Reformation and Revival

 At the end of October our church celebrated Reformation Day.  I participated in it, but frankly with mixed feelings.  I am a follower of church history and can tell you why the Reformation was needed, in fact, why it was necessary, set in motion by the plan and purposes of God Himself.  But history is first and foremost factual, and facts need to be presented understandably if they are to be understood. I was manning the 95 Theses booth with a dog eared and stained reproduction of Luther's invitation to debate laid out on the table, looking much the way you might have imagined it being talked about and handed from person to person in the common rooms of inns and taverns.  What I found was that  many people had never heard of the Reformation, or Martin Luther, or the 95 Theses.  A whole section of their spiritual heritage and foundation had never been poured.  And of those that had some inkling of what those things referred to, no one had ever read the 95 Theses.  They had no opinion on them because they had no idea of what their content was.

The kids who came up to the table just wanted to know what they had to do to get a piece of candy.  At least they cut to the chase quicker than the adults.  But the fact of the matter is that you can't make the Reformation understandable by pinning the 95 theses on the wall while blindfolded, or fishing in a pond for fish cutouts that have the Solas of the Reformation written on them.  The bottom line was candy, not understanding.  Frankly I'm not sure you could ever make the Reformation anything but boring except to those with a scholarly or historical bent.  And that leads me back to what I was thinking about as I sat at the table and answered questions about Martin Luther, or his theses.  What is the difference between Reformation and Revival, and what does the church need?

Questions, questions, questions, and no complete answers seem to stand up and challenge them.  While I do not dispute the importance of the Reformation in the life of the church, I do wonder about its legacy, what we have made it to be.  At its hearts it was about restoring the centrality of Jesus to the church, retelling with power the story of grace received by faith, of restoring the liberty won for each believer at the cross, and making the very word of God available to each and every follower of Jesus.  What we have fashioned it into, in my thinking however, is the hammering out of each point of doctrine, finely honing it and expounding it so that a strong wall against error in thinking and behaving is hedged around us.  In my mind that's been tried once by a man named Moses who received the words of God on a mountain, written by the very finger of God.  And those that came after compiled instructions and elucidations on what those words meant, how they were to be interpreted, how they were to be lived.  And the law killed those who tried to serve it.  I am not saying that this is the rule, but it has proved itself time and time again, those that follow strict reformed teaching end up turning into grumpy old men.  Their life and joy is drained out of their soul.

That's why I wondered about Revival, rather than Reformation.  Revival seems solely to be the work of God's spirit, changing things from inside the human heart.  And maybe that is why we are so suspect of it.  We can never control the human heart, it is unpredictable, it it spontaneous, it appears to act without reason or forethought.  It moves on the wind of the Spirit, turning wherever the Spirit wills.  Two final scriptural thoughts.  First, Job 34:14  "If He (God) should determine to do so, if He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust."  And Psalm 104:29. "You hide Your face, they are dismayed; You take away Your spirit, they expire and return to their dust.  You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the ground."  Reformation and Revival....God removes His spirit and we die, He breathes and we are renewed.  God removes doctrine and dogma and what happens?  Interesting thought at least.

Revival

Yesterday at church some of the praise songs and part of the sermon was devoted to the concept of revival and I found myself thinking of that quote from the famous philosopher, Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride "You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means."  And I found that I could not really do a credible job of defining it.  It must have something to do with the Latin verb "to live" and the "re" implies somehow a revitalization, a restoration, a reinvigorating, perhaps a new birth?  But it is a biblical concept or something we have cobbled together along the way to deal with the reality of a holy God and our own seeming lack of spiritual maturity.  Why do we pray for it in our churches week after week?  What do we expect it to look like if and when it comes?  Is it something God expects us to do for ourselves or are we looking for an easy out of self discipline by waiting for God to step in and do it?  Again I concludes that it does not mean what we think it means. 

I can't find the word "revival" in my concordance, and there are probably less than 20 places where "revive" is used depending upon the translation.  And when I read those verses, mostly in the Psalms, I get the sense of God lifting a heaviness or a weariness, almost a feeling of hopelessness from the psalmist who finds himself overcome by life and all it brings his way.  And so he cries out to God for relief, for the ability to lie down believing that tomorrow could be different, and wake up knowing that even if it is not that the day will not be lived outside of the grace of God.  And somehow that is enough to put one foot in front of the other and continue the journey faithfully.  That prayer for revival seems to me to deal more with consistently living each day by the grace of God, being faithful where we are able, and being aware that the love of God still holds us even when we fall short.  It is not a flash-in-the-pan that brings emotional response and spiritual blessing and complete change over night.  I don't have a good conclusion for this discussion, I only know that I have become more acutely aware of the baggage I have inherited in my own spiritual journey and that somehow the church has made the whole Christian life a lot more complicated that I think it was originally meant to be. If true revival came as the evangelical church seems to define it you would expect to see a lasting effect, something transforming, a kingdom of God on earth moment, but things seem to go on pretty much the same way they have always gone on.  I think true revival only comes on that final day when all that is dead is made alive again and death is finally swallowed up forever in victory.