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LUTHER AT THE MANGERCHRISTMAS SERMONS ON ISAIAH 9:6

TRANSLATED BY

NATHANIEL BIEBERT

Cover: Stained Glass Photograph, Robert Koester Art Director: Karen Knutson Design Team: Diane Cook, Pamela Dunn

All rights reserved. This publication may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part, except for brief quotations, without prior written approval from the publisher.

Northwestern Publishing House 1250 N. 113th St., Milwaukee, WI 53226-3284

www.nph.net © 2017 Northwestern Publishing House

Published 2017Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-8100-2653-7ISBN 978-0-8100-2654-4 (e-book)

CONTENTS

Foreword to the Christian Reader ........................... v

Glossary of Terms, Persons, and Places ..................... xxxii

Reading Schedule ................................................... xliv

Text of Isaiah 9:2-7 ................................................ 1

First Sermon ...................................................... 2

Second Sermon .................................................. 15

Third Sermon .................................................... 24

Fourth Sermon .................................................. 37

Fifth Sermon ...................................................... 49

Appendix I: Christmas Sermon

by Veit Dietrich .................................................. 60

Appendix II: Christoph Starke’s Prayer

for Christmas Day .............................................. 77

v

FOREWORD TO THE CHRISTIAN READER

Martin Luther (1483–1546) was always in fine form at Christmas. The significance of the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God was never lost on him. He ran to it again and again, year after year, and it never got old for him. And it still never gets old for us.

This book contains a translation of the sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 that Luther preached in the Wittenberg parish church (Pfarrkirche or Stadtkirche St. Marien) on four consec-utive days in 1531, beginning on Christmas Eve. The sched-ule went like this:

SERMON 1— Vigil of Christmas Eve, December 24

SERMON 2— Afternoon of Christmas Day, December 25

SERMON 3— Morning of the Festival of St. Stephen, December 26

SERMON 4— Afternoon of the Festival of St. Stephen, December 26

SERMON 5— Morning of the Festival of St. John, December 27

Luther also preached a sermon in the morning of Christ-mas Day, but he preached on the Christmas account from Luke 2:1-14, as you can infer from the beginning of the Second Sermon (p. 15; rf. also paragraph in italics on p. 14). You will also discover that in the morning of December 26, Luther began to preach on Luke 2:15-20, the appointed Gospel for the Festival of St. Stephen, but he then returned to his series on Isaiah 9:6 (pp. 24-27).

LUTHER AT THE MANGER

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HISTORICAL CONTEXT—SERMON SERIES

At the time Luther preached these sermons, the parish church’s regular pastor, Johannes Bugenhagen, was on a one-and-a-half-year leave of absence to introduce the Reformation in Lübeck, about 40 miles northeast of Hamburg near the coast of the Baltic Sea. Luther had taken over his duties in the mean-time. It was an exacting time for Luther. Around this time he told his table companions, “I am extremely busy. Four people are relying on me, and each one of them was in need of some-one all to himself or herself. I’m supposed to preach four times during the week, lecture twice, marriage cases need to be heard and letters need to be written, plus I’m supposed to work on books for publication.”1 Luther was also frequently ill. During most of December and through all of January, he had to give up his weekday preaching due to hoarseness, though he made an exception for these Christmas sermons.

In addition, his relationship with the Wittenberg con-gregation was not particularly warm. There had been an increase in adulterous relationships there in 1531. At the end of October, he had complained emotionally about the many people who were despising God’s Word and the Lord’s Supper. He also preached against the people’s greed; some couples would not pay the students who sang at their wedding, and Luther constantly had to encourage contri-butions to the common chest, which was used to pay the preachers and support the poor.

In view of all this, it is hardly surprising that Luther penned Bugenhagen a letter on November 24 begging him to return. Around that same time, he also told his table companions, “Had I known beforehand about [everything the office of teaching entailed], [God] would have needed to take great

1 D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe: Tischreden (Weimar: Her-mann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1912), 1:73, no. 154; translation mine. The four people relying on Luther were his wife, Katie, his five-year-old son, Hans, his two-year-old daughter, Lena, and his roughly two-month-old son, Martin.

FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER

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pains to get me into it. . . . I would not take the entire world to enter into it now because of the exceedingly great and severe anxiety and affliction it causes me.”2 In fact, at dinner after he preached Sermon 4 of this series on December 26, he told his table guests, “My preaching is useless. It’s like a man who sings in a forest to the trees and hears only the glad-sounding echo in return.”3 (See also footnote 53 on p. 43.)

Yet Luther also told his table companions, “On the other hand, when I consider the One who called me, I would also not take the entire world not to have entered into [this office].”4 And immediately after his remark on December 26 noted above, he went on to say, “So we must preach to the glory of God, even if it doesn’t produce fruit. And although many people badmouth it, it is still good to preach Christ for the sake of the few who do not.”5 Because of the One who called him and for the sake of the faithful few who took the gospel to heart, Luther would not forego preaching the Christmas message in all its beauty.6

HISTORICAL CONTEXT— SERMON SERIES PUBLICATION

In 1544, Veit (pronounced the same as “fight”) Diet-rich, who had previously served as Luther’s personal secre-tary and stayed in his home for a number of years, published the first edition of Luther’s House Postil. (A postil is a book of sermons.)7 The book was composed mostly of ser-

2 Ibid., 1:42, no. 113; translation mine. 3 Ibid., 2:417-418, no. 2320; translation mine. 4Rf. fn. 2. 5Rf. fn. 3. 6 For a fuller treatment of the historical background, see Martin Brecht, Martin

Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, trans. James L. Schaaf (Minne-apolis: Fortress Press, 1994), pp. 429,433-439.

7 According to the highly regarded German dictionary of the Grimm brothers, postil (German: Postille) was “borrowed in the 16th century from the medieval Latin word postilla, from the Latin phrase post illa verba sacrae scripturae [‘after those words of Sacred Scripture’], which in ancient times was the customary opening of the sermons that were annexed to the text that had just been read” (13:2029).


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mons that Luther had delivered at home between 1532 and 1534 on Sundays when he was not able to preach in the parish church on account of frailty. Luther had not written these sermons down. Dietrich, rather, had taken them down in shorthand as Luther was preaching them, and Dietrich claimed to be the only one who had done so in Luther’s home.8

However, while part of the reason for the publica-tion of Luther’s House Postil was to preserve Luther’s sermons for future generations, it was not Dietrich’s over-riding purpose. He rather wanted to provide meditations on the gospel of Jesus that could be used throughout the year by fathers in Christian homes (especially on Sundays when their families were unable to make it to church), by country pastors who were sometimes unfit for preaching, and by those unable to listen to pure gospel preaching at any church.9

In compiling these sermons for the entire church year, Dietrich followed the church calendar in the Nuremberg and Brandenburg Church Orders, since he himself was serving as pastor of St. Sebald Church in Nuremberg at the time. (Dietrich even gave these sermons a sort of “trial run” from his own pulpit during the year prior to their publica-tion.) The church calendar in these orders was somewhat different than that in the Wittenberg or Saxon Church Order, which Luther followed.10

So when Dietrich had no sermon of Luther at his dis-posal to fill out the House Postil, either because Luther had not preached in his home on that particular Sunday or festival, or because Luther did not observe the festival in question, Dietrich did not shy away from creating a

8 D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 52 (1915), p 5, lines 36-39; p. 8, lines 14-15.

9Ibid., p. 5, line 34 to p. 8, line 13. 10 Ibid., p. ix, lines 14-15; p. 6, lines 29-30; p. 8, lines 14-20; p. 9, line 14.


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sermon or taking one from a different source. Sometimes he created a sermon by adapting material from another publication of Luther. For one of the festivals he used a sermon by Philip Melanchthon, one of Luther’s col-leagues. And he also inserted his own sermons here and there—a fact that he more or less acknowledges in his own preface.11

In addition, sometimes Dietrich had at his disposal two or three sermons of Luther on the same Scripture text. Dietrich was not opposed to having more than one sermon per Sunday or festival (although sometimes he created these by dividing up and reworking a single sermon by Luther), but he preferred to have only one of Luther’s sermons per text. So when he had more than one available, he worked Luther’s multiple sermons into one sermon. As a result, the beginning, middle, or end of one or more of Luther’s sermons was left out.12

In Dietrich’s defense, we must remember both his already mentioned overriding purpose in publishing the House Postil and that Luther himself actually wrote a short preface for Dietrich’s edition.13 In that preface, Luther acknowledges the sermons in the postil as his own, and he acknowledges Dietrich’s efforts at record-ing and preserving them. When Luther begins his pref-ace with “I delivered these sermons in my house,” he probably means the majority of them, in harmony with what Dietrich goes on to say in his own preface.14 It could also be, however, that Luther’s memory regarding

11Ibid., p. xi, lines 8ff; p. 8, lines 14-18.12 Ibid., p. ix, lines 6-9; p. xi, lines 4-8; cf. also the “Overview of the House Postil

Sermons” on pp. xii-xxviii.13 An English translation of Luther’s preface can be found in Matthias Loy, ed.,

Dr. Martin Luther’s House-Postil, or, Sermons on the Gospels for the Sundays and Principal Festivals of the Church-Year, 2nd ed. (Columbus, OH: J. A. Schulze, 1884), 1:vii-ix.

14 D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), pp. 1-2.


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these sermons was fading by the time he wrote this pref-ace about ten years after he had preached them. Also, one cannot help but wonder how carefully Luther read through all the sermons before they were published. Luther was always alternating between being extremely busy and being sick, and he certainly trusted his close friend Dietrich.

So what does all of this have to do with this 1531 Christmas sermon series, which was delivered by Luther not in his home, but at the parish church, and which was not included in Dietrich’s edition of Luther’s House Postil?

Enter Pastor Andreas Poach (the “ch” pronounced like that in Bach). Poach was born in Eilenburg, about 15 miles northeast of Leipzig, in 1516. He enrolled in the Uni-versity of Wittenberg for the summer semester of 1530,15 had the Master of Liberal Arts degree conferred on him in September 1538,16 and remained in Wittenberg until 1541. He became one of the most passionate students of Luther during that time, “devot[ing himself] to [Luther’s] style, language, and method as much as possible.”17 Luther and the other reformers, in turn, recognized Poach as a capable theologian. After serving as a preacher in Halle, Jena, and Nordhausen, in 1550 Poach accepted a call to serve as pastor of the Augustinian Church in Erfurt, which had gone over to the side of the Lutheran Reformation in the early 1520s.

