[AI translation] The subject of our reflection tonight is, according to the programme, sanctification. I know that the word "holy" is not sympathetic or attractive to modern man. We think of the saints we see in the stained-glass windows of obscure churches, the bloodless, simpleminded, dreamily pious-looking men and women who seem truly anachronistic in the hurly-burly of the 20th century. This is a different matter. The holiness to which the Word exhorts us is not some sick state of mind, not excessive religiosity, and especially not a piety that is out of touch with the world or contemptuous of it, but the most sober, practical and healthy way of life. For sanctification is nothing other than the living out of our faith in Christ, that is to say, the practical application of Christianity in everyday life. To put it simply and briefly: if you are a Christian, then be a Christian! Do you remember Question IV of Holy Communion? "Do you promise, do you receive, that in thanksgiving for this grace you will consecrate your whole life to the Lord, and already in this present world, as His redeemed, live for His glory?" To this we say again at every communion: I promise and I receive. Now, the fulfilment of this promise and vow: this is sanctification. "Be ye holy...", says our fundamental hymn. Let me say it as it is understood today: be Christians, in the original sense of the word, that is, to be Christlike, to be like Jesus.At a pastor's installation, a presbyter once said to the new pastor, "I wish that when we look at the Reverend, we would think of Jesus Christ." Well, that's it. Yes: to live, to walk, to turn, to work in this world in such a way that the people around you think of Jesus Christ. So that they can sense through you something of Jesus' goodness, his love, his peace, his purity, his serenity, his presence. If you are a factory worker: be one in a Christlike way. If you are sick: be sick in a Christlike way. If you are old, be old in a Christlike way. If you are a father or a husband, be Christlike, Christlike. Let us never forget for a moment that Christianity is not doctrine, but life. And this must be emphasised so strongly because for two thousand years Christians have always been willing to live out their Christianity in doctrinal systems, in theoretical debates. Of course, this is always easier than putting a certain way of life into practice. Today, all over the world, the followers of Jesus have to learn particularly well that Christianity is not a doctrine but a way of life, that is to say, Christianity is not a worldview among, alongside or above others, but a way of life. It is a certain way of life, equally valid in any worldview.
Christianity is not a certain ideology beside or above others. It would be very wrong for any believer in this country today to feel that he or she is a Christian ideology as opposed to a Marxist ideology. Christianity is not an ideology, it is a way of life, and therefore it is possible to be a Christian in any ideological society. The cause of Christ is not something that can be done in a study, or in the reverent silence of a Bible study, or in the sublime hours of a church service, but Christianity is something to be lived from morning to night and from night to morning, every day anew.
Christianity is a transformation of life, a victory over our sins, love lived in deeds, Christian zeal made visible, humility for all, in short, a Christian life. And if it is not, if it is only talk, if it is only theory, it does more harm to the cause of Christ than denial of God. For the Christian man who is known to go to church, but behaves selfishly towards his colleague; the Christian man who is known to pray visibly in the factory kitchen before lunch, but is known to always pull himself out of the harder jobs; the Christian man who is not ashamed even to talk to anyone about Christ, but is of an incompatible, quarrelsome nature; who prays beautifully in Bible class, and is able to scold an absent brother; who sings devoutly here in church, and can tolerate his wife at home, hunched over on her second shift, doing the heavy washing alone - such a Christian man deceives himself about his own Christianity, and discourages others from the cause of Christ. The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power, that is, in movement, in action... Christianity is not doctrine, not theory, not science, but life. And it is Christian life. A sanctified life. And how good that it is! Therefore, it can never be prevented, it can never be forbidden or made impossible. Who can prevent me from loving him, who can forbid me to forgive him, or to have joy and peace? It is not always possible to speak, but it is always and everywhere possible to behave as a Christian, to live as a Christian. In the factory even more than in the church. Between enemies even more than between brothers and sisters. In trouble even more than in prosperity. Can you feel yet what a concrete practical thing is what we call sanctification? How truly this is the most necessary thing our verb says: "Be ye holy." That is, that our lives, which profess Christianity only in theory, may be truly Christian.
