By the Way: Martin Luther didn’t change the world, Jesus did

By Medicine Hat News on December 16, 2017.

I’ve been reading “Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet” by Lyndal Roper, a history professor at Oxford — one of many new books, TV programs, and interviews that have been released in the last year with it being the 500th Reformation anniversary.

What I’ve appreciated is that while we sometimes call Luther “a man who changed the world” (or at least changed 16th century Europe), Roper tries to see him not as a man acting alone. His “insight” that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus was part of his formation as a monk in the Augustinian order. His preaching against indulgences (documents sold to reduce a person or family member’s time in purgatory) gave voice to the masses of German people who had a simmering anger over the abuses of authority by the Roman Church.

And without the printing press Luther’s message would never have spread much beyond the provincial German town of Wittenberg, where Luther was a university professor. He was certainly good for the German printing business: in the first three decades of the 1500’s Luther was responsible for writing one fifth of everything printed, and between 1518 and 1525, Luther’s writings equal more pages than the 17 next prolific writers put together! Because of the portraits of the artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, Luther’s face was a household one.

Today, I think that Luther would be disturbed to know that we are spending so much time talking about him. More than most, he had an acute sense of his own sinfulness, and his utter need for God’s mercy. This led him deep into the conviction that it was only Jesus that could save him.

We live in our own time of major change: a revolution in communications (with electronic media this time around); people today are suspicious of those in positions of authority and where we are thirsty for meaning and good news in our lives. The man who changed the world was not Martin Luther — but Jesus — born in a manger, nailed to a cross, and raised from the dead.

As another Christmas approaches and we close the book on 2017 the best way to reflect on Martin Luther (or at least see his significance) is to keep our focus on Jesus. No matter what our denomination perhaps that’s the one thing we can agree on.

Rev. Jeff Decelle is pastor at Unity Lutheran Church.

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