In 1559, for a number of reasons, Poach issued a new edition of Luther’s House Postil.18

15Carolus Eduardus Foerstemann, ed., Album Academiae Vitebergensis ab A. Ch. MDII usque ad A. MDLX (Leipzig: Sumtibus et Typis Caroli Tauchnitii, 1841), pp. 138,139.

16Julius Köstlin, ed., Die Baccalaurei und Magistri der Wittenberger Philosophischen Facultät 1538–1546 (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1890), p. 10.

17Georg Buchwald, “Jenaer Lutherfunde,” in Theologische Studien und Kritiken (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1894), vol. 67, p. 377, lines 2-4.

18D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. vii, lines 21-22.


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First, Dietrich had passed away in 1549, thus enabling theologians to cast a more critical eye on his work without worrying about potential personal confrontation.

Second, a number of preachers and Christians—most notably Dr. Matthäus Ratzeberger, the personal physi-cian of Elector Johann Friedrich I from 1538–155219 and Johann Stoltz, court preacher in Weimar from 1547 until his death in 1556—prevailed upon Poach to oversee a new edition of the House Postil because of the weaknesses of Dietrich’s edition.20

Third, Poach had developed a close working friendship with the one man who could and did enable him to pub-lish a new edition of Luther’s House Postil. That man was Georg Rörer (pronounced RAY-rur).

Rörer had begun transcribing Luther’s sermons at the end of 1522. In May 1525, he was called as one of two dea-con assistants to Pastor Johannes Bugenhagen in the Witten-berg parish church, and Luther himself ordained him. Rörer became a tireless and renowned copier of Luther’s ser mons and lectures, and developed a complex system of Latin- German shorthand for this purpose. Elector Johann Friedrich I released him from his church duties in 1537 so that he could work full time as Luther’s assistant, especially in the docu-mentation of Luther’s work. After the Smalcald War ended in 1547, Rörer stayed at the court of the elector in Weimar to help with the work of collecting and preserving Luther’s works until he left for Copenhagen, Denmark, early in 1551. After his return, he took up residence in Jena in 1553.21

19In 1552, Ratzeberger requested his release and moved with his family to Nordhausen, and some time later to Erfurt, where Poach was serving and where Ratzeberger died in 1559.

20Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 375, last par.; D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. viii, lines 20-24.

21 Brecht, op. cit. (fn. 6), p. 59, 284. On Rörer’s complex system of Latin-German shorthand, see D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 29 (1905), p. xvi ff., esp. pp. xxii-xxiv.


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Poach had already made Rörer’s acquaintance and copied some of his transcripts during his time in Wit-tenberg. Rörer had given him some more transcripts to copy during his time in Halle. Between 1553 and 1554, after Rörer returned from Denmark, Poach paid his “old familiar friend” a visit in Jena. During that visit, Rörer (a) permitted Poach to copy many of his transcripts of Luther’s sermons; (b) permitted Poach to copy his cat-alog for all his notebooks so that Poach would know which sermons of Luther had not yet been printed; (c) taught Poach to read his shorthand; and (d) lent Poach an actual notebook containing his transcripts of Luther’s sermons on John 18–20 so that Poach could test his ability with his newly acquired knowledge. Poach pro-ceeded to work through Luther’s sermons on John 18–20 and sent his draft to Rörer. Rörer approved. In fact, Poach passed the test so well that his draft was actually printed in Jena in 1557.22

The next item on Poach’s list of publishing projects, it appears, was a new edition of Luther’s House Postil using Rörer’s transcripts. Rörer lent him several more of his notebooks for that purpose.23

Fourth, in 1555, two years before Rörer’s death, Duke Johann Friedrich II of Ernestine Saxony, with the help of his two brothers, Dukes Johann Wilhelm and Johann Friedrich III, acquired the vast major-ity of Rörer’s notebooks for “a handsome sum.” (As part of this deal, Rörer also had a house in Jena put at his disposal.) This collection was placed in the uni-versity library in Jena in 1557, as the Jena Edition of Luther’s Works (1555–1558) was being published, “in

22 Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 377, line 5 to p. 378, line 2; D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 28 (1903), p. 34.

23 D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. viii, lines 25-27; Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 375, last line to p. 376, line 1.


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order that this treasure may remain with us and not be lost or suppressed.”24

Fifth and already touched on before, there was a spirit in the air of wanting to have the works of Luther “printed by themselves and without any foreign material added.” Poach said that “it was partially for these reasons” that the Jena Edition of Luther’s Works had been published. By this time it was generally recognized that Dietrich’s edition of Luther’s House Postil did not have this desired character.25

So Poach set about revising Dietrich’s work. It didn’t all go smoothly. Probably around 1556, Poach showed Ratzeberger, Stoltz, and Rörer the draft. They, in turn, forwarded the draft to the court in Weimar, where it was decided to have the new House Postil printed in Jena. But at that point there were still several sermons in Poach’s edition of the House Postil whose transcripts were not at his disposal. So the necessary notebooks of Rörer were loaned to him, either from the court in Weimar (if in 1556) or from the library in Jena (if in 1557 or later), so that he could complete his work, which was finally issued in 1559.26

In revising Dietrich’s work, Poach assumed that any sermon Dietrich included that was missing a marginal note indicating the year and place it was preached was a “foreign sermon.” He felt this was confirmed by the fact that these undated sermons also could not be found in Rörer’s note-books, as the dated ones could. Poach left out these “for-eign sermons” in his edition, and in their place, inserted other sermons of Luther from Rörer’s notebooks. Poach

24 Buchwald, op. cit., p. 375, lines 12-14; p. 378, lines 5-7; D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. vii, lines 27-29. The quote in the last sentence is from Nikolaus von Amsdorf ’s preface to Poach’s edition of Luther’s House Postil.

25 D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. viii, lines 20-25. The quote is from Poach’s own afterword to his edition of Luther’s House Postil.

26 Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 376, lines 1-15.


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also included in the margin when and where they were preached, whether in Luther’s home or at church.27

One of the undated sermons in Dietrich’s edition, found in the last section that only included sermons for the “chief festivals throughout the year,” was one for Christ-mas Day on Isaiah 9:2-7. (You can read this sermon in Appendix I.) As with the other undated sermons, Poach also could not find this sermon in Rörer’s notebooks. But Poach noticed that Rörer had taken down five sermons of Luther on Isaiah 9:6 during the Christmas season of the 1532 church year. (Rörer customarily dated Christ-mas sermons with those of the following year, and so he dated these sermons 1532, even though they were actually preached at the end of 1531. The Christmas sermons of 1532 were dated 1533.)28

So Poach removed the one sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 in Dietrich’s edition and substituted the five sermons on Isaiah 9:6 from Rörer’s notebooks for his edition. That is how this sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 came to be published for the first time. It should be acknowledged here that Poach did an excellent job giving more body to Rörer’s transcripts, making them read and sound more like ser-mons and less like shorthand lecture notes. It might have helped that in all likelihood Poach was in attendance to hear the original sermons. (We have no way of knowing how much content he could recall clearly about 25 years after the fact.) I will discuss later, however, some of the weaknesses of Poach’s method.

27D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. viii, lines 7-13, 29-35; p. xi, lines 21-23, 30-31.

28 Ibid., p. xi, lines 30-31; pp. xxiv-xxv, notes on no. 77; pp. 578ff. Cf. the date in Rörer-Poach’s edition, as found, for example, in Ernst Ludwig Enders, ed., Dr. Martin Luther’s sämmtliche Werke, 2nd ed., vol. 6 (Frankfurt am Main und Erlangen: Verlag von Heyder & Zimmer, 1865), p. 253. Cf. also D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 36 (1909), p. xii; p. 391, line 1.


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What about the original sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 in Dietrich’s edition (found in Appendix I)? Is it a genuine Luther sermon or not?

It does seem that Rörer did, in fact, attend some, per-haps even many, of Luther’s house sermons from 1532–1534, even though he was still serving as a deacon at the parish church at the time. A certain Emericus Sylvius (who attended the University of Wittenberg at the same time Poach did)29 asked Rörer’s widow about this matter late in 1559. She recalled that even if her husband was the deacon on duty during a given week, once the preacher began his sermon on Sunday, Rörer would disrobe and hurry down the street to Luther’s house to hear Luther preach in his home. (This was especially possible on Sundays when Pas-tor Bugenhagen preached, since he was notoriously long-winded, allowing Rörer time to return before his services were required again.)30

However, to imagine Rörer adding note-taking to all this hurried activity, and to imagine him actually hearing every Luther house sermon in its entirety, is a little far-fetched. Remember that Dietrich insisted that he was the only one who recorded Luther’s sermons in Luther’s home. Plus, as Luther scholar Georg Buchwald (BOOKH-vahlt) pointed out, “the house sermons taken down from Rörer’s hand show at first glance that they are copies of original transcripts; they also have a different character than his other transcripts. . . . [W]e can scarcely go wrong if we assume that these transcripts originated with Dietrich’s hand.”31

29 Foerstemann, op. cit., p. 145; Köstlin, op. cit., p. 12.30 Georg Buchwald, ed., Andreas Poachs handschriftliche Sammlung Ungedruckter

Predigten D. Martin Luthers aus den Jahren 1528 bis 1546 (Leipzig: Verlag von Fr. Wilh. Grunow, 1884), p. vi, last 3 lines to p. vii, lines 1-4; Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), p. 13.

31D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. x, lines 8-10; p. xi, lines 1-3; translation mine.


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In other words, it seems that Dietrich was correct in asserting that he was the only one to take down Luther’s house sermons. But at some point Rörer seems to have copied Dietrich’s transcripts into his own notes so that his own collection of Luther’s sermons would be more complete. Since Dietrich’s original notes have been lost, Rörer’s copies are the closest thing we have to an original collection of Luther’s house sermons.

