The True Spirit Gives the True Freedom
As I planned this summer’s worship series on Luther’s Small Catechism, I did not take into consideration which weeks sermon topics would come up. So as we consider this week’s topic of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, the Holy Spirit, I think it is more than a coincidence that this fell to this particular weekend of the 4th of July. I think this is Spirit-guided, Holy Spirit guided, the Spirit, whom Jesus says, in John 16:13, “will guide us into all truth”. Eight chapters earlier, Jesus tells us, in John 8:32, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
In this almost 1,900 year old creed, we hear the apostolic teachings declare a description of the Holy Spirit in the form of four adjectives: the holy Christian church (which is said in another way, “the communion or community of saints”, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
Luther interprets this with four verbs: “calls, gathers, and enlightens, as well as keeps” the whole Christian church on earth. This understanding removes all “reason and strength” of my own and your own from the equation of belief in Jesus the Redeemer and God the Father and Creator of heaven and earth and all that this third article confesses. Nowhere within this apostolic confession or Luther’s explanation is there room, no power, for me or for you or for anyone else to come, to partake, to grow in faith and maintain that faith. Thanks be to God!
In fact, in the opening lines of Luther’s explanation, Luther emphatically states in two verbal phrases in one sobering sentence. “I believe…I cannot believe…” How much more forcefully and categorically can it be stated that all that has to do with faith, is the work of God through the Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ discussion in John 6:28-32, when asked, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God,” Jesus answered, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." In rounding out his point, Jesus states definitively, “it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.” God meets our physical needs as Creator and Suatainer, God has met our redemptive needs in Christ, and God continues to meet our spiritual needs through the power of the Holy Spirit, including our faith itself.
This Spirit-guided life, this Spirit of Truth brings us together here every Sunday, every Christmas and Easter, and every time two or more come together in Christ’s name. It is the Holy Spirit who places us into the bosom of the church, the community of saints where we hear the gospel of forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake and promises us new life now, a resurrected future and an eternal with the Triune God.
And like the disciples in today’s Gospel reading, we need no other provisions for the task of going out in faith. Thanks be to God!
We prioritize God in our lives above all. We are joined together to pray, praise and give thanks to God, to hear God’s Word in our lives through hearing preaching and the Word, here in God’s sanctuary and in our devotions and prayer life. It is here that the True Spirit, not the spirit of patriotism or man, gives us true freedom from spiritual tyranny. It is in this freedom, that comes from God our Father in heaven, that we live as Jesus did, anointed in our baptism, where "The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, because God has anointed us to preach the gospel to the poor, to be sent to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the spiritually blind, to set free those who are marginalized and oppressed”, whether in Charleston, S.C. or here in our own communities, “we are called, gathered and enlightened to proclaim the favorable time of the Lord."
We are called to be open to the movement of God around and in us. We are gathered to go out and make a difference in the world. We are enlightened to bring the True Spirit who gives true freedom to all people, everywhere. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to empower others’ lives. We are blessed to be a blessing! Thanks be to God! Amen! Amen! This is most certainly true!
