ReformationUCC.org

Thoughout the history of the Christian mission, the coming of new peoples to Christ brought both the immediate confrontation with false gods, but also the ongoing sanctification and renewal of cultures formerly alienated from Jesus Christ.

Protestants of the fundamentalist sects would consider John Wesley’s stratagem of inaugurating Friday evening “Midnight Prayer Meetings” to give his converts an alternative to their formerly frequented ale houses and “pubs” a stroke of evangelistic genius. When it comes to the Christian holidays emerging from the historic church however, somehow our ancestors in the faith who gave their converts Christian alternatives to their former festivals of Samhain (now “All Saints Eve or Day”) and Saturnalia ( “Christmas”*), do not fare so well in the estimation of modern fundamentalists. Instead of having evangelistic genius attributed to them, they are merely written off as bumbling compromisers as their critics head out the door to observe such obviously “biblical” observances as “Labor Day”, “Valentine’s Day”, and “Memorial Day” complete with those uniquely American sacraments otherwise known in this author’s youth as “Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet!” Undoubtedly the sacraments these days are not so wholesome but equally devoid of Christian substance.

Not content to appease moderns who might second guess them, the Anglican reformers retained All Saints Day and Christmas. The Continental reformers retained the so-called “Evangelical Feasts” which included Christmas and these feasts became seasons for observing Holy Communion with the addition of a Holy Communion observed in October as well. In retaining holidays with a godly purpose, they followed a good example of course - Jesus - who felt no need to avoid the “man made” festival of “Chanukkah” or the “Feast of Dedication” (John 10:22-39). Like Jesus, they used such occasions to promote God’s Truth.

In the midst of the liturgical revolution that was the Reformation, yet another holiday came into being one All Saints’ Eve - Reformation Day. And it was introduced for the same reasons as previous Christian festivals, i.e. the sanctification of the converts.

The converts in this case were not former pagans from the countryside escaping the Lord of Death and other Celtic ghosts, but those who were newly converted nonetheless and escaping their own haunts. Reformation Day commemorated that first Eve of All Saints when Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenburg Cathedral door so that the newly converted might not be plagued by their own tyrannical ghosts created by Christendom gone sour.

Like other new converts who had to be weaned from their past excesses and addictions, Reformation Day served a new generation of converts who were in need of being weaned from a presumptuous licentiousness that sought to buy salvation on the one hand or weaned from a slavish craven obedience into the joyful adoption to sonship that belongs to God’s children through grace and by faith.

Today, Reformation Day is observed by many confessional Lutherans and other Protestant Christians who still recognize the importance of Luther’s act. It is the most uniquely Protestant of Holidays and deserves a broader celebration amongst Christians everywhere, not as another dead tradition but a genuine celebration.

Why?

The people of our culture - not to mention the peoples yet unreached - still desperately needs to be “converted”.

As in Luther’s day (or St. Patrick’s for that matter) the Bible is again an alien book in the West. It is no laughing matter that resurgent interest in Samhain, witchcraft and other similar “spiritualities” are captivating to a new generation while the Bible is considered “irrelevant” and Christianity is perceived as only “traditionalism” and “bondage”.

Luther’s act - and the joy behind Reformation Day - signal the reality that Jesus Christ’s coming, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection set people genuinely free from our bondage to sin, death, and satan. And this message of transforming joy is documented both sufficiently and authoritatively in the Holy Scriptures.

Paganism is neither friendly nor innocuous. It enslaves and torments its victims in this life and sends them into eternity persistent in their rebellion against the living God. The Bible, far from “repressing” humankind, has instead civilized us. Wherever the Bible and the Good News it heralds has gone, people have been set free. Forgiveness and the rule of law replace the blood feud. Murderous tribes like the Waodani (once known to us as the “Auca” tribe) where the chief cause of death was homicide are given new life, hope, and peace. They are no longer shot on sight by neighboring peoples for fear they will erupt in murderous violence. And now their people enter eternity with making the good confession that Jesus Christ’s victory over sin and death has effectually included them as well!

Reformation Day should be commemorated as that most Protestant of Holidays because it reminds us of the goal for which the festivals of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection of our Lord, and the descent of the Holy Spirit bring us: the setting free of the children of God in this life by grace through faith in preparation for the next life, and our continual need of self-examination according to God’s Word and the proclamation of God’s free grace in the light of our deep sinfulness. Reformation Day, in summary, should be retained to remind us of what we ourselves must be continually converted from: estrangement from God the Father, estrangement from God’s grace in Jesus Christ, and estrangement from God’s life giving Word in Scripture.

Won’t you celebrate Reformation Day with us?

Image from Luther, the movie.

*For an alternative view that links the date of Christmas not to Saturnalia but to calculations of the possible time of our Lord’s birth, visit Touchstone Magazine. The article concludes the reverse in fact - that it was a paganization to stop the growing influence of Christianity:

Thus, December 25th as the date of the Christ’s birth appears to owe nothing whatsoever to pagan influences upon the practice of the Church during or after Constantine’s time. It is wholly unlikely to have been the actual date of Christ’s birth, but it arose entirely from the efforts of early Latin Christians to determine the historical date of Christ’s death.

And the pagan feast which the Emperor Aurelian instituted on that date in the year 274 was not only an effort to use the winter solstice to make a political statement, but also almost certainly an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already of importance to Roman Christians. The Christians, in turn, could at a later date re-appropriate the pagan “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” to refer, on the occasion of the birth of Christ, to the rising of the “Sun of Salvation” or the “Sun of Justice.”

 

Updated 11/14/2007