text today gave everything. If only we could say the same...
Today is our pledge Sunday. Our Board of Stewardship has made it its intention to assist our members in planing for their gifts to God and to the Church. We do that by means of a pledge Sunday. You get a card. You fill it out and put it in an envelope. We store it away for you here at the church and send it back so you can test yourself against your pledge. Some of you will participate. Some will not. Either is fine; God does not command us to pledge. He does not even command an offering from us at all. It is up to your freedom as a Christian to decide if you will give, let alone to decide what you will give. And so we pledge. Whether you have written it down on a card to place in a box or whether you have just determined in your own heart what you will give, what have you pledged? Have you given enough?
Usually when we consider that question, we think in incremental terms. We measure out our gifts by counting coins and percentage points. We think if we give up to and including these certain amounts than we can say that we have given enough. We think that we can claim that we have done our part. Usually what we really mean, usually what we are too ashamed to say, is that I don't have to do or give any more. I have done my part, now you do yours.
Faith doesn't talk that way.
Faith doesn't count and measure. Faith doesn't weigh and compare. Faith simply receives from an empty hand and then responds with thanks. Faith says to God, “I have nothing. You have given everything.” Faith says to the neighbor, “God has given to me. Therefor I will give of myself to you.”
Notice the example of the widow. She made her way to the temple and placed her offering into the temple treasury. She was not the only one who came that day. There were others. Many bringing large gifts and ostentatiously placing them into the receptacle, wanting to attract attention for their large sums that they were giving. Jesus was not impressed with large their amounts and their outward demonstrations. The widow came with everything she had – two small copper coins. A few pennies, a she put them both in the temple treasury. Jesus took note of her gift. Because Jesus knew that while her gift was small compared to the large sums given by the wealthy, her gift was greater because she gave everything she had.
The question I would like to put before you today is this; why? Why did she give? It certainly wasn't because the temple couldn't do without her gift. After all, how much can you do with a few pennies. They weren't going to use the money to hire another priest or add a new wing. It probably wouldn't have even have paid for a loaf of the show bread that they used in their offerings. What good would her offering do for the temple? No, that wasn't why she gave. She didn't give because she thought her gift was necessary for the temple.
Also notice the amount that she gave. Mark distinctly tells us that she had 2 pennies. Not just one. She had 2. She gave them both. Surely she could have gotten by with given only one. Surely she would have had good reason to with hold one of her pennies – she needed it for her next meal. But she didn't. She was poor – had 2 pennies to her name. She went to the temple and gave both to the treasury, offered both to God. Why?
Jesus tells us why. You and I are limited in our understanding and in our knowledge. We could not determine why. But Jesus was able and he tells us. She gave her whole life.
Our translation tells us that she gave all she had to live on. This is true, but this is not the most literal translation – the text literally says that she gave “the whole of her life”. She held nothing back and she gave everything.
Oh yes, we might be tempted to say but that was easy for her. She didn't have that much to part with in the first place. I have a church worker friend who sat through a congregational budget meeting with a man who worked as an executive in a large corporation. The executive told my friend that it was easier for him to tithe since he didn't earn that much. He had a smaller check to write – True. But he also had less left over.
In a sense the man was right, however. It is easier to part with your money when you are poor. It's like Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Rich people have more stuff, more baggage that they feel compelled to carry with them. They have worked too hard collecting it all to let it slip away so quickly. You and I fall into that same category. When we consider our offering we spend too much time worrying about what we have left when we are done. God takes his cut. Uncle Sam takes his. Everything else gets divvied up between the banks and the credit card companies.
So Jesus commends the woman for her gift, meager though it was, of two small coins. She gave more than all the other because she gave from her poverty while they gave from their abundance.
The difference is faith. When you are rich it is easy to put your faith in your bank account. It is easy to believe that you are safe and secure because you have enough money to bail you out of trouble. When you are poor all you have is faith. All you have is God. All you have is God's promise that He is good. That he will feed you, that he will clothe you, that he will shelter you. This woman believed God's promise and she put her life, the whole of it, securely into God's hands. How about you?
While we might be impressed with the example of the widow, how she gave everything and held nothing back, while she completely put her life in the hands of God, lets consider the greater example of Jesus. If the widow was completely in the hands of God, Jesus was and more so.
Jesus placed himself in the hands of his father – completely and totally. Jesus was raised in the house of a carpenter. His father taught him the trade of wood work and surely Jesus could have a career of this. He could have earned a living wage and had a house and food and family. But he did not. Jesus did not come to earn a living for himself, he came to earn life for you. So instead of a house, a business, a job, Jesus lived his life completely in the hands of His Father.
Setting aside his hammer and saw and lathe Jesus took up the vocation of Messiah. Not a well paying occupation – infact not even a paying vocation. Surely there were supporters and donors who provided him with food to eat and a place to stay when he had need. But day to day, Jesus had no home, no steady income, no promise of a meal for today let alone tomorrow. Jesus was completely dependent upon the mercy and goodness of God. And God provided for him what he needed. Likewise will God provide for you.
But Jesus is far more than merely an example of faithful living and the goodness of God. Jesus is our Saviour. The reason why Jesus placed himself into God's hands and set aside all possessions and income was so that he might be the one who earns for us the forgiveness of sins.
Again, Jesus placed himself comletely and totally in God's hands. And look where that got him. It was God's will that Jesus, not only do without earthly comforts, not only suffer from hunger and thirst and cold. But that he suffer the very wrath and anger of God. Jesus felt the full force of God's anger for sin. Jesus stood in our place to face the anger of God at a world of sin so that we could be set free.
Jesus died on the cross for you.
We hold things back. We keep things for ourselves. We horde and guard. We foolishly think this hording and guarding preserves us and our life, that it provides our security. Jesus set all o these things and he suffered what we fear the most – being completely hung out to dry being completely helpless and alone. But he did it for you.
God's promise to you is this. Follow Jesus into his selflessness, follow him into his willingness to place hiimself entirely into the hands of the heavenly Father and he will care for you.

