Reformation Church Service

Reformation Church Service

Reformation Day is celebrated by Protestant Christians on 31 October to commemorate the reformation of the church by Martin Luther.
The 95 theses were posted on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg in 1517.

Reformation Day commemorates a young man named Martin Luther. He wrote down all his dissatisfactions with the high ecclesiastical institution. He actually wanted to provoke a discussion by posting his 95 theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. The result was a long overdue reformation!

This call resounded through the Middle Ages long before Reformation Day. Bishops and priests were supposed to tell Christians about God's love and convey a good life under God's protection. But this did not happen. Instead, they spread fear and terror of purgatory and hell. Ordinary people were supposed to serve one another in everyday life, as Jesus and his disciples had exemplified. But they couldn't. They were given the feeling that they were nothing and that their path led to nowhere.
Then came the 31 October 1517, when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses. He was tired of the fear and dread that he too felt in his limbs, that he had to be afraid of God and of people.
He claimed: "All people have free access to God in prayer. No church, no priest may interfere. And he said: No man is like God. So no one has any right to talk big before God, to insist on their great deeds before God. Or, if he doesn't have that to show, to buy God's attention with a lot of money. All nonsense.
We humans will never be like God. God knows that. And he still loves us in all our inadequacy. We just have to believe him. And then everything is okay. Then we are free, free to take care of the problems of our world. The best thing to do is to start today.
Some of the problems of 1517 no longer exist. Hardly anyone is still afraid of hell and purgatory. But many people today experience hell on earth in their daily lives.
The world is as much in need of reform today as it was in 1517.
But that is the freedom of a Christian, said Martin Luther. And since this was as necessary then as it is today, reformation is still the order of the day.

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