It is also worth noting that Luther himself assigned Rörer the task of overseeing the Wittenberg printing of Dietrich’s edition of the House Postil in 1544. Accord-ing to Christoph Walther, who worked as a typesetter and proofreader at the print shop responsible for the Wit-tenberg printing, “Master Georg [Rörer] accepted and performed this task willingly and gladly. He thoroughly proofread and corrected [Dietrich’s] House Postil himself and took great pleasure and joy in it, also praising it in the highest terms.”32

This leads to two reasonable conclusions: First, Rörer must have been equipped for such a task, probably by vir-tue of his copies of Dietrich’s transcripts. Second, Rörer respected Luther’s and Dietrich’s wishes and intentions and was not bothered by the fact that “foreign sermons” were included, at least not to the extent that those who later used his notebooks were.

Finally, we know from Rörer’s notebooks that the sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 that Dietrich included has the best chance of being a genuine Luther sermon if it was preached in the morning of Christmas Day 1534. Luther was occupied with sermons on other texts in all the other regular Christmas Day preaching slots in the surrounding

32Ibid., p. ix, lines 38-41; cf. p. x, fn. 3 (continuation from p. ix). Cf. Ernst Ludwig Enders, ed., Dr. Martin Luther’s sämmtliche Werke, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main und Erlangen: Verlag von Heyder & Zimmer, 1862), p. viii, last line to p. ix, lines 1-21.


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years.33 You can also read the Dietrich sermon in Appen-dix I and judge for yourself on the basis of both inter-nal evidence and comparison with Luther’s 1531 sermons and his other sermons. In my opinion, the sermon clearly demonstrates that its author was familiar with Luther and learned from him. But, among other things, it is missing some emphases that one would expect from Luther and contains other original thoughts that Luther does not have either in his 1531 Isaiah 9:6 series or in his two-sermon series on Isaiah 9:2-7 in 1525 (mentioned in footnote 12 on p. 8).

Early in 1564, Poach fell out of favor with the court in Weimar and appears to have lost any access he might have had to Rörer’s notebooks in the university library in Jena. He had published a version of four Luther sermons on 1 Corinthians 15 either from some Rörer notebooks that he secretly kept for himself or from his copies of those notebooks. Since the court had paid so much for Rörer’s notebooks, and since Poach did not ask the court’s permis-sion to publish the sermons based on Rörer’s notebooks, the court told the city council of Erfurt to summon Poach, reproach him, and bring him up on charges. Poach seems to have escaped formal charges, but he did have to go looking for other sermon transcripts when, for instance, he wanted to publish a revised edition of Luther’s sermons on John 18–20, issued in 1566.34

Poach’s edition of Luther’s House Postil was reprinted in Jena in 1562 and 1579.35 Poach passed away in 1585, and Duke Johann Friedrich II, who had purchased Rörer’s notebooks, passed away ten years later. After that, no one

33D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 36, op. cit. (fn. 28), p. xii; vol. 37 (1910), p. xxviii, xix; vol. 41 (1910), p. xvi.

34D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), pp. 36-37; Buchwald, “Jenaer Lutherfunde,” op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 374, last line to p. 375, line 22.

35Enders, op. cit. (fn. 32), p. viii, lines 7-9.


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seems to have known or cared about Rörer’s notebooks in the University of Jena library. When the 1531 Christ-mas series on Isaiah 9:6 was reprinted in the Leipzig edi-tion (1729–1740), the Walch edition (1740-1753), and the Erlangen Edition (1826–1857) of Luther’s Works, it was essentially a reprinting of Poach’s 1559 edition. Rörer’s original transcripts were not consulted.

However, in 1893, Licentiate Dr. Georg Buchwald, serving at St. Matthew’s in Leipzig at the time, was doing research in Weimar when he came upon the tense corre-spondence between the royal court in Weimar and Poach, dealing with Poach’s aforementioned unauthorized version of Luther’s sermons on 1 Corinthians 15. A letter from Poach to the court, dated March 6, 1564, offhandedly men-tioned that Rörer’s notebooks were in the library in Jena. And that is where Buchwald found them 329 years later. (Today, this library is called the Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena.)36

Now we must briefly trace the history of one other source for Luther’s 1531 Christmas sermon series.

Georg Rörer was not the only one who transcribed these Christmas sermons. Another copier recorded a num-ber of Luther’s sermons as they were being preached from October 1528 to February 1532, including his 1531 series on Isaiah 9:6. This copier’s identity remains unknown, but from his transcripts of this series alone, we know that he knew Latin, German, and Hebrew and that he was adept at summarizing and paraphrasing Luther on paper while Luther was preaching, without getting distracted. The copier either was, or became, acquainted with Friedrich Myconius (1491–1546), Luther’s fellow reformer and inti-mate friend, so that Myconius ended up in possession of these transcripts, along with others. After Myconius’ death,

36Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17).


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his codex ended up in the library of Joannes Aurifaber of Weimar (1519–1575), who is most famous for his 1566 edition of Luther’s Table Talk.

Who obtained the codex from Aurifaber’s library is not known, but at some point it was bound in pressed leather, came into the possession of a certain Seidel, and was appraised at the costly sum of 12 Reichsthaler (not neces-sarily in that order).

Dr. Valentin Ernst Loescher (1673–1749), a pastor known especially in Wisconsin Synod circles for his famous work against Pietism, The Complete Timotheus Verinus (Mil-waukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1998), appears also to have been a collector of rare books and manuscripts. He got a good deal on the codex in Berlin, purchasing it for 10 Reichsthaler, 20 Groschen, “from the Storeroom of Seidel Manuscripts.”

It appears that the codex went straight from Loescher’s library to that of Adam Rudolph Solger (1693–1770), another Lutheran preacher who collected books. In 1766, prior to his death, the City Council of Nuremberg pur-chased Solger’s collection from him, which is how it came to bear its current name: Codex Solger 13.37

The codex appears to have gone unexamined in the Nuremberg City Library until the late 1800s. Dr. Ernst Ludwig Enders, pastor in Oberrad near Frankfurt and edi-tor of the revised Erlangen Edition of Luther’s Works, made Georg Buchwald aware of it in the 1890s, and Buchwald gave it its first thorough and critical examination. This codex is probably best known for containing a number of the exhortations Luther gave to the congregation after some of his sermons. (One of these exhortations appears in this

37D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 27 (1903), pp. xvii-xviii; “Privatbibliotheken” on Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg’s website: www.nuernberg.de/internet/stadtbiblio-thek/privatbibliotheken.html (accessed 28 April 2015).


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Christmas series, not after, but during the Third Sermon. See the paragraph in italics on p. 25.) These exhortations help to give us a good idea of what was going on outside of the church at the time.38

The rediscovery of these two sets of transcripts—Rörer’s notebooks and Codex Solger 13—made it possible for Georg Buchwald to produce a truly critical edition of this sermon series, together with the rest of Luther’s ser-mons from 1531, in volume 34 of the Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works, published in 1908.

Until 1996, however, only the majority of Dietrich’s edition of Luther’s House Postil had been available in English, and so this sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 also remained untranslated. But in 1996, Word & World, the theologi-cal publication of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, published a series of Luther’s sermons “hitherto unavailable in English” to observe the 450th anniversary of his death. Included in that series was a translation of the entire second sermon of Luther’s 1531 Christmas sermon series (vol. 16, pp. 397-400), based on the Weimar Edition, but somewhat wooden and cumbersome.

Another publication also came out in 1996. Eugene F. A. Klug, professor emeritus at Concordia Theological Semi-nary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, edited and helped to translate the volume of the St. Louis Edition of Luther’s Works (vol. 13, part 2; based on the aforementioned Walch edition) containing the Rörer-Poach edition of Luther’s House Pos-til. Baker Books published this translation in three volumes titled Sermons of Martin Luther: The House Postils, including this 1531 Christmas sermon series, on pp. 209-254 of vol-ume 3. Later these three volumes were added to Baker’s

38Buchwald, “Unbekannte Bugenhagenpredigten gefunden in der Nürnberger Stadtbibliothek und in der Zwickauer Ratschulbibliothek,” in Theologische Studien und Kritiken (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1892), vol. 65, p. 339, and “Luthers Exhortationes post concionem,” ibid. (1899), vol. 72, pp. 118ff.


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previous Sermons of Martin Luther series to form volumes 5-7 of The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther (2000, 2007). Klug’s translation is quite readable and has been described as having a “homelike folksy presentation,” but I will discuss its weaknesses below. One weakness I will mention here, which has nothing to do with the translation itself, is that these volumes are out of print as of this writing, so finding them for a reasonable price can be difficult.

How I came to translate Luther’s sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 is as follows: I belong to a circuit of pastors that meets once a month from September through May. Those meet-ings have traditionally begun with the host pastor reading a Luther sermon, or a portion of one, as the devotion. I was slated to host the meeting in December 2011. Since translating German and Latin is one of my favorite God-given hobbies and gifts, I searched for a Luther sermon that I could translate and deliver as a devotion and that would be appropriate for the season. I discovered this series on Isaiah 9:6 by checking the reference for the devotion for Thursday of Pentecost 23 in Day by Day We Magnify Thee (Augsburg Fortress, 2008).

Here I would like to thank retired pastor Thomas Pfotenhauer for graciously bestowing on me his almost- complete set of the German volumes of the Erlangen Edition of Luther’s Works, as a gift during my vicar year. Without this set, I would not have been able to check this reference so easily and I might not have checked it at all.

I decided to translate the entire first sermon from the Erlangen Edition for the circuit meeting. Everyone in atten-dance appeared to enjoy it, and we profitably discussed it with one another after it was read. This experience whetted my appetite for the remaining sermons.

At that time, I was only familiar with the Word & World publication of the second sermon in this series, mentioned


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previously. Thus I was under the impression that this series had not yet been translated into English in its entirety. Given the extremely edifying nature of the sermons and the glimpse they provide into Luther the man—his sense of humor, his experiences in the Roman Church, his expe-rience with the Peasants’ Revolt, his battle with what he called the sacramentarians and sectarians, and the down-to-earth, sometimes earthy way he communicated God’s Word to people—I thought the absence of these sermons in English nothing short of a tragedy.