"Be ye holy", says the apostle, and adds, "in all your life"! And here again the word "full" is very emphatic. Not only in one or another aspect of life be holy, be Christlike, but "in your whole life". It is a terrible misery that we do not allow Jesus to be Lord in all areas of our lives, but only in certain areas. We have holy and unholy occupations. One of the most disastrous divisions that has ever occurred in the life of Christianity has been the separation between the sacred and the secular. We have divided life into sacred and secular. We have sacred and secular vocations, sacred and secular days, sacred and secular buildings, sacred and secular duties. We think that by doing this we are preserving both, but when we have done this, we have impoverished both. The secular element has become material, and the sacred element ethereal, ethereal, airy, in other words empty and insubstantial. A French writer says: Do you know what makes man the most unhappy of all creatures? That he has one foot in the finite world and one foot in the infinite world, and is consumed between the two. Yes, this limping in both directions cannot be done for long. You can't live a two-centered life for long.
But what are we to do once this is the reality of life? It is an undeniable fact: there are holidays and there are weekdays, there are churches and factories, one with organs and one with machines. In one there is devotion, calm, prayer, in the other sweaty work, feverish pace. There is worship and there is laughter, there is eating and drinking at the Lord's table, and there is eating and drinking at the supper table. The same Christian man revolves in one world and in the other. And that's not a problem, it's quite natural, it's just important that the principle that determines our actions and our participation in it always remains the same, even in different situations: 'be holy in all your life'! Or, as the Apostle Paul writes in another verse, "Therefore, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31). Our Bible reading is worthless if we then fold Jesus into our Bible like a pressed flower and wake up without him. Our prayers are worthless if we close our communion with God along with the prayer. This is the division against which the Scripture warns: 'be holy in all your lives'!
"Work all things to the glory of God". Let me try to illustrate this with an example. Someone once asked a girl who sews: does she not tire of sewing day after day? Oh, no, she said, "it's my wedding dress. Those stitches were no longer ordinary stitches, because they were connected with something big. Why should not our dull tasks, our dull, sweaty hours, or our merry amusements and pleasures be connected with something even greater: the glory of God? Thus the sacred and profane become one, the ordinary is no longer ordinary, but shines with meaning and divine purpose. One can serve God by making shoe uppers or keeping boring accounts. It is possible to mop floors and wash dishes in a way that makes the presence of Jesus practical, real. Even the most profane and material work can be done with the same sense and smell of holiness as the minister's distribution of communion. Be holy in all your life. It means that I am here today as a server in this shop, as a worker in this workshop, as a teacher or student in this school, as a housewife in this kitchen, so that I may be in this position an embodiment of the Spirit of Christ. It is His will, His spirit that I must put into practice in my dealings with things and people. This is sanctification!
"Be ye holy!" says the apostle. But this does not mean that you should now try to summon up all your strength, exert yourself, and smile kindly, respond gently, speak loving words even when the instincts within you protest against it. If you want to become a saint yourself, your most honourable intentions will fail and become nothing but hypocrisy. To become a saint is to look to the only saint, Jesus, to love him, to embrace him. When we know that we have become committed to God for a lifetime for the mercy of our sinful lives. If the power of the forgiveness of sins in Christ has taken hold of us and drawn us into a life fellowship with God. So it is not by your works that you become holy, holy living, but by the work of Christ in you and through you.
Christ Himself - not His example, but His living person - is for us the holy life. It is not a question of imitating Jesus, but of having Jesus living in us, of having Jesus Himself flowing out in us through His Spirit! It is not about striving for as many good works and as varied services as possible, but about striving for as full obedience as possible!
So let us continue our worship after the Amen, after the blessing, beyond the church doors, so that whatever we eat, whatever we drink, whatever we do, we do it all to the glory of God!
Amen
Date: 29 October 1961 (Kelenföld).
Lesson
1Pt 1,13-19