He will provide for you. He will not allow you to go hungry. He will provide for you moer than
For those times that you are selfish, for those times that you are too tied to your job, for those times that you have held back parts of your self and your income, for those times that you have



You and I are guilty of placing our confidence in our possessions and income. Jesus did not. He could not. After all, being the Messiah was not exactly a well paying vocation. Jesus was poor. As he said, he didn't even have his own bed to sleep in. He didn't own a pillow for his head, let alone a house, a horse, a business. He owned the clothes on his back and was at the mercy of others for their generosity to provide him with meals and a place to stay.
Yes, you might say, but Jesus was God. Whenever he wanted he could feed thousands with only a few loaves. Surely he could feed himself in a pinch. Yet when presented with that very opportunity, when tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread, he could have but he did not. Jesus chose to go hungry and to suffer rather than use his divine power to serve himself. Jesus was not, nor was he ever concerned to use his power, his authority, his glory for his own comfort or advantage. Jesus was always and ever a servant.
Consider also his clothing. God in his goodness has given to you and to me closets filled with clothes of many styles and colors and textures. Jesus had the clothes on his back


Amen.

Reformation Sunday 2009

Modern businesses understand the benefit of a good marketing. They will spend millions of dollars to find a way to get their product stuck in your head so that when you go to the grocery store you are remembering their commercial or singing their song. And it works. We are apparently a people easy to manipulate and their ad slogans and jingles get us to spend our money on their products influenced by their marketing.

These advertising methods and slogans, while popular today, are far from being new. Salesmen from past generations have also understood the value a good slogan. One such salesman was a man commissioned by the Romans Catholic church to sell Indulgences, certificates that were supposed to offer forgiveness and a reduced stay in purgatory.

And being a good salesman, John Tetzel came up with a slogan, a sales pitch that would make his product stick out in the minds of his customers.

“When the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

Pretty “catchy” - don't you think?

But here's the problem. Forgiveness is not for sale. It is not a commodity. It is not available for purchase. It does not come with a price tag. Forgiveness is for free.

Tetzel did a banner business. His sales were good. If he could have been a publicly traded corporation, his stock value would have soared. After all, who doesn't want forgiveness? Who doesn't want to go to heaven? For the cost of a few small coins, God's favor could be yours as well. Things were looking up. At least until an upstart monk from Wittenberg caught wind of his operation. A monk and theology professor from a nearby town, a man named Martin Luther, heard what was happening and began teaching and preaching against John Tetzel. Cutting in to his profits and diminishing his bottom line by preaching that God gives his forgiveness away free of charge, with no strings (or for that matter no coins) attached all for the sake of Jesus.

It all stands or falls on the words of our text. Doesn't it? “There is no difference,” writes Paul, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Being “made right” with God, being made righteous and have all that sin wiped away is something that God gives for free because of Jesus. Because Jesus died for it, because Jesus paid for it. Because Jesus offers this forgiveness and salvation to us free of charge because of His great love for us. Ultimately the dispute that broke out between a salesman and a theology professor was not about business and filling the coffers. It was about faith and salvation. (And so the reformation began. An event that we recall today.)

