Claps of thunder split the clouds, and bolts of lightning burst the skies. A rainstorm brewed above the German landscape. It was a typical afternoon shower, the kind that cools the soil after the sun has baked it. But for young Martin Luther, the experience was explosive and terrifying.
"The storm will kill me!" he screamed, stumbling to the ground. Waves of rain scourged him in the soggy pasture. His life was full of storms, showers of conviction by day and tempests of depression by night. Swirling clouds of guilt and shame hung above his head, and no matter how fast he ran, no matter how far he went, he could never escape the fact that he was a raw and weary sinner, running away from a good and righteous God. Luther questioned everything. Why am I on this earth? What will I do with my life? Is there a plan for me? After receiving a master of arts degree in Erfurt, Germany, he planned to follow his father's wishes and study law. He had the mechanics of a fine lawyer — a sharp mind, an honest heart and a strong command of grammar, rhetoric and Aristotelian logic. Yet Luther's heavenly Father had other plans for him — plans of transformation, education and reformation.
Perhaps God will send the storm away if I swear an oath to him, Luther thought. I would rather be alive and oath-bound than dead and hell-bound! Against the roar of the wind, Luther yelled, "I will become a monk!" It was an oath that would change his life forever.
Wartburg Castle, Eisenach, Germany, 1996
The steps of Luther led us along a windy path. He was a man on the move — running for his life, fleeing affliction, kidnapped by his friends. My father and I followed him from Eisleben where he was born, to Eisenach and Erfurt where he studied, to Wittenberg where he taught, and finally to the Wartburg Castle where he translated the Greek New Testament into the German vernacular.
Bats, bats, bats! Soaring, swooping and screeching. The annoying vampires of the night flew tirelessly outside our hotel window, untouched by the weight of gravity and unbound by the laws of civilization. Sleep was certainly out of the question, and I put a pillow over my head, praying for a little peace and quiet. "God, give me a break from the bats!"
Luther knew these bats. They tormented him, too, while he was here. Late at night as he wrote by the light of a candle, the little demons distracted him from the work of the Lord. My father and I had come to the Wartburg Castle of our own volition, but Luther had been kidnapped by his friend, Frederick III of Saxony, and brought to this place against his will for protection.
And did he ever need it! Nailing his ninety-five theses to the church door in Wittenberg had struck a nerve, shall we say, with the Catholic authorities. He was excommunicated by the pope and outlawed by the emperor, and many would have liked to see him burn for his beliefs. Luther insisted on sola fides (faith alone), sola gratia (grace alone) and sola scriptura (Scripture alone) — doctrines that invited harsh criticism from those who were endorsing indulgences and merit-based salvific teachings. For these reasons, he sat in seclusion from May 1521 until March 1522, far from the dangers of cruelty, torture and death.
Wartburg Castle is nestled in the heart of the Thuringian Forest. Its mas sive walls tower over the steeples of Eisenach, a small German town where the great musician Johann Sebastian Bach was born and the great novelist Fritz Reuter died. The castle hill was fortified as early as 1067. Over the next two hundred years, it was embellished and frequented by poets, musicians and artists. It became the seat of a lively court, a place of enjoyment with a festive atmosphere of entertainment and relaxation.
Climbing its hill, however, is anything but relaxing. Up and up we went, legs cramping, backs bending, lungs heaving. Never had I wished more ardently that lungs were filled with helium instead of oxygen! My faithful backpack, which I have taken on almost all my pilgrimages, bore heavily on my shoulders, and were it not for Luther's stay at this castle, I might have been tempted to chuck it all and take a taxi to the train station.
But Luther did stay here. He grew a beard, wore a cloak and dagger, went on hunts and even called himself Junker Jörg (Knight George). The walls of the castle protected him against the threats of the world and perhaps even inspired the words of his most famous hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." For Luther, the lofty ledges of Wartburg reminded him that God is, as the psalmist writes, "my rock, my fortress and my deliverer" (Psalm 18:2).
No one needed delivering more than Luther. No one needed rescuing more than he. And like a caterpillar protected by a stone cocoon, Luther's words became his wings — words that enabled him to carry the translated gospel throughout the German geography.
