“Singing the Faith: A Mighty Fortress”
Psalm 46

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Reformation Sunday—October 30, 2016

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

This morning we continue our fall sermon series “Singing the Faith,” looking at the background and meaning of favorite hymns.  Today, for our observance of Reformation Sunday, we consider the most famous hymn of the great Reformer, Martin Luther: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

During his own lifetime, Martin Luther was famous for many things.  Of course, next year we will celebrate the 500th Anniversary of the religious Reformation he began, by nailing his 95 Theses to door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517.  He was also the first to really understand the power of the recently invented printing press, and he became history’s first #1 best-selling author, with his sermons, books and pamphlets sold by the millions all across Europe.  He translated the entire Bible into German, and is considered the father of the German language.  And in addition to a religious reformation, he pioneered many great social and educational reforms.  In many ways, Martin Luther is sort of like the George Washington of Germany, their most famous founding father.

But, in his day, what Martin Luther was probably best known for among the common people was his hymns and music.  He wrote, “I have compiled these hymns so that the holy Gospel, which now by the grace of God has risen anew, may be noisily spread abroad.”  And that’s exactly what happened.  Like a star whose hit songs rise to the top of the charts, or a video that goes viral, Luther’s music and hymns were a phenomenon, “noisily spread abroad” everywhere. 

All across Europe, not only in the churches, but in the streets and town squares, schools, shops, fields, barns, pubs, and especially in the homes of the common people, everyone, everywhere had Luther’s new songs on their lips.  Long before Elvis or Bono, Adele or Beyoncé, there was the very FIRST international popular music star, who was so well-known that he only needed one name: LUTHER.  As traveling troubadours went from town to town and got to the part of the show where they asked for requests, what everyone always wanted to hear were the latest hits by the monk from Wittenberg.

Martin Luther had a natural gift for music and studied music as a child.  To earn his way through school, he was a street performer, strumming his lute and singing on the streets of Eisenach, as passersby threw coins into his cap.  His musical training gave him what today would be considered the equivalent of a master’s degree in church music.  But, he loved all types of music, not just church music, and he wrote, “Anyone who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God must be a clodhopper indeed.”

When Luther became a monk, music became a big part of his daily routine, singing seven times a day for the traditional prayer services of monastic life.  But, there was something missing.  As beautiful as it was, for the most part the people didn’t sing, only the monks and choirs.  And the liturgy, hymns, and even the Bible readings, were in Latin, which the common people couldn’t even understand.

We know from descriptions of the earliest Christian worship that the first Christians sang together, as Paul says in Ephesians, “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.”  But, during the Middle Ages—perhaps because many people could not read; perhaps because the church stuck with the Latin language, which most could not understand; perhaps because the great cathedrals became so large that keeping the congregation singing together was difficult—eventually singing by the common people in worship died out.  They still sang gustily at home and in other settings, but, for the most part, they didn’t sing in church.

When it came to reforming Christian worship, Luther was “conservative,” conserving the best from the past, and he actually changed very little about the order of the service.  He kept most of the beautiful ancient liturgy, which we still use today, but he translated it from Latin into the language of the people.  There was, however, a VERY big change which Luther introduced that completely transformed Christian worship, not just for Lutherans, but for all Christians everywhere: he brought back congregational singing, and also translated it into the language of the common people.

That is why the Lutheran Church is often called “the singing church.”  Luther himself wrote 37 hymns, including all of the hymns in our service today, and he published three hymnals.  Congregational singing is now so much a beloved part of Christian worship, it’s hard to imagine that it was new concept, which Luther had to reintroduce to the Church. 

Luther would think it very odd and unfortunate that some churches today are once again moving away from congregational singing back to the medieval idea of a performance by a small group, with the congregation not so much participating but observing, like watching a show rather than communal worship.  To Luther that would be a big step backward.  For, he often said it was the combination of the music and the words sung by the individual that was the greatest source of strength, comfort, and joy.  He wrote, “Music is to be praised as second only to the Word of God.”

Luther showed his musical expertise by not only writing the words but also composing the tune for his most famous hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”  This was also his personal favorite hymn.  When things were going wrong, or he was going through one of his frequent struggles with depression, singing this song would lift his spirits and cheer him up.  Many times when he and his friend, and fellow reformer, Philipp Melancthon would receive some bad news, he would say in response, “Come, Phillip, let us sing the forty-sixth psalm.”