As for us, we're all the same. Aren't we? As our text says, there truly is no difference. It does not matter if you have the few coins to buy the indulgence or if you have the where-with-all to buy a thousand of them. There is no difference. We are sinners. To sin means literally to miss the mark. And not in a horseshoes or hand grenades sort of way. Getting close doesn't cut it. You are in or you are out. It's more like jumping between skyscrapers – either you clear the distance and make it to the other side or you don't and you fall to the bottom. There is no middle ground, no consolation trophy, no good, better, best. You make it and you live. You miss the target and you die.

Tetzel was selling incremental forgiveness for incremental sinners. Mostly, but not all the way bad. Mostly but not all the way forgiven. Neither one was true and worse, neither one would do you any good. Not in an all or nothing kind of world with an all or nothing kind of God. And as Paul tells us in our text there is no difference. We have all missed the mark. We have all missed the target. We are all plummeting to our demise as the just fruit for our behavior. We are all on our way to hell.

But that is what makes the second half of that phrase so valuable. It's like gold. Better... it is life itself. “We are justified by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

We are justified. We are made right. The missed target is suddenly a bulls eye. The empty space beneath our feet is suddenly rock solid. We are standing firmly placed on the merits, the works, the righteousness of Jesus himself.

All because, as our text says, Jesus was “put forward as the propitiation for our sin.” That is a phrase that bears some explaining...

Luther had it ½ right. At least at first. Before he figured it all out. He was right about God by ½ . Luther saw God as a wrathful and vengeful God. He saw God as righteous and that righteousness terrified him.

These days we have a very soft view of God's righteousness – we think of God more as a kindly old grandfather who loves us just because and overlooks our faults just because. But not Luther. Luther saw God rightly, again by ½, because he was willing to look into the Bible to see the seriousness of sin. God is pure, intensely pure. There is and can be nothing that stands before God that is anything other than perfect and pure and sinless. Those things that come before God that are less than perfect find themselves beholding to God's justice.

To put it bluntly – sinners must be punished. Justice demands that they be punished. God is perfectly just, he allows no exceptions. Sinners in the hands of an angry God find themselves precariously balanced on the brink of damnation. Luther felt God's wrath like the hot breath of his foe breathing down the back of his neck. He was terrified. He knew he couldn't escape it. He knew he was doomed.

But again, remember, Luther was only right by half. And that's where this idea of propitiation comes in.

You see, propitiation acknowledges God wrath. There is a debt that we owe to God that needs to be paid. It is a debt that is greater than we are, it is a debt that we could never pay. That we could never fully pay off. Again, it doesn't matter if you have the bank account of a billionaire or the pennies of a pauper, there is no difference we are all sinners and fall short of God's glory.) But then, in his great mercy, God the almighty and just judge does not hold us accountable for the price for our sin, instead he pays the price himself for us. God covers the debt. He pays the price in full.

Think about that for a moment. You have sinned against God. You owe God a debt. But he doesn't make you pay it. Instead, He pays the price for your sin.

And the cost is high. Sin, sin against God, sin against a just God is expensive. And that is why Luther was only ½ right. Yes, God's justice is great. God's wrath over sin is great. But God's love and his mercy are even greater. God fulfills his great wrath and his justice for sin when he paid the price in full by sending his only Son to die for that sin on the cross. Jesus completely covered the cost for your sin when he gave up his own life and offered his own blood to be shed on the cross for you.

Eventually Luther found that out. He was reading the book of Romans, he discovered that the blood of Jesus was shed for him to cover his sin and to save him from his sin. He realized that this forgiveness was his free of charge because of the grace and mercy of God.

When John Tetzel began selling forgiveness for a fee, when he began selling certificates to cover the cost of something that God handed out with no strings attached, Martin Luther challenged this great evil. God doesn't forgive us only when we can afford to pay for it. God forgives us because he is a giving God. A forgiving God. He gives us His only Son to pay the price for sin by sending him to suffer in our place and to take all of his just wrath for our sin into himself.

God's gift is amazing, incredible. God's generosity is overwhelming. Martin Luther challenged those who diminished that gift. The reformation Christians restored to us a full understanding of what God has given to us.

This day we recall the reformation, the rediscovery of the goodness and mercy and generosity of God, the restoration of the confidence in God's forgiveness for sinners. Today we are confident of the love of God, but not because we have deserved it, not because we have the ability to pay for it, the goodness and love of God is ours only for the sake of Jesus.

Amen.