Vivienne Hull once wrote, "Unlike mere travel, a pilgrimage is a journey into the landscape of the soul."1 As the road to Wartburg Castle went upward, my thoughts went inward and I began to examine the landscape of my own soul. I questioned my Christianity. What if the path before me dissolved and I was left searching for God in the gravel? What if I woke up one morning and everything I'd placed my hope in had been proved false? Was I on track with God? Could I be confident in my salvation? Deep contemplation accompanied me up the 1,230 feet of that castle cliff, and when I arrived at the summit, I reached the conclusion that perhaps the beauty of faith lies in the blindness of life.
Article continues below
A medieval drawbridge connects the pilgrim to Wartburg Castle. It provides the only access to the castle and hasn't changed in appearance since the time of Luther. We crossed its planks, much like Luther did, except that he was blindfolded, probably bound and secretly smuggled in a buggy. Because of Luther's residency here, many pilgrims have climbed this mountain and carved their names into the sides of the castle; some of the inscriptions date back to the 1600s.
Inside the fortress is a small courtyard. The architecture of the surrounding buildings and houses reflects the Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance eras. Many of them have been perfectly preserved and restored, including an ancient well. During the 1530s and 1540s, the dungeon of the south tower held a large number of Anabaptists, including Fritz Erbe, who carved his signature into the prison wall with the bone of his finger.
But we had not come primarily to the Wartburg Castle for Anabaptists or architecture. We came to set our eyes on Luther's study, the room where he spent many lonely days incognito, translating the Bible. I stood at the entrance of the musty room, still catching my breath from the long hike up the hill. Its layout is simple, no more than ten feet by twenty feet. On the left side of the room a small window provides a spectacular view of the German mountains. By day Luther must have loved this view, but at night the window was ravished by bats as they whispered sweet nothings of evil against the pane.
On the floor next to the window lies a bleached whale vertebra that Luther used as a sitting stool. It rises only about a foot from the floor and must have been about as comfortable as it sounds. Above it stands a medieval working desk that resembles the original one Luther used. On the other side of the room, a large green heater fills the space. Unfortunately, my eye had to travel farther than my foot, as red laser beams prevent the pilgrim from actually entering the room.
Article continues below
I stood at its entrance, gazing at the pictures of Luther hanging above the desk. Oh that these wooden walls could talk! I would ask them many things. I would want to know the faces they'd seen and the stories they'd heard, but primarily I would ask them about the epic battle between Luther and the devil that took place within their dark walls.
The year was 1522. Luther dipped his pen into the ink. Eleven weeks had passed since he began translating the Bible, and the project was almost complete. Although his work would enrage the papacy and infuriate the devil, at least the peasant would be able to read the Scriptures like the priest. A shadow slithered across the room. It was a familiar shadow, a shadow that had tormented him since he was a child. "I know I am a sinner!" Luther screamed. "Leave me alone!"
The demon snarled. "You are worse than that, Luther. Your mouth is filthy and your work is useless. God could never use a creature like you."
Luther knew his warts. He cursed like a sailor, drank like a fish, and if he ever owned his temper, it did not take him long to lose it.
Bats smashed against the window. "You will die in this castle," screamed the shadow.
Luther had heard enough. The trembling reformer grabbed a well of ink and hurled it at the devil. It soared across the room and exploded against the wall, splattering ink everywhere. Knight George had slayed his dragon, and the creature disappeared into the darkness.
Luther's original ink stain has long since vanished. Many fingers have faded the wall behind the heater, and some pilgrims have even taken pieces of it as relics. But every year someone, perhaps a castle custodian, secretly splashes the wall with a fresh coat of ink in hopes of keeping Luther's legacy alive.
I walked away from the entrance of the study not at all excited about the long descent down to the base of the hill, but eager to engage my own demons and, in so doing, to become a greater threat to the kingdom of Satan. Luther's hymn declares:
And though this world with devils filled
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
We tremble not for him,
His rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.
My pilgrimage to Wartburg Castle taught me many things. It taught me the importance of packing lightly. It taught me that great friction usually precedes great movement. But above all, it taught me that being a Christian is like being a sirloin — sometimes God's got to marinate us. In general, I don't eat a lot of steak (seminary and poverty tend to go hand in hand), but I do know that my favorite steaks are marinated and filled with flavor before they're cooked.