So in the early months of 2012, I set out to translate the remaining sermons. As I did so, I discovered this series in the more critical Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works, though I was still unaware of all the history detailed earlier. Consequently, I also consulted the Weimar Edition for my translation of the second through fifth sermons. I also went back and reviewed the first sermon.

I then submitted the first manuscript to Northwest-ern Publishing House (NPH) for publication, and they informed me in November 2012 that the manuscript had been accepted. In December 2014, they informed me that they intended to prepare this series as part of the Wisconsin Synod’s celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Refor-mation. I had had all sorts of time to review my translation in the meantime, so once the contract was signed early in 2015, I immediately began re-reviewing the English ser-mons with a fine-tooth comb, carefully comparing them especially with the Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works. This review also led me to make a number of revisions to my initial foreword.

Then the wrench was thrown into the gears. While making my revisions, I contacted Rev. Dr. Benjamin T. G. Mayes of Concordia Publishing House (CPH), now of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, to find out


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whether CPH was planning on including these sermons in their 20 new volumes of Luther’s Works. He informed me that they were not, but he also was the first to inform me about Klug’s 1996 translation of this sermon series. This was the spur in the ribs, so to speak, that sent me running off on an intense journey of more translation and histori-cal research, whose fruits are found in the historical back-ground that you have been reading and in the comparisons and analyses printed in subsequent paragraphs. It also led me to review these sermons even more closely, to make sure they followed the Weimar Edition as closely as pos-sible, which Klug’s edition did not do.

COMPARISON OF EDITIONS

I proceeded rather strangely with this translation, as hinted at earlier. I started out with a fresh and complete translation of these sermons as printed in the Erlangen edi-tion (EA) of Luther’s Works (Dr. Martin Luther’s sämmtliche Werke, vol. 6, 2nd ed. [Frankfurt am Main and Erlangen: Verlag von Heyder & Zimmer, 1865], pp. 253-305).39 The EA essentially reproduced Poach’s 1559 edition with updated German (updated for 1865, that is).

However, having gone back through the translated ser-mons with a fine-tooth comb, carefully comparing them to the more critical Weimar Edition (WA) of Luther’s Works (D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 34, part 2 [Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1908], pp. 490-500, 508-536)40 and meticulously and thoroughly revising them as I did, I would say that in the end, the WA served as the primary basis for these sermons. Poach essen-

39The Erlangen Edition is often abbreviated EA (the A is an abbreviation of the German word for edition). Hereafter, I will refer to this edition using this abbreviation.

40The Weimar Edition is often abbreviated WA. Hereafter, I will refer to this edition using this abbreviation.


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tially served as my translation expediter and adviser, whose advice was sometimes helpful and sometimes not.

We owe the preservation and transmission of these ser-mons to the two primary sources mentioned previously and reprinted in the WA—Georg Rörer, whose transcript is in the possession of the university library in Jena (Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena) and an anon-ymous copier whose work is contained in the so-called Codex Solger 13, in the possession of the Nuremberg City Library (Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg).

My goal was to provide the English reader with Luther’s 1531 sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 in a translation with both the readability of the EA and the reliability of the WA. To put it another way, I wanted readers to be able to cite any line from these sermons with the confidence that “Luther said this,” without someone responding, “Yeah, but what does it mean?”

Why did I need to consult the WA? Or to put it another way, what are the strengths and weaknesses of Poach’s Ger-man edition and Klug’s English edition?

Georg Buchwald, the editor of these sermons for the WA, generally speaks highly of “Rörer-Poach’s House Postil”: “It was Poach’s endeavor to reproduce Luther’s preaching as accurately as possible on the basis of Rörer’s transcripts. . . . Even when he, like Dietrich, makes use of a sermon already available in print by itself, he does not fail to reach back to Rörer’s transcript. . . . [H]e truly does himself very proud on the precise dating of Luther’s sermons . . .”41 I also already pointed out Poach’s editing skills, that he does a fine job transforming Rörer’s shorthand notes into actual flowing sermons that you can almost hear Luther preaching in all his gospel zeal.

41WA 52:xi.


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But Poach is hardly beyond criticism. First, his edition is based on one man’s transcribed notes. That one man, Georg Rörer, was skilled in his craft, perhaps the best of all those who transcribed Luther’s sermons, but he was still a fallible man. Thus Poach sometimes misses an entire chunk of something Luther preached, not by his own fault but by Rörer’s. We can gather this by comparing Rörer’s transcript with the usually skimpier, but sometimes more complete, anonymous Nuremberg transcript from Codex Solger 13 printed beneath Rörer’s in the WA.

For instance, compare the end of the Second Sermon between Rörer’s transcript (R), Poach’s edition of Rörer’s transcript (P), and the Nuremberg transcript (N):

R: [The prophet] has just said that he [Christ] carries his kingdom. Now he shows how the carrying takes place, because he first said that a child [is born to us], etc. He [also] shows what kind of son he is, namely, [one] on whom [you should] lay all your sin [and] sadness, etc. How that takes place follows through the six names [the prophet gives him].

P: Now after the prophet has said that Christ carries his government on his shoulder, he continues and further shows how such carrying takes place. He has said that the child is born to us and the son is given to us, and that all our sins, distress, misery, sorrow, and grief are upon him, and that he wants to help us out of all of them by his carrying. But he explains how this takes place through the following six names he gives to this child and son. We will save them for later.

N: “[He is called] Wonderful, Counsel, [Strength, Cham-pion, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace].” Now [the prophet] explains how the carrying takes place; he adds the six names. If I have time and am healthy, I will preach [them] to you. If not, then let another do [it]. For it stands written in the books just as well as I can preach it.


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Here you can see (a) how choppy and cumbersome it would be simply to read a literal translation of Rörer’s transcript, (b) the generally fine job Poach did filling out the sermons, and at the same time, (c) what Poach missed by having only Rörer’s transcript at his disposal. Only the Nuremberg transcript gives us the interesting insight into Luther’s ill health at the time; the conclusion of the series is in doubt at that point.

Second, the preceding example, while showing Poach’s skill in general, also betrays an admittedly minor weakness of his editing. Occasionally, he rather arbitrarily substitutes we for “you” and our for “your,” or vice versa, and makes other such minor but unnecessary changes or additions here and there.

Third, even though Poach reproached Dietrich for adding his own material, Poach occasionally goes beyond simply filling out Rörer’s notes, to the point that he must be regarded as adding his own material. For instance, he often has Luther quoting additional Bible passages at length. Poach certainly had good intentions in doing so, and the passages are well-chosen, but he simply had no good rea-son to add them on the basis of Rörer’s notes. A number of footnotes in my translation document these additions, as well as other substantial additions.

Finally, Poach also reproached Dietrich for cutting out the beginning, middle, or end of some of Luther’s sermons. But Poach does the same thing with the Third Sermon in this series, cutting out the entire mini-sermon on Luke 2:15-20 with which Luther began before returning to his series on Isaiah. We can understand why Poach did this; he was attempting to substitute for a sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 in Dietrich’s edition of the House Postil. But we cannot excuse his method, especially since he rebuked Dietrich for doing the same thing.


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By cutting out the opening to Luther’s sermon, he also omits the very first line, which has to be regarded as one of the most memorable first lines in the history of homiletics. Luther was hoarse and ill himself; he had concluded the previous sermon by saying he would only preach on the six names Isaiah gave the Messiah “if I have time and am healthy enough.” But he had decided to tough it out, and he mounted the pulpit in the parish church in the morning of St. Stephen’s Day to preach his first sermon actually dea-ling with the six names themselves. But as he reached the top of the pulpit, he was greeted with a barrage of coughing, sneezing, and wheezing that prevented him from saying anything at first. So when he finally got the chance, either with a look of disgust or with a barely discernible smile on one side of his face, he began: “They say it’s amazing how quiet the Muslim Turks are in church . . .”

Luther could “roast” with the best.Since Klug follows Poach’s edition for his English edi-

tion, his English edition consequently has all of these same weaknesses.

In addition, Klug occasionally does have significant and glaring inaccuracies, even if one only has Poach’s edition in view. For instance, at the time of publication, Klug appa-rently did not understand Rörer-Poach’s method of dating the sermons, as discussed on page xiv. Thus he incorrectly dates all five of these sermons to 1532, the date given in the St. Louis Edition, when they were actually preached in 1531.

Another standout in the Klug edition is on pages 215 and 216, §16 and 17, in the First Sermon. In §16, Luther refers to the hymn, “Ein Kindelein so löbelich,” a well-known hymn at the time. There the English translator does not attempt to keep the meter and simply translates the first two lines of the hymn into English prose—“A child so praiseworthy is born to us today.” That is a fine transla-tion. However, in the very next paragraph, §17, when


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Luther refers to the exact same hymn and, in Poach’s edi-tion, recites the entire first stanza, the English translator puts down a completely different hymn—a combination of stanzas 2 and 3 from Luther’s own hymn, “From Heaven Above,” which Luther did not even write until three or four years after he preached these sermons.

Klug uses the King James Version for biblical texts and quotes. A minority of readers may view this as a strength. But considering that the still-popular traditional version of the Lord’s Prayer with its art, thy, and thine requires regular explana-tion, use of the King James Version with its many other archaic expressions must be regarded on the whole as a weakness.

Finally, the information Klug imparts in his preface in volume 1 contains a number of factual inaccuracies (e.g., stating unequivocally that “Dietrich and Roerer both made stenographic notes” of Luther’s house sermons, when in fact Rörer appears to have copied Dietrich’s transcripts on separate occasions).

I too am a fallible and sinful human, and so part of me trembles as I present this critique. A scholar much smarter and wiser than I could list the weaknesses of my own trans-lation and leave me lying on my back, blinking, wondering what sort of freight train just ran me over. Plus, in the case of Klug’s edition, for all its weaknesses, its volumes are invalu-able as solid, accessible devotional literature, putting sinful souls into contact with the clear and saving gospel of Jesus. Nevertheless, as God has given me the desire, strength, and ability, I have attempted to offer these 1531 Christmas ser-mons of Luther to the public with my already-stated, two-fold goal, and to do so avoiding at least the most glaring examples of the weaknesses of previous editions just listed. I also am convinced that, for these reasons, my edition will not be offered superfluously or in vain.

