Jesus to Luther or Luther to Jesus??

Reformation Day was on October 31 and if you are like me, you had no idea that Reformation Day fell on Halloween, nor did you know that there was a Reformation Day. I spent Halloween by handing out candy to children, not mulling over how Martin Luther "discovered" God's grace. How on earth did Jesus make it without Martin Luther? Anyways, I am definitely not against traditions and to think that someone does not possess traditions is simply silly. We are shaped by our traditions, whether formal, informal, or tacit, the traditions of our churches can not and must not be ignored. See that is the point of the Reformation; not ignoring traditions which place dogma upon humans shoulders which prohibit them from understanding, comprehending, or seeing God in his glory. Therefore, Reformation Day should be spent thinking of ways to "Reform" our culture, our world, and our relationships.

Martin Luther of course did not "discover" God's grace, he discovered that some traditions, i.e. religious society was prohibiting people from experiencing God's grace. The problem in my opinion has become that we somehow believe Martin Luther had a "pure" interpretation of Scripture and understood God more than others. This again is to ignore the earlier statements that no one is free from traditions and it shapes our thinking, our lives, and how we interpret the mission of God in the world. Luther was deeply flawed and ignorant (not knowledgeable) in his worldview concerning certain groups of people. I do not ignore these aspects of his life, but I seek to understand why Luther made the comments he made.

In one such discussion, someone stated that "Luther was a product of Europe at the time he lived." This is true, because we also can not separate our culture from how we think concerning culture, but if culture is racist and I follow the culture is that satisfactory with God? Jesus was so angry at the end of his life because he knew what God's truth was and the ones to whom he had extended grace, failed to see that he was also extending to them, an amazing opportunity for life. Jesus said, "I will die on a cross to display this life". In many ways this happened with Luther, whereby he extended God's grace to a group of people to whom he believed God wanted to give life, but when they rejected his offer, he took up his humanity and derided them. Luther was an amazing person, who failed as we do, but in his failure, we must learn to live the life of Jesus.