Article continues below
Pilgrimage is a marinating process. The Bible is bursting with people who traveled to places of retreat where God seasoned and tenderized them, preparing them to take the next step of the journey. Moses marinated in the desert for forty years before leading the Israelites to the Promised Land. The apostle Paul marinated in the Arabian desert for three years before becoming the missionary of the millennium. Even Jesus spent forty days and nights marinating in the wilderness, dueling with the devil before beginning his public ministry.
There are seasons of life in which God pulls us into the stillness. Our lives are saturated with speed and we often get into the habit of working so hard, playing so much and praying so little that we become callous to our consciences. It is then that God takes us somewhere sacred and marinates us. God seasoned Luther in a castle, but others go on weekend retreats, extended job assignments or summer vacations. Some find marinating in outdoor explorations like hiking and camping, but wherever God takes us to marinate, whether it is across the sea or across the street, we can be confident that he has purpose for us there. Pilgrimage is a journey into the landscape of the soul, and when we return, we will be spiritually seasoned and refreshed for service in the kingdom of God.
Jesus, the Reformer
Pilgrimage is not only our journey to God, it is also God's journey to us. No matter how many steps we take to find him, he has already taken a thousand to us. And for a brief moment in history, Jesus Christ, the Creator, marinated with humanity.
I once heard a college English major talk about the incarnation. I don't remember his name, but I'll never forget his words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And God took that precious Word, removed its heavenly italics, froze it in human font, and plunged it from its paragraph in paradise into the simple sentence of an earthly stable. And the Word became flesh."
Why did Christ take the ultimate plunge? What motivated his pilgrimage? Could it be that Jesus sought to reform us? The Jews had become so legalistic in dealing with the law of God that they missed the entire reason God had given it to them. From the beginning God worked to separate a people for himself, and Jesus reminded his audience that it was their motives that isolated them from other cultures, not just their actions.
Article continues below
Jesus came to reform the heart of his creatures because humans were always the apple of God's eye. Our spiritual journey did not begin at our conception, birth, conversion or baptism. It began long ago, before computers, automobiles and airplanes. Before nations were established and cities constructed. Before oceans were introduced to shores. Before stars swirled through galaxies. Even before the ticking of time itself, when nothing covered everything, there was God, thinking of us.
I met my wife, Rebecca, in our college cafeteria. The sky outside was blue. She was wearing pink. And in that moment of providential appointment, as I gazed over the glass of chocolate milk sitting on my tray, I discovered in her eyes the meaning behind all those sappy love songs: "Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars." When I came back down to earth, I realized that my humpty-dumpty heart had fallen for her like the great walls of Jericho, and I never wanted the pieces to be glued together without her. It was a love that began at first sight.
But God's love is different. God loved us before we ever had eyes to see him, ears to hear him or lips to praise him. He took hold of us before we could even hold a pacifier. While we were crying in our cribs, Christ entertained us with his love. We agree with St. Anselm, "Lord my God, you have formed and reformed me."3
The beloved disciple John, while he was marinating on the island of Patmos, wrote that the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). In other words, Christ was cemented to the cross before the world began turning on its axis. The blueprints for the crucifixion were already sketched in the mind of God, the dimensions of the cross already calculated, the length of the nails already measured, the seeds for the thorns already sown. And as the star of Bethlehem rose in the midnight sky, the King of Creation took a pilgrimage to our planet, just the way he planned it. From the celestial to the terrestrial, Jesus' journey was aimed at one wooden thing — the cross of Calvary.
And with Martin Luther, we can sing:
Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God's own choosing.
Doest ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
Article continues below
* * *
My Lord Jesus Christ, You are indeed the only Shepherd, and I, sorry to say, am the lost and straying sheep. I am anxious and afraid. Gladly would I be devout and cling to you, my gracious God, and so have peace in my heart. I learn that you are as anxious for me as I am for you. I am eager to know how I can come to you for help. Anxiously, you desire above all else to bring me back to yourself again. Then come to me. Seek and find me. Help me also to come to you and praise and honor you forever.—Martin Luther
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
As my doubts about his teachings grew, so did a secret fascination with Jesus.
Christian artists work at the intersection of music and climate change.