That is the Scripture on which Luther based this hymn, the forty-sixth psalm, which we read earlier in our service.  “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear . . . the God of Jacob is our fortress.” 

After Luther appeared before the Emperor and boldly proclaimed, “I cannot, I shall not, I will not recant,” he was a wanted man with a reward on his head, to be burned at the stake for supposed heresy.  A German prince protected him by hiding him for months in the Wartburg Castle.  It was probably there, protected in that mighty castle, that he first starting thinking of the words to “A Mighty Fortress . . .” or, as another English translation puts it, “A Strong Castle Is Our God.”

But, Luther did not always see God as his strong castle, his mighty fortress, his refuge and strength. Luther first saw God only as an angry judge who would throw him into hell for all eternity. Even becoming a monk did not bring him peace, for he feared he had not done enough, as the Scriptures declare, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. . .  There is no one righteous, not even one. . .  the wages of sin is death.” 

As a monk Luther actually drifted farther away from God, because he couldn’t understand how a just and loving God could demand, to get into heaven, nothing less than perfection, which is impossible for any human to ever achieve.  This made him despondent and angry at God.  As he wrote in another hymn, “Daily deeper still I fell, my life became a living hell.”

But, then, Luther was assigned to teach classes on a book that was for most people in the Middle Ages a closed book, a book that even he as a monk had read very little: the Bible.  As he read and studied and taught the Bible more and more, he rediscovered for the whole world a wonderful treasure in its pages, which the Church had forgotten.  The Good News that peace and forgiveness have already been earned for us through the life, death, and resurrection of God’s Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. 

“The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord”; “By grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works”; “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  That is the forgotten treasure which Luther rediscovered that prompted him to post his 95 Theses, the Good News that salvation is not earned by our good works, but is a free gift of God.  Full forgiveness of all your sins was earned for you by Christ, and is freely given by God to you, and all who trust in Christ for salvation. 

The rediscovery of this Good News finally brought Luther peace in his heart and soul, but not in his life.  Early in the Reformation he was summoned before the Emperor. All of Luther’s friends warned him not to go, sure that if he went he would be put to death, burned at the stake as a heretic.  Luther replied, “Even if there are more devils on the rooftops than shingles, I will still go . . . and defend the truth of God’s Word.”

Though devils all the world should fill,

All eager to devour us,

We tremble not, we fear no ill,

They shall not overpower us.

Luther eventually left the monastery, married, and had children, but that too brought sorrow as well as joy.  For, some years later he held in his arms his dying child, Magdalena. With tears flowing, he said, “Oh, how it hurts so much to lose my little Maggie. But God wants her and she is his. Therefore I release her into the hands of our gracious and loving God.”

And take they our life,

Goods, fame, child, and wife,

Though these all be gone,

Our victory has been won.

At the end of his life, Luther suffered severe chest pains and knew he was approaching death. He prayed, “O, my God, the pain is so severe, but I am ready to come home to you, Father.” Shortly before his death he was asked, “Brother Martin, are you willing to die in that faith which you have proclaimed?” He rallied his strength and replied with gusto, “Yes, yes!” A little later he fell asleep in the Lord.

With might of ours can naught be done . . .

But for us fights the valiant One . . .

He helps us free from every need . . .

The kingdom ours remaineth.

The hymn “A Mighty Fortress” was written during one particularly bad time.  Wittenberg was quarantined for months because of the Plague.  Luther refused to leave; he insisted on staying with his people, to comfort the dying and bury the dead.  He even turned his family’s home into a hospital.  We don’t know whether it was the Plague he contracted, but he became deathly ill.  He wrote his friend Melanchthon, “I spent more than a week in death and hell. My entire body was in pain, and I still tremble. . . .  But God had mercy on me and pulled me from the inferno.”  It was during this terrible time that he completed the hymn he had first thought of some years before, while hiding in the Wartburg Castle, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

The original psalm says that even though the world itself gives way, even though everything in your life falls apart, look to the Lord.  “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear . . .  The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. . .  Be still, and know that I am God.”  Find comfort, and hope, and the strength to keep going, in the Lord, and his promises of blessings in this life, and eternal peace in the life to come.  When all seems lost and hopeless, when you suffer grief and sorrow, when your life is in turmoil, rely on the Lord and his Word and promises.

A mighty Fortress is our God,

A trusty shield and weapon . . .

We tremble not, we fear no ill . . .

The kingdom ours remaineth.