I have also included a glossary—to help the reader with any person, place, or thing he may not be familiar with—


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and two appendices. In the first, I present in English for the first time the original sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 found in Dietrich’s edition of Luther’s House Postil (WA 52:578-587).42 In the second, I present a fresh translation of Pastor Christoph Starke’s (1680–1756) prayer for Christmas Day (Gebetbuch or Tägliches Hand-Buch in guten und bösen Tagen, rev. ed. [Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House], pp. 490-494).

NOTES ON EDITING

All bracketed words appearing in any part of a sermon—whether in the body or in a footnote—are my own addi-tions. Most of them contain Scripture references or monetary equivalents. To arrive at such rough equivalents, I mainly used the discussion on pages 257-259 in E. G. Schwiebert’s Luther and His Times (Concordia Publishing House, 1950). The footnotes are mine; I apologize for the degree to which they might distract you from your pious meditation.

All quotations from Scripture or the Christian creeds I have either translated from Luther’s German, as found in the 1534 Luther Bible or the EA (in the case of creed excerpts), or I have translated a paraphrase if the transcripts in the WA warranted thus.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following:My parents had me baptized as a Christian soon after

I was born and diligently performed the difficult task of raising me in the confessional Lutheran faith. My father is responsible for getting me interested at an early age in the life of Martin Luther. His love for all things both Christ- and Luther-related has always been evident.

42Matthias Loy’s three-volume English translation of Dietrich’s edition of Luther’s House Postil, mentioned previously in fn. 13, is incomplete and does not include this sermon.


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The two rural congregations in Wisconsin God has called me to shepherd—Grace, in Wausau (town of Maine) and St. Paul-Naugart, in Athens (town of Berlin)—are a source of continual encouragement and support in my God-given calling as a pastor. By requiring me to continue fulfilling my God-given duties as their pastor throughout this project (though they themselves were mostly unaware of the project), they also helped to keep me grounded and sane.

My wife not only patiently endures it when I go on one of my translation or research binges, but she also sup-ports and assists me, not least of all by quietly and cheerfully going about her regular, day-to-day duties. Luther said that “no one perceives anything special in that kind of woman” (p. 33). But the only things more special are the things that Jesus himself does. I love you, Katie.

I am still relatively young and have had no special degrees conferred upon me. Northwestern Publishing House could have justifiably dismissed my manuscript out of hand. They did not. They have not only published my work but have also worked very patiently with me through the editing process—especially Pastor Curtis Jahn.

The triune God chose me to be his own from eternity, redeemed me by his blood, washed me and made me his own in baptism, and gave me all that I am and have.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

May the Holy Spirit make Luther’s childlike awe, con-viction, and personal application of the prophet Isaiah’s words your own, dear reader—yes, may he make yours even greater, and may he lead you to treasure even more the surpassing gift God the Father has given you in the person of his Son.

Pastor Nathaniel J. Biebert

1908

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GLOSSARY OF TERMS, PERSONS, AND PLACES

Augustine, St.

a.d. 354–430; bishop of Hippo in North Africa; influential theologian and prolific writer; highly respected by Martin Luther; among Lutherans his most famous works include his Confessions, The City of God, and his writings against the Pelagians, who denied original sin and taught that humans can be justified by their own natural power and will, aided by God’s grace.

Beguine (be-GEEN)

Female member of a voluntary society originating from at least the 12th century in the Low Countries; the popularity of these societies spread in the 14th century from cities like Antwerp, and their number grew rapidly and noticeably; there were many beguines in Cologne, for example; no vows were required for membership; members wished to live in seclusion from the world and to remain bound to everyone else only by the bond of love and charity; characterized by their care of the sick and poor.

Burgomaster

The highest magistrate in a German city, whom we might call a mayor.

Chasuble

A sleeveless, typically ornate outer vestment worn by Roman Catholic priests and some Lutheran pastors when celebrating the Lord’s Supper; basically circular or oval in shape (if laid out on a flat surface) with a simple hole in the center for the head.

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Christopher, St.

A man venerated as the patron saint of travelers in both Eastern and Western Christian traditions, whose name, meaning “Christ-bearer” in Greek, is connected with his legend; supposedly martyred under the Roman emperor Decius in the middle of the third century a.d.; his existence, especially as narrated in legend, is doubtful. In a sermon delivered in the afternoon of St. Christopher’s Day, July 25, 1529, Martin Luther relates Christopher’s legend as he learned it, some of the details of which he gleaned from a painting in the Gray Cloister of the Franciscans in Wittenberg:

Christopher was a great giant, a tall and mighty man, but also coarse, corrupt, proud, arrogant, and godless. He imagined himself so great that nothing less than serving the greatest, most powerful and richest lord on earth would befit him. Eventually, he found a power-ful king whom he served for a time. One day some-one sang an old song for the king. When the devil was mentioned in the song, the king held out a cross in front of himself for protection. When Christopher asked the king if he was afraid of the devil and if the devil were more powerful than he, the king replied that it was so. Christopher immediately resigned his posi-tion and went looking for Satan in order to serve him. On the way, he met the devil in the form of a man riding a big old horse. When Christopher told him that he was looking for the most powerful lord in order to serve him, the devil replied that he was it and invited Christopher to be his servant. But when they came to a fork in the road with a crucifix erected there, the devil did not stay in the road, but rode around it at a distance, going through a thick hedge. When Christopher saw this and asked the devil if the one who hung on the piece of wood were more powerful than he, the devil replied that it was so. So Christopher took leave and went off to find him. He came to an old man with a long, gray beard and a lantern in his hand. Christopher told him of his mission and asked if he knew where


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he could find this most powerful lord. The old man replied that he could show him to Christopher, but Christopher would have to wait a while. In the mean-time, he told Christopher to serve as a ferry, carrying people across a nearby body of water, since his great size equipped him well for this task. So Christopher did this for a time, even though the water was deep and filled with mean serpents and sea monsters. Finally, one day he heard a loud cry, “Take me across! Take me across!” He ran out, put on his belt and girded himself up, took his tall, sturdy pole in his hand, and hung a traveling bag at his side, which had half of a fish and a piece of a roll. But when he looked for the person who had cried out, he could not see him until the person cried out the third time. Then he saw it was a small, naked child. Christopher set the child on his shoul-ders and set out across the water. But the child, who turned out to be Christ, was so heavy and uncomfort-able that it felt like Christopher was carrying all heaven and earth. In this way he sank down and was baptized in the water. After this he preached Christ among the heathens, who eventually arrested him, threw him in a dungeon, shot him with arrows, and set a red-hot helmet on his head. But since they still could not kill him this way, someone came and cut off his head. (Rf. WA 29:497-499.)

Cowl

A large, loose hood; the defining part of a monk’s habit.

Dialectician

An expert in dialectics, the study and pursuit of various methods of reasoning and discussion in order to discover the truth. Around the time Luther preached these sermons, Philip Melanchthon lectured on dialectics at the University of Wittenberg.

Duke

Ruler of a small independent state, called a duchy or principality, making up a part of the Holy Roman Empire.


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Elector

One of the seven members of the electoral college (or assembly) of the Holy Roman Empire who were responsible for electing the Holy Roman Emperor; three of the electors were clergymen, and four were laymen, including the Duke of Saxony.

Fanatic

German: Schwärmer, from schwärmen, meaning “to travel in a swarm or act impulsively”; a person who downplays both what God plainly tells us in his Word and the power of his Word in preference to his own feelings, reasoning, opinions, or supposed revelations from the Holy Spirit; often the same as sectarian; also sometimes called an enthusiast. In 1525, Luther met with a man named Caspar von Schwenckfeld. Schwenckfeld was having serious doubts about the real presence of Jesus’ body and blood in the Lord’s Supper because the use of the Lord’s Supper was not producing the good results Schwenckfeld thought it would if the doctrine of the real presence were true. During the conversation, Schwenckfeld told of his friend Valentine Krautwald, who had devoted intensive study to the matter and in so doing had received a vision in which he learned that the bread and wine were only symbols of Christ. Luther, however, kept returning to Jesus’ words of institution. Schwenckfeld’s appeal to Krautwald’s vision and Krautwald’s vision itself are classic examples of fanaticism.

Franciscan

Member of a religious order whose origins can supposedly be traced to St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century a.d.; divided into several suborders in Luther’s lifetime; characterized by their preaching and walking around barefoot. The Gray Cloister in Wittenberg was a Franciscan monastery.


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Groschen

A small German silver coin; approximately equivalent to 1/21 Gulden; one Groschen in the 1530s would be roughly $14 in today’s terms.

Gulden

A gold coin formerly used in Germany; approximately equivalent to 21 Groschen; one Gulden in the 1530s would be roughly $300 in today’s terms.

Habit

Long, loose, hooded garment worn by monks; varied according to the particular monastic order to which a monk belonged.

Heller

A small copper coin once current in several German states and worth very little.

Holy Roman Emperor

The secular protector and symbolic leader of the Holy Roman Empire (see following entry), elected by the electors and crowned emperor by the pope. At the time Luther preached these sermons, Charles V (1500–1558), who had condemned Luther and his followers at Worms in 1521, was still Holy Roman Emperor.

Holy Roman Empire

A secular sphere created by the pope in central Europe in a.d. 800 in an attempt to unite Christian territory under one rule; at times included Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and parts of Italy and the Netherlands.

Karlstadt (or Carlstadt), Andreas

1486–1541; had been a doctor and professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg together with Luther; one of Luther’s early supporters who had debated


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with Luther against Johann Eck in Leipzig in 1519; created unrest in Wittenberg while Luther was hidden at the Wartburg Castle from 1521–1522 by pushing evangelical reforms too aggressively without concern for the spiritually weak; censured by the university upon Luther’s return and eventually left, without resigning his professorship, to be the unofficial pastor in a nearby village, before returning to his post at the university in June 1524; like Müntzer, rejected infant Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as means of grace, as well as images in the churches, although he was not in favor of violence like Müntzer; ended up preaching against Luther, calling him an unfaithful servant of God and a perverter of the Scriptures; upon his banishment from Electoral Saxony in September 1524, went around spreading his false teachings about the sacraments, helping to plant the seeds of what would become the Sacramentarian Controversy; forced to take secret refuge in Luther’s home in 1525 due to the Peasants’ Revolt; after Luther obtained permission for him to resettle in Electoral Saxony as a farmer, retracted his last books against Luther, apologized, and even asked Katie Luther to be a sponsor for his son in March 1526; reentered the Sacramentarian Controversy in August 1527, maintaining his old views; left Electoral Saxony in 1529; at the time these sermons were preached, was serving as a deacon at the Great Minster in Zurich, Switzerland, where Ulrich Zwingli had served. (Rf. Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, trans. James L. Schaaf [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994], pp. 157-172,317.)

Monastery

A building or buildings occupied by a community of monks living under certain religious vows; also called a cloister.


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Müntzer, Thomas (MINT-ser)

c. 1489–1525; at first an aggressive supporter of Luther; ended up rejecting infant Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as means of grace, insisting on direct revelations from God (see fanatic entry), denying the distinction between the realms of the church and the state, and maintaining that Luther did not possess the Holy Spirit; taught that the spiritual equality created by the gospel should be reflected in earthly society and advocated radical and violent action against the godless, including the rulers; eventually joined the Peasants’ Revolt (see entry) of 1524–1525, stirring up the peasants to rebellion in Thuringia. Luther had encouraged the nobles to rule fairly and not exploit their subjects, but when the peasants revolted, he urged the nobles to take action, even drastic and violent action, to suppress the revolt for the sake of law and order (Romans 13:1-7). While tensions were building, Elector Frederick the Wise died on May 5, 1525, leaving the situation with the raging and rioting peasants looking uncertain and dangerous. Five nobles and their armies took action against the revolt in Thuringia, slaughtering thousands of peasants at Frankenhausen and taking Müntzer prisoner on May 15, 1525, executing him on May 27. (Rf. Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, trans. James L. Schaaf [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994], pp. 146-157,172-185.)

Nativity

Birth; from the Latin word nativitas, meaning “birth”; almost always used in reference to Jesus’ birth.

Nuremberg transcript

See foreword.


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Oecolampadius, Johannes (e-cu-lum-PAH-dee-is)

1482–1531; Swiss reformer influenced by the Leipzig Debate (1519), Luther’s early writings, and the writings of the early church fathers; became a professor of theology and preacher at St. Martin’s Church in Basel, Switzerland, in 1523; visited by Karlstadt (see entry) in 1524; engaged in a literary battle with Luther at the height of the Sacramentarian Controversy, writing his Reasonable Answer to Dr. Martin Luther’s Instruction Concerning the Sacrament (1526), That Dr. Martin Luther’s Misunderstanding of the Everlasting Words, “This Is My Body,” Is Untenable: The Second Reasonable Answer of Johannes Oecolampadius (1527), and, together with Zwingli (see entry), Concerning Dr. Martin Luther’s Book Entitled “Confession”: Two Answers (1528); participated with Luther in the Marburg Colloquy of 1529, in which he admitted that there was more to the Lord’s Supper than a mere symbol, but refused to grant that Christ’s physical body was actually present there; died on November 24, 1531. (Rf. Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, trans. James L. Schaaf [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994], pp. 295-300,303-334,422-423; E. G. Schwiebert, Luther and His Times [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1950], pp. 705-714.)

Papacy (PAPE-e-see)

The office and sphere of authority of the pope; usually the same as what present-day Lutherans call the Roman Catholic Church; from the Latin word papa, meaning “father.”

Papist (PAPE-ist)

A follower of the pope and his teachings; usually used in a negative sense by those who do not follow the pope.


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Peasants’ Revolt (or German Peasants’ Revolt)

A series of peasant uprisings from 1524 to 1526 that spread out from southern German lands and reached its climax between March and May of 1525. The origins, motives, and purposes behind the revolt were complex. Müntzer (see entry) was heavily involved with the revolts in Thuringia. The revolt was based in large part on the Twelve Articles (1525) published by Sebastian Lotzer, which demanded, among other things, the right of congregations to choose their own pastors; the abolition of serfdom (because all people were redeemed by Christ and should be free); the right of hunting and fishing; and the repeal, or mitigation, of certain taxes. Luther responded to the Twelve Articles with his Admonition to Peace (1525), in which he first rebuked the princes and lords for exploiting the common man, but also rebuked the peasants for the greater wrong of rebelling against the government’s authority and taking justice into their own hands. When Luther saw that the revolt was intensifying in violence and that the peasants were unwilling to negotiate, he added his now infamous section Against the Raging Peasants (1525) to his Admonition to Peace, in which he advised “everyone who can” to “smite, slay, and stab” the peasants, “remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel.” Thousands of Thuringian peasants were slaughtered by armies of the nobility just days after his work was printed. Luther made enemies of both the nobility and the peasants with his biblically sound but often harshly expressed stance, but he especially strained his relationship with the latter. (Rf. Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, trans. James L. Schaaf [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994], pp. 172-194.)


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Pious

In Christian circles, refers to someone who holds firmly to teachings of the Bible; sometimes used collectively in the phrase the pious, which is the same as believers; the antonym is impious or godless.

Poach, Andreas.

See foreword.

Pope

The bishop of Rome and supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church, considered by his followers to be the successor to the apostle Peter and the vicar, or substitute, of Christ on earth. Clement VII was pope from 1523 to 1534, thus also when Luther preached these sermons.

Rörer, Georg.

See foreword.

St. James of Compostela

The cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the popular destination of pilgrims traveling the Way of St. James; supposedly houses the earthly remains of James, the half-brother of Jesus and author of the epistle bearing his name.

Sectarian

Someone who breaks away from the teaching of the historic catholic church. Lutherans do not consider themselves sectarians, since they teach in harmony with the Bible and the early Christian church fathers. At the time Luther preached these sermons, sectarians were primarily Anabaptists and followers and sympathizers of Ulrich Zwingli (see entry), whose teaching was characterized by rejection of the power and effect of the sacraments.


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Sophist

Originally a title given to teachers who, for a fee, instructed their pupils in rhetoric, politics, and other subjects in ancient Greece during the fifth and fourth centuries b.c., often, it appears, with a skeptical bent; used as a negative label by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who viewed them as peddlers of deception; thus this label came to denote someone who makes false conclusions by misusing reason and logic; applied by Luther and his friends to the scholastic and papal theologians of his day, and to the papists in general.

Tonsure

Part of a monk’s head that is left bare on top by shaving off the hair.

Turks, Muslim

Muslim citizens of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Suleiman the Magnificent (1494–1566) from the capital of Constantinople (today Istanbul, Turkey) at the time Luther preached these sermons. In this translation, Muslim Turks is used; Luther simply called them “the Turks,” which was more or less the same as Muslims.

Zwingli, Ulrich

1484–1531; Swiss reformer influenced by Luther’s early writings; became a priest at the Great Minster Church in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1519; in the mid-1520s abandoned both the doctrine of the real presence of Jesus’ body and blood together with the elements in the Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Supper as a means of grace; engaged in a literary battle with Luther at the height of the Sacramentarian Controversy, writing Friendly Interpretation or Explanation of the Eucharist Issue (1527), That These Words of Jesus Christ, “This Is My Body Which Is Given for You,” Will Forever Retain Their Ancient, Single


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Meaning, and Martin Luther With His Latest Book Has by No Means Proved or Established His Own and the Pope’s View: Ulrich Zwingli’s Christian Answer (1527), and, together with Oecolampadius (see entry), Concerning Dr. Martin Luther’s Book Entitled “Confession”: Two Answers (1528); participated with Luther in the Mar-burg Colloquy of 1529; agreed with Luther on the first 14 of the 15 Marburg Articles, including God’s Word as a means of grace (the 15th article concerned the real presence), but later was discovered to have dealt deceptively when he rejected the concept of any means of grace in his Systematic Presentation of the Faith (1530); in his final published confession of 1531 said that even heathens like Hercules and Socrates would be found in heaven; fell in battle at Kappel on October 11, 1531, fighting the Swiss Catholics. (Rf. Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, trans. James L. Schaaf [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994], pp. 294-300; 303-334; 422,423.)

READING SCHEDULE

The margins provide three suggested devotional read-ing schedules.

If you wish to use these sermons in preparation for Christmas, use the A schedule (for Advent). This sched-ule begins with “A24” and counts down from there. (This is a somewhat arbitrary number; there are roughly 24 non-Sundays during any given year from the Monday after Advent 1 to Christmas Eve.)

If you wish to use the sermons to continue celebrat-ing Christmas during the Christmas season itself, use the C schedule. This schedule begins with “C1” and goes to “C12.” You can either begin on Christmas Day and read one every day up to the final day of the season, or you can begin the day after Christmas and read one every day up to Epiphany, January 6.

Finally, if you wish to read the sermons on the days and at the times they were originally delivered, use the D schedule. D (for December) is followed by the date (between 24 and 27) and either M (for morning) or E (for afternoon or evening).

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ISAIAH 9:2-7.The people who wander in darkness see a great light, and on those who dwell in the dark land, it shines brightly. You multiply the heathens; thereby you do not multiply the joys. But before you people will rejoice, as they rejoice at the harvest, as they are glad when spoils are divided. For you have broken to pieces the yoke of their burden and the rod of their shoulders and the staff of their driver, as at the time of Midian. For every war with violence and bloody clothing will be burned up and consumed with fire. For to us a child is born, a son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulders, and he is called Wonderful, Counselor, Strength, Champion, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, so that his government may become great and there may be no end of peace on the throne of David and in his kingdom, so that he readies and strengthens it with judgment and righteousness from now on until forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

EPISTLE FOR THE FESTIVAL OF THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD

F F F

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FIRST SERMON

Today we are celebrating the lovely Festival of the Holy Nativity of our dear Lord Jesus Christ. And it is certainly fitting that we celebrate and ponder well this work and this great and gracious gift with such a glorious festival. For in this way not only will Christians continue to know the article that we confess and pray in the Creed, namely “con-ceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary,” but troubled and saddened hearts will also be comforted and strengthened in the face of the devil and every misfortune.

For, in the first place, it is the greatest art and an inde-scribable skill that we are supposed to believe that the God who created the heavens and the earth was born of a woman and that this fact is the height of wisdom. That was an altogether foolish message when it was first preached, especially to the Jews and Gentiles who heard it at the time he was born. For it was quite ridiculous to them, just as it still is to many today, that God the divine Majesty would stoop so far down that he not only creates, feeds, and pre-serves humans but also becomes human himself. This does not occur to human reason; rather, the devil and the human heart are opposed to it and call it a lie. Human reason even says that it has never heard anything more foolish.

Therefore this article needs to be preached so that we may exercise ourselves in it. Then we will not doubt but be certain, and become ever more certain, that God has sent his Son into the world to become man, born of an ordinary woman. Let people laugh if they want. This is our knowledge, skill, and wisdom, and we say that no greater wisdom has come into the world and no finer gospel has arisen than this, that the God who created the heavens and the earth was conceived and born of a virgin so that he had

A24 C1

D24E

3

FIRST SERMON

the exact same members—eyes and ears, hands and feet, skin and bones, hair and flesh, body and soul—just like any other baby boy. It sounds ridiculous, but that’s why we celebrate this festival; we want to get this article firmly into our heads and hearts so that we do not doubt it.

Second, there is comfort to be had when we firmly believe and want to know nothing better than that God was born of the virgin Mary, has sucked human milk, and has eaten baby food from her hands. Yes, such knowledge and wisdom should be our greatest comfort. And we ought to draw out this comfort in such a way that, when we get to that part in the Creed, we grasp and feel that God is not against humans. For if he were against us, then he certainly would not have put on the poor sack of human nature. For he not only creates humanity, but he himself also becomes, is called, and is a human. Since he does this, there cannot be only wrath and displeasure with him. For if he were hostile to us, as he is to a portion of the angels and humans,1 then he would not have become a human, but an angel or a lion or perhaps some other animal.

But now God leaves the angels be, even though they are of a holier and higher nature than we humans, who are a foul, putrid, stinking sack of maggots.2 That’s why the heathens have taken offense at this and said, “Ugh, is it fit-ting that the pure God would sink himself into such stink-ing human filth?” He certainly could have taken on angelic nature, or he could have created some nature that was nei-ther God nor man and assumed that. But he wanted to take on the same nature that you and I have, so he assumed human nature and became a human just as you and I are

1 Poach adds this explanation: “namely the evil angels and godless humans.” While the point Luther is making here is true and good, we might wish that he had spoken more carefully. Outside of Christ, God is hostile to all humans. In Christ, God is not hostile to any humans.

2Here Luther quotes Hebrews 2:16,17 in Poach’s edition.

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humans, and he sucked milk from a woman just as you and I once did. He did not shy away from our filth. Therefore every Christian who believes this should be glad and say, “This child is my God, and he puts on my nature, flesh, and blood, and he becomes like I am. He carries my adversity and goes through everything I go through, except without sin” [cf. Hebrews 4:15].

Faith then ventures even further and thinks, “If it’s true that God was born and became human, was a boy who cried, had to be bathed, took in baby food, and so on, and if I consider how far God and man were separated from each other, and I compare that to how close they are here in this child, then I must conclude that no one is as close to me as God. This closeness surpasses any blood relationship, whether immediate or distant. For my brothers and cousins came after this child from the same flesh and blood I come from, and they have not been around that long. But God, who is the Creator of all things and has existed from eter-nity and was so far separated from me and is so great, still encloses himself in this tiny human body. So in this child God has established a much closer friendship with me than a mother with her child or one brother with another.”3

That’s why Christ calls himself our cousin and brother in Scripture.4 Yes, Scripture even says that he is our flesh and bone [rf. Ephesians 5:28,29 KJV], which is an even closer relationship than that of husband and wife. For Scripture says that husband and wife are one flesh [rf. Genesis 2:24; Mat-thew 19:5,6]. But Christ says to us, “My body is your body. My flesh is your flesh, and my bone is your bone.” He con-siders himself and us to be one body, blood, bone, and soul.

3 Rörer appears to have tried to make sense of his difficult transcript in a later marginal note, which Poach followed. (Neither had the benefit of conferring with the Nuremberg transcript.) The marginal note, however, appears to have missed the gist of Luther’s original comparison.

4 Here Luther quotes Hebrews 2:11-13 and John 20:17 in Poach’s edition.

5

FIRST SERMON

This is quite a comfort. Whoever could grasp it and were that clever and did not lack confidence in it, whoever did not doubt but believed it as certain that this baby boy is true God, that person would have to be happy. His heart would have to laugh and say, “This benefits me, since he has come into my skin, flesh, and blood. I did not come to him. He did not descend into hell to become an angel or into a forest to become a lion. No, he descended into the world to put on these fingers, hands, and body,5 to assume all that I am and have.”6

This is truly a close friendship that God has established when one considers how far God was separated from us. If you are able to believe it, it is quite a comfort. That’s why we celebrate this festival, so that we may hear about this relationship again, learn to know it for certain, and find comfort and joy in it.

The world does not care when they hear day after day that God has become man, as they hear in the Creed. If nothing else were written in the Creed than “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary,” it should still cause the world no end of laughter and joy that God’s Son would actually become our flesh and bone and unite him-self with our nature. Instead, we go our merry way and we snore away while it is preached that he is born, and we don’t care about it one bit. If we could have our bellies full of beer and gorge ourselves on food and guzzle down drinks, then

5 Here Luther quotes John 1:14 in Poach’s edition. 6 Poach adds: “Thus St. Augustine says, ‘In Jesus Christ our Lord there is a

portion of each one of us, namely flesh and blood. Therefore where my body rules, there I believe that I myself rule. Where my flesh is glorified, there I believe that I myself am glorious. Where my blood holds sway, there I consider it to be the case that I myself hold sway. For even though I am a sinner, yet I have no doubt in the participation of this grace.’ ” However, not only does this quote not appear in either the Rörer or Nuremberg tran-scripts of this sermon, but it is also not a genuine Augustine quote, although it has often been attributed to him.

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we would rejoice and be glad. But oh, that we would laugh and be in good spirits about this birth!7

The angels treat this birth as something great and rejoice greatly over it. It would not be surprising if all the angels were resentful and hostile toward us. For if Christ had assumed a different form than ours, we would have had the death glare in our eyes. If, for instance, he had assumed the nature of an eagle or a lion, we would have immediately said, “Why does God honor such an insig-nificant nature and not mankind?” But the angels do not begrudge us such an honor. Instead, they sing and laugh about it and hold the Savior in high esteem, even though they themselves have no need of him. And we brutes who do need him, who hear the good news about him, who are baptized and called to receive him and rejoice over him, do not care at all and take a swig of beer instead. Yes, we even persecute those who preach this message. Well then, let the devil be your helper.

I have therefore taken it upon myself to preach on this Scripture from the prophet Isaiah for this festival,8 so that we may see how he rejoiced in this child and eagerly anticipated him,9 while we wretches who have this child set right before our eyes, who see and hear how the mother attends to this child and bathes him, are such ungrateful clods that we throw it to the wind, so that we neither pay attention to it nor derive joy from it, but simply ignore it. So be it. This message must be preached to those who do derive pleasure and joy from it. The others hear, yet do not hear; grope, yet do not feel; see,

7 Poach both misses the precise point of comparison and takes some liberties here in his edition.

8 Here Poach, following a marginal note in Rörer’s transcript, adds: “In [this text] we see how the prophet speaks so surely about this article [of faith in the Creed] and preaches about it such a long time before the fact, just as if Christ were already born.”

9 A marginal note in Rörer’s transcript refers to Luke 10:24 here.

7

FIRST SERMON

yet do not understand. Therefore our preaching is such a proud preaching that it despises such proud despisers; it is not under-stood by everyone. But the holy prophets have taken heartfelt pleasure and joy in it, and all the pious do too.10

“For to us a child is born, a son is given to us, whose gov ernment is upon his shoulders.”

This is a beautiful text, so beautiful that none so beautiful is found in any of the gospels. The dear prophets have licked off the best part, the juice of the Gospel, since they had such a great yearning and longing. For desire makes a thing delight-ful. As the saying goes, hunger is a good cook and thirst a good waiter. And the prophets were hungry for Christ. But the one who is full gets tired and bored, like fattened pigs. See how Isaiah speaks about the child: “For to us a child is born, a son is given to us.” Then the child brings along his government on his own shoulders, and he is called Won-derful, Counselor, Strength, Champion, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The prophet sings a fine song about him, an entirely fitting one and worthy of the child, a song that none of the Evangelists are able to sing so clearly and beautifully.

The prophet gives him the greatest and most beautiful names, so that we don’t just see a child in his mother’s lap. It’s as if the prophet were saying, “Don’t just notice how he has a body, eyes, ears, and other members and looks like any other human child, but turn your ears here and pay attention. I will tell you what sort of child this really is.”

Nobody should only see how the child is born of a virgin and is the son of an ordinary female, as the Jews do. They have inspected him, and many of them have said, “Look, this little child is just like any other child; he looks just like the others. He is circumcised and wrapped in strips of cloth; so are other children.”

10 Poach adds: “It is for their sake that it is preached; let the other masses of epi-cureans and sows go their own way.”

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Therefore we need to open up our ears and listen to what is said about this child. The prophet praises the child so highly and makes such a big deal out of him that heaven and earth are nothing by comparison. He draws all created things into this child, who is both creature and God. To our eyes he looks like any other child: someone needs to feed him baby food, sing to him, rock him to sleep, and so on. But when you listen to the prophet, he preaches, “A child is born and a son is given—that is true. But here’s how: He is born to us, given to us, his government is on his shoulders, and he is called Wonderful, Counselor, Strength, Champion, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”11

We have preached on this text before, but we will still not neglect it now for the sake of those who are in need of the comfort it gives.12

The first thing you should consider is that the child who is born is yours, just as we sing: “For us today is born

11 We are accustomed to taking the names of Isaiah 9:6 (9:5 in the Hebrew Bible) in pairs, as in the NIV, which yields four names. Luther took each of the names separately, which yields six. The Masoretic accenting of the original Hebrew text supports neither, putting a break after al,P, (Péle’—Wonder or Wonderful), but joining lae (’El—God or Strength) to the next word rwOBGI (Gibbor—Champion), yielding five names. Ironically, Luther, a champion of Christ’s divinity, takes lae in the sense of “strength,” rather than according to its more common meaning, “God.”

12 Luther had preached a two-sermon series on Isaiah 9:2-7 on December 25 and 26 in 1525 (rf. WA 17/1: 500-507). In Rörer’s notebook, this sen-tence was later crossed out and two replacement sentences added, probably by Rörer himself. Poach followed this replacement paragraph, which has Luther going on a bit of a rant here: “These are also familiar words in the papacy, for they have been read and sung in the mass for the Epistle [Isaiah 9:2-7 was the “Epistle” for Christmas Day]. But no one has understood even one of these titles or a single letter from them. We are now preaching about them—thank God!—and are continually promoting their true meaning. But no one pays attention. The vast majority keep going along and do not take it to heart. Yet we must not abstain from such preaching just because of these despisers and sows.” The Nuremberg transcript contains none of this. Luther was definitely not opposed to taking shots at the papacy, but he did not do so here.

9

FIRST SERMON

a child—Accord him acclamation!”13 The words to us you must use well to your advantage and diligently flesh them out. You must take the four letters T-O U-S and make them as large as heaven and earth. Yes, he is a child. But to whom is he born? To us! Not to his mother. Not to his relatives. Not to God or the angels, who do not need his birth. No, to us who are humans he is born.

So this is what the prophet is saying: He says to me, “Listen here, brother, I want to sing you a new song and tell you some joyful news. You have a brand new baby, a fine little boy, and he is yours and is given to you.”

Ah, Lord, who could now possibly reach out and take this child in his arms, the same child whom this mother carries, nurses, cares for and attends, and so on? Here I have become a lord, since the noble mother, who is of royal blood, is supposed to be my maid and servant. Now please, let us not brag and gloat that the prophet says this child is mine. For he would not have needed to be born at all if I were not the way I am. Here maids and slaves and all people ought to be ashamed when we see that the most holy virgin is made to be my servant, given as a wet nurse for my child. For what are all the maids and servants com-pared to this mother? She is descended from royalty and is the mother of God and the most exalted woman ever and the most precious jewel in Christianity after Christ himself. And she is supposed to give her child to me and serve me!

“For us today is born a child” is cried out everywhere during this festival:

13 Luther is referring to the second stanza of the hymn “Der Tag, der ist so freu-denreich.” The second stanza begins, “Ein Kindelein so löbelich”; it was some-times treated as a hymn of its own, as Luther does here. (An interlinear note at the beginning of the Nuremberg transcript suggests that this stanza was sung at some point after Luther’s sermon.) I provide my own rhyming translation when Luther quotes the stanza more fully later (p. 10), but see Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 131:2 for an alternate translation set to the original tune.

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For us today is born a child—Accord him acclamation!—Of Mary, virgin meek and mild,To cheer a cheerless nation.Were he not born, we all had dwelledIn fire, fore’er from God expelled;But now all have a Savior!14

But no one knows what’s being sung. You should be able to sing this song from the heart and not snore so much while you’re singing it, like the world does. It is taken right from the prophet Isaiah.

“To us” he is born. Who are us? The philosophers use the metaphor “Sumus homo rationalis. We are rational man,” that is, a rational animal. So we classify ourselves by comparing ourselves with sows. But we must speak of and define mankind in relation to God. So what is man-kind before God and in comparison with God and the angels? If you describe mankind simply as he is here on earth, then mankind is certainly a superior animal when compared to the lions. Let’s leave that to the heathen philosophers in the schools.15

God is eternal, just, holy, truthful, good, and blessed. We are godless wretches, full of vice, sin, and depravity. We are cursed to death and hell and have the devil in us. That’s what we are and how we are in relation to God. We are impious, accursed sinners who are stuck in sins and unfaith-fulness. He is pious and blessed. We are of mortal matter and live every moment in the company of death. He is life itself, existing from eternity and remaining into eternity. We con-duct ourselves in anger. He conducts himself in grace.

Thus the little words “to us” will become great and the comfort will also become great when you portray yourself

14 See preceding footnote.15 Poach adds: “But in theology we must classify mankind by comparing him

to God.”

11

FIRST SERMON

as you are in the sight of God. This is where the prophet wishes to lead us.

So learn well what us means. The world observes that man walks about upright, as opposed to an animal, and is a wise and intelligent being.16 But what is mankind according to the Scriptures? He is a godless creature turned away from God, an evil creature who belongs to the devil, is under God’s wrath, and is eternally condemned and cursed. It is for the benefit of such hopelessly doomed scoundrels, schmucks, and miscreants, who are such in the sight of God, as you just heard we humans are—it is for them that Christ is born.

So then, reach out and take this child in your arms, whoever is able. I’ll say it again: God causes this child to be born for those who are damned and lost. So hold out your hands and say, “I myself am certainly damned. But against this fact I set the tiny little child whom my poor Mary has in her lap. She has my treasure at her breast. He eats flour mash and is rocked to sleep. He is mine, and I set him against everything I do not have. Though I am not upright or honorable, I am still saved eternally in this child. And this is just as certain as if I could see it with my eyes. He is mine just as surely as the Groschen [or $14] in my moneybag.”

Consider this though: If any of you owed one thousand Gulden [or $300,000] and someone else came and gave you ten thousand Gulden [or $3 million] so that you could

16 According to Poach, who follows a note added to Rörer’s transcript later, Luther quotes Ovid here: “As the heathen poet says,

And where all other beasts behold the ground with groveling eye,He gave to man a stately look replete with majesty.And willed him to behold the Heaven with count’nance cast on high . . .”

Rf. Arthur Golding, tr., Ovid’s Metamorphoses, ed. Madeleine Forey (Balti-more: John Hopkins University Press, 2002), p. 34, lines 97-99; Book I, lines 84-86 in the original Latin.

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pay off your debt and have nine thousand Gulden [or $2.7 million] left over, how much joy would it give you? You would reach out and grab, and hold the sack and bag wide open. But here, where the treasure is so great and the joy incomprehensible, we snore away and no one reaches out and takes hold of him. Worse yet, we despise the treasure and persecute those who offer him.

Therefore the pious ought to say, “I am a doomed human; I owe God my body and soul for all eternity. Dear Mary, dear maid, give me that treasure, my child, since I need him and he is my child and treasure.” And she is more than happy to give him. She even helps with her vir-gin body and all her members. She carries the child in her womb, gives birth to him, and then she feeds him, cares for him, raises him, and does everything a mother should do. And she does all of this for me, for my benefit.

But I would be a fool to despise this child and not embrace him when I am a godless beggar who needs him in the worst way.17 And our Lord God must therefore still take delight in the fact that there are some who receive this treasure. It is nothing but sin and shame that such pearls and preaching should fall to sows and dogs, so that there is almost no one who receives this treasure with a sincere heart.18

But the pious listen to this preaching with joy and believe it. So when they are tempted or afflicted, they can say, “Although I am a beggar, it says in Scripture, ‘To us a child is born.’” For if this text is taken seriously, what harm can the devil do with all his tricks? When the pious

17Poach adds: “I should get down on all fours and crawl to him if I can’t walk.”18According to Poach, who follows a note added to Rörer’s transcript later,

Luther here repeats his previous illustration in a condensed form: “If someone preached to such people about a rich man who wanted to give anyone tons of money who just came and brought a bag with him, all the world would come running from every corner. But since the message is about the baby Jesus, who offers the entire world eternal life and salvation, scarcely anyone can be found who desires such a treasure.”

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FIRST SERMON

are tempted, they can tell him, “Get away from me, Satan. Don’t you know that a child is born? You do? Good. It is to me that he is born.”

Thus the prophets love to impress on us the dear child and the words “to us.” But the us they emphasize is not the us who praised the mother so much. The prophets did not obsess over the mother like the papists do. It is true that she is worthy of praise and can never be praised enough, since it is too great and glorious an honor that she is chosen to be this child’s mother. But this is how you should praise her—by not letting the child to whom she has given birth get ripped away from our eyes, nor by regarding the son as an inferior treasure to the mother. No, no! If the mother is to be praised, she should be a raindrop, while the child should be an ocean. Let the mother be a spark, but as for the child in her lap—that treasure should be a full-fledged and mag-nificent fire. If one of the two had to be forgotten, it would be better for us to forget the mother than the child. For the mother is not born to us, is not given to us, does not help us, and has not saved us, though she has certainly given birth to the only one who did. Therefore we should wean ourselves off the mother and attach ourselves firmly to the child.

It is enough for now that you take seriously the words “to us a child is born,” so that you concern yourself with the child much more than you do with your own physical life. For he is just as close to you as your own body and soul, since Isaiah says he is born “to us.” How blessed and doubly blessed is the one who is well instructed and firmly grounded in this wisdom, so that he believes it and rejoices in it! But if we take no comfort from this joyful message, that is a sign that we either don’t believe it or that our faith is extremely small. That’s why we celebrate this festival, so that this act of God might be preached and learned. Then the comfort and joy will follow.

A19

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F F F

The next sermon Luther preached was in the morning of the following day, Christmas Day. He preached on the Gospel, Luke 2:1-14. But he felt weak by the time he got to verse 11. Commenting on the fact that the angel names Jesus as “Savior” in 2:11, he concluded the sermon: “This applies to us and means that he

has redeemed us. Let everyone reflect on this golden text as much as he can; I do not have the strength to

explain it.” Later that same day, he returned to preach the following sermon in the afternoon service, but he still was not feeling well, as evidenced by its shorter

length and his conclusion.

luther at the mangeronline.nph.net/media/samplefiles/pdf/0600744.pdf · this book contains a...

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