What Can We Say? Reflections on Reformation Sunday, 2025
By Bob Kelly
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October is the month that Lutherans remember and celebrate the history of the Reformation. Given that the events we mark happened 500 years ago in Germany, does that long ago event have any insight for us today here and now?
In a confusing and unsettled time like ours, this is a nagging question. It isn’t easy to see God’s hand working in all that is going on. Is God really there? How can our faith help us move forward in the reality around us? One of Martin Luther’s central theological insights might be helpful.
That insight is that God is most often hidden. Luther said that God often works under the appearance of God’s opposite. He liked the story of Moses on Mt. Sinai wanting badly to see God. God said, “OK, you go stand in that cave.” Then God ran by and blocked Moses’ view. By the time Moses could see, all he saw was “the hind parts of God” disappearing in the distance. We want to see God’s face, but all we ever see is God’s back side.
The prime example of God’s hiddenness is the crucifixion of Jesus. What we see is someone arrested for blasphemy and sedition, tried, found guilty and executed. How can the execution of a troublesome Palestinian peasant reveal God? That’s what we claim, but how do we make sense of a crucified God?
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