“REPENTAND BELEVE”
Saint Matthew 11. 12-15
The Festival of the Reformation: [transferred] 1 November Anno Domini 2009
Fr JW Watson, pastor
REPENT AND BELIEVE!
What is the "Reformation?" What could it possibly be other than the Lord and His design; His grace. The reformation is God. God is Jesus. The reformation is Jesus. But not just an abstract, static, historical Jesus. The reformation is Jesus FOR YOU! The Lord of hosts is with you!
Red is the liturgical color for this festival day. Red is not used because it has an association with the Feast of Pentecost and the sending of the Holy Spirit on the 12 Apostles-not really. Red is far more appropriate because it is the color of blood. This is a bloody affair. You are awash in blood.
Had Adam not fallen there would have been no need for blood. Perfect man and perfect woman could have eternally communed with the Triune Lord of Love in Spirit, Truth, and Word.
But your Father Adam and your Mother Eve attempted to "bleed God," to diminish Him by ignoring Him, by disobeying Him; evil and wayward children trying to murder the only One Who truly could love them. Your first parents drilled down deep with their hardened bit of ego, self and pride, and hit the big geyser of not just bloody genocide, but of bloody humanity-cide; the bloody nostra-cide of all men of all places of all time.
But your father Cain split his brother's head open with hatred and soaked the hitherto good earth with gallons of blood. You are that rotten bitter acorn that has fallen at the feet of the twisted petrified Tree of Cain, better known as the Adam ash (ashes to ashes). You like your forbears daily split open the heads and bellies of your brothers. You hate and do not love them. You envy, covet, back-bite, and lie about them. Your hands, your hearts, your minds and your lips are covered in the blood of your brothers (torn apart not by some wild beast as Joseph's brothers told old Isaac) but torn apart by your rebellious will. In the bright polished and shiny mirror of the Law you like you just finished a shift at the slaughterhouse.
The blood of Abel cried for justice and vengeance against hate. The blood that was shed over the millennia, by man CALLS for retribution. Lost life, lost paradise, lost family demands atonement.
So too red is fitting for the blood of the martyrs. Tertullian that militant Christian theologian of the second century was correct: the blood of the witness is the seed of the Church. For while there is no merit, no merit whatsoever in the blood of any of you, of me, or of any man as man, there is infinite worth in the blood of the Saints, the life -force of the Church Catholic, for it is in reality CHRIST'S BLOOD flowing in His blood brothers. The death of every single martyr from Saint John Baptizer, to Saint Stephen, proto-martyr, to the modern Saints in Africa and China, is blessed in the eyes of the Lord. Every witness to Jesus bears witness to the cross, to His Crucifix when he or she dies IN CHRIST (first in Holy + Washing), next in holy life under the Tree, and finally in Holy Death, following His example in loving ones enemies to the bitter end and praying for their salvation.
A piece of marble does not re-form itself into a beautiful statue of King David. No, it takes an actor, an artist such as Michelangelo to re-form it by way of chisel and hammer. A bunch of hard wood from fallen trees does not re-form itself into finely crafted and sturdy furniture. No, it takes a skilled carpenter and craftsman, an artisan wielding wood rasp, saw, and plane.
You have been re- made and re-imaged, and reformed by Jesus' own acts of divine and human obedience and sculpture and woodworking on your behalf.
He practiced with perfection LAW compliance for three decades plus three. He let himself be the raw material, His body the canvas on Calvary. With every blow of the whip, the fist, and the hammer He re-formed you IN HIMSELF. With every cut and gouge and puncture and shredded wound, He performed the real woodworking which makes you all Masterpieces of His Mercy. And you the finished product have been preserved, protected, coated, varnished, and stained in, with and by His Blood!
Luther knew this. Luther knew that the life of the Church would always be a life of violence and struggle, and vicious attack, and blood. The good Doctor of Wittenberg knew that the follower of the Slain Lamb would more resemble the be-headed Baptizer than the animal encircled Francis. "He who loses his life for My sake shall find it." Those of you graced enough to die for Christ, In Christ, may lose your earthly head, but you have the Savior as your eternal and Sacred Head.
REPENT AND BELIEVE.
That is the life of a Christian. You will feed the hungry…as a result of being re-formed in the Image of Christ by His Word, by the operation of the Holy Spirit. You will clothe the naked, defend the un-born, give refuge to the weary, and forgive the un-deserving…as a result of being re-formed by the Means of Grace: Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Mass, by the Spirit bathing you in Jesus' Blood. The Bloodier you are, the redder you are IN CHRIST'S BLOOD the stronger you are when facing the infernal flames and fiery darts of the wicked one. When Satan stabs you and your conscience with a hell-fire dart, only the Blood of the Lamb extinguishes it. Stay wet, stay red.
REPENT AND BELIEVE.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost