Celebrating Reformation Day: The Affair of the Sausages
Reformation Day is traditionally celebrated on October 31st, marking the date in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed the “95 Theses” on the door of the church in Wittenburg, sparking a theological debate that continues to this day.
Luther was most influential due to the way that his ideas spurred many diverse reform movements across Europe, including that of Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich. A number of years ago I wrote about Zwingli’s initial reforms as it related to the observation of Lent:
Ironically, it was the preaching of Martin Luther that inspired one of the most famous incidents of Lenten non-observance, almost 500 years ago. In 1522, the “Affair of the Sausages” launched the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland. Huldrych Zwingli, Pastor in Zurich, attended and later defended, even blessed, a Lenten feast of meaty sausages, verboten vittles during the obligatory fast.
Zwingli’s concern was twofold: Christian liberty, and Christian sanctification. Regarding liberty, since the Scriptures did not command fasting, Zwingli felt a Christian was free to fast, or free to not fast.
Jesus himself had declared all foods to be clean: “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him” (Mark 7:18). For a church to forbid the eating of foods without biblical warrant was to play the Pharisee, to lay a burden upon a man’s conscience that God himself had not commanded. This would be in direct violation of Paul’s injunction to “let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” (Colossians 2:16).
Through the rediscovery of the Gospel, Luther and company reminded the church of the great blessings of Christian Liberty. Freed from obedience to the Law as a source of righteousness, believers are no longer bound to observe the regulations of man to attain righteousness before God. Christ alone is the true source of our righteousness before the divine throne, his obedience alone — credited to our account by faith alone — passes muster before the divine bar. As a result, our only comfort in life and death is based upon the fact that Jesus has paid for all our sins with his precious blood.
Christian liberty doesn’t mean we are free to live as libertines. It means that because Christ has satisfied God’s justice for us, we are now free to love others as he has loved us:
Christians are called to suffer as Christ suffered, that is, with the same purpose. We are called to suffer not for ourselves, but for others. When we engage in fasting in his image, but for the purpose of purifying ourselves, we invert that image. Such penitence is ultimately focused on self, not on the other.
Jesus’s passion was an act of love for us: “We love, because he first loved us.” We needn’t invent any obligation not laid upon us by the Lord, who summarized all the Law and Prophets (and ceremonies and fasts) of the Old Testament with this simple command: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” The most powerful reminders and signs and seals of that love, are the ones Jesus gave us: The preaching of Christ crucified, and the water and bread and wine of his holy sacraments.
Reformation Day is a day to remember these gospel truths with the Protestant Reformation clarified and called forth again to the forefront of the church’s consciousness.
Happy Reformation Day!
(You can read the full article at The Federalist, where it originally appeared: “Repent of Lent: How Spiritual Disciplines Can Be Bad for Your Soul.”)