Today we are celebrating the festival of the Lutheran Reformation. What was the Lutheran Reformation? Well, it began on October 31, 1517. A German monk by the name of Martin Luther posted ninety-five theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Those ninety-five theses were ninety-five statements Luther wanted to debate with other Catholic theologians. Something was happening in Germany that was really bothering Luther. A man named Johann Tetzel had been sent out by the Pope to sell indulgences. Indulgences were pieces of paper sign by the Pope himself, saying that people who bought these indulgences were forgiven their sins. In fact, you could even buy those pieces of paper for other people, so that their sins were forgiven. You could even buy those pieces of paper for dead people, so that their sins would be forgiven and they could get out of purgatory and go to heaven. Tetzel even had a little advertising jingle for his indulgence selling. He would say, "As soon as the money clinks in the chest," that is, the money buying the indulgence, "As soon as the money clinks in the chest, the soul flies up to heavenly rest."

Well, people were flocking to buy these indulgences. After all, what a great deal! You could buy heaven for just a few dollars. You could buy God's love, God's forgiveness, eternal life - and all it cost was a few pieces of silver. What a deal! But what blindness! What utter blindness! To think, the Church was teaching Christian people that they could buy with gold or silver what Jesus bought with His blood! Pastors were teaching their people that, what Jesus paid for with His life on the cross, they could pay for with a few pieces of silver. What utter blindness! It really was a matter of the blind leading the blind.

Luther had grown up and lived in that blindness, that darkness his whole life. He grew up afraid of God, afraid of Jesus, afraid of sinning, afraid of dying, afraid of going to hell. He was taught that the way to make God happy, the way to make God less angry, the way to get rid of the fear in your conscience on account of your sins, the way to avoid going to hell was to do what the Church said - to go to Mass, to pray to the Virgin Mary and the saints, asking them to intercede for you, to go to confession and say the prayers the priest assigned you to make up for your sins, to not eat meat on Friday, and so forth. But still Luther found no peace. He was still stuck in blindness.

So the Church told him, "Go to the monastery. Become a monk. Shave your head, wear monk's robes, fast more, pray more, give away everything you have, stay unmarried." But those works too gave Luther no peace. He was still stuck in a terrible blindness. He was kept by the Church from seeing the light, seeing the truth. Oh, he saw the truth about himself - that he was a poor sinner who deserved God's anger and punishment. But he could not see the truth about Jesus - that Jesus, God's Son, had come down from heaven to do for Luther what he could not do - live a holy life, and suffer and die for Luther's sins on the cross. In his blindness, Luther cried out, "Lord, have mercy on me!" But he did not know where to look for mercy.

And that's what makes me think of the blind man in our text. He too could not see. He was physically blind. He had no hope that he would ever see. There was nothing he could do so that he would be able to see. He was helpless to help himself see.

But then one day, Jesus came. And though Bartimaeus was physically blind, he saw the light. He saw the light of hope. Though he could not see Jesus with the eyes in his head, he saw Jesus with the eyes of his heart. He saw Jesus as the Son of David, the Messiah, the Savior of the World, the Son of God. And in his blindness, he called out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

And the Lord did. He called the man to come up to Him. The man jumped right up and went to Jesus. Jesus said, "What do you want?" And Bartimaeus said, "Lord, I want to see." And Jesus spoke the simple words, "Go, your faith has healed you." And by those very words, Jesus gave the blind man his sight.

What that blind man saw is what Luther saw too. He saw Jesus not just as the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God, and the Savior of the world. He saw Jesus as his Savior too! In his blindness, he stopped looking to the blind to lead him. He happened to study the Scriptures, and through His Word, God gave him sight. He saw that yes, God is righteous and demands righteousness of us. He saw that yes, God threatens to punish sinners for their sins. He saw that yes, he deserved eternal death in hell for his sin. But just as little as the blind man could make himself see, so little could Luther make God not be angry on account of his sins. He saw that only Jesus, true man and true God, yes the Son of God Himself, could and did do that. He did that when He bore the sins of the world in His own body, when He suffered and died on the cross. Luther was blind, and now he could see. For years he had been crying out, "God, have mercy on me!" Now he could see, "God has had mercy on me. He has sent His Son to die for me and for my sins." How did God give Luther that sight? In the same way as He had given it to the blind man - through His Word.

Now the formerly blind man, we read, followed Jesus along the road. He was never the same man again. Neither was Luther. Once he saw the truth, once he saw Jesus as the Savior of the world and therefore as his Savior too, He was never the same man. Now that he saw the light, he could not help but want other poor, blind sinners to see the light too. He showed them the light of God's Word. He showed them Jesus, crucified for their sins, risen from the dead as the proof of the forgiveness of sins. He pointed the blind to Jesus, who gives sight to the blind - physically, and spiritually.

He did this even though he faced a situation like the poor blind man in our text. Seeing Jesus as the Son of God, and his Savior, the blind man cried out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! Have mercy on me!" And the crowd said to him, "Be quiet!" And isn't that what the Church tried to do to Luther! He kept calling out, "God has had mercy on us! You don't need to buy forgiveness. You don't need to try to make God stop being angry! You don't need to make God love you! You don't need to buy heaven with anything you do! Jesus has done everything with His blood! He has bought forgiveness for you! God is not angry with you! Would an angry God give His Son for you? Would an angry Jesus suffer for you? No, your God who loves you and forgives you has promised you eternal life! As the blind man's faith received Jesus' power to save his eyesight, so faith in Jesus receives Jesus' power to save your soul and forgive you!" And what did the Church say? "Be quiet!"

To make Luther be quiet, they excommunicated him, banned him, declared him a criminal, condemned his teaching, burned his books, and threatened his followers. They would have killed him if they could have. But Luther would not be quiet. Luther could not be quiet. Through Jesus, he who was blind now could see, and he wanted to bring other poor, blind sinners to see Jesus as their only hope, their only peace, their only source of forgiveness and heaven.

Dear friends, that's what we celebrate today. What the Lutheran Reformation finally, ultimately was, was this: a blind man saw. Jesus made Luther, a spiritually blind man, see the truth about himself and his Savior from sin. And that is finally, all our story too. We were blind. We could not see the truth about ourselves. We could not see that we were sinners who deserved God's wrath and punishment. We could not see that our sins were that bad. But God's Word with the water of Baptism, God's Word taught to us by our parents, pastors, teachers, and friends, showed us the truth. We saw ourselves as poor sinners. We saw our only hope in Jesus crucified, suffering, bleeding, dying, and risen from the dead. And now we see. We see our only hope in Jesus. We see eternal life as our own for Jesus' sake. We see forgiveness as ours through Jesus. May God help us, to whom he has given sight, to give that sight to others, so that Jesus can do for others what He did for Bartimaeus, for Luther, and for us. After all that's what Jesus does. He gives sight to the blind. Amen.