The Christian Year is once again coming to its close. We commemorated the 507th anniversary of the Reformation two weeks ago and celebrated the Festival of All Saints last Sunday. These two, lynchpin observances for Lutherans herald the Church’s annual remembrance of the End Times, what theology calls the Eschaton, the concluding focus of the Christian Year. Wikipedia declares the following: “The Abrahamic religions [remember, Father Abraham is the spiritual parent “…of many nations” as God promised in Genesis 17:4] maintain a linear cosmology, with end-time scenarios containing themes of transformation and redemption. In Judaism, the term “end of days” makes reference to the Messianic Age and includes an in-gathering of the exiled Jewish diaspora, the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the righteous, and the world to come. Christianity depicts the end time as a period of tribulation that precedes the second coming of Christ, who will face the rise of the Antichrist along with his power structure and false prophets, and usher in the Kingdom of God. In later traditions of Islam, separate hadiths (the reports and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) detail the Day of Judgment is preceded by the appearance of the Masīḥ ad-Dajjāl, and followed by the descending of ʿĪsā (Jesus), which shall triumph over the false Messiah or Antichrist; his defeat will lead to a sequence of events that will end with the sun rising from the west and the beginning of the Qiyāmah (Judgment Day) [Wikipedia, “Eschatology”]. While our various histories reflect much animosity, suspicion, and even hatred and violence toward one another, each tradition’s understanding of the End Times nevertheless reveals close, commonly held beliefs which should give us pause for thought. The concluding Sunday readings of the Christian Year, including Reformation and All Saints, lift up these themes.
Popular thought often views the End Times primarily through the lens of the Armageddon [Revelation 16:16], the cosmic battle of God’s annihilation of the demonic forces of this world when seven angels pour out God’s wrath on Satan and the powers of evil. It is helpful, however, to remember that in a very real sense, Revelation was intended to serve primarily as a bracing message of encouragement to the Children of God, affirming that God, first, last, and always is in control and will establish peace in ways beyond our understanding. It has never been a soothsayer’s prediction. On Reformation Sunday we heard Jeremiah’s prophecy: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant…, I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people..., for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more [Jer 31:31-34]. On All Saints, Isaiah’s wondrous description of the banquet God is preparing on the Holy Mountain was proclaimed: On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast… [Isaiah 25:6ff.]. People from the ends of the earth will gather for this festal meal. On November 10th we heard in the Second Reading of Christ’s coming in glory at the end of the ages: Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him [Hebrews 9:28]. Next Sunday, on November 17 the End Time declarations become explicit. From the mystic Prophet Daniel we hear: At that time [the archangel] Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book [Daniel 12:1]. The Second Reading, Hebrews 10:11-25, reiterates Jeremiah 31’s covenantal promise heard on Reformation. The appointed Gospel, Mark 13:1-8 outlines the tribulations of the End Times: …Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. These readings of woe and wonder culminate on the Final Sunday of the Christian Year, Christ the King (November 24 this year). The Prophet Daniel proclaims the enthronement of the Ancient One whose …dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed [Daniel 7:14]. The Christian Year closes with Jesus’ magisterial reply to Pilate on the eve of his crucifixion: You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice [John 18:37].
While the main points of the End Times’ readings are enough to keep the Church’s head spinning for days, life goes on, including saints days familiar (like St. Francis, October 4, or St. Stephen, December 26) and others not so familiar (St. Bibiana is a good saint to remember on New Year’s Day since she’s the patron of folks with headaches and hangovers, among other maladies). The ELCA Lutheran “official list” appears in your handy ELW on pages 14-17; how many do you recognize? Often, we simply skip over them since they are more likely to land on weekdays than on Sundays, although they might be mentioned in the prayers. The Sunday appointed readings almost invariably take precedence unless a REALLY BIG DAY occurs like Reformation or All Saints, both which knocked the 23rd and 24th Sundays after Pentecost off our radar for this year. Nevertheless, Sunday, November 17 is also the Commemoration of St. Elizabeth of Hungary… — and let the people say, “Who in the world is that???” Whether you’ve been introduced or not, St. Elizabeth is not a person you want to ignore.
St. Elizabeth’s life [July 7, 1207 – November 17, 1231] was brief but fully lived. Only 24 years old at her death, she had been sent to the court of the ruling house of Thuringia at the age of 4, betrothed to Louis IV of Thuringia. Married at 14 [and apparently a very happy, loving marriage, the couple blessed with 3 children], she was widowed at the age of 20 when Louis, traveling through Italy to join the Sixth Crusade, died of the fever. During their marriage she with Louis’ blessing generously gave monetary and other assistance for relief work because of disastrous floods, sickness, and hunger in Thuringia. When widowed, she moved from Louis’ court to Marburg where she apparently followed the rule of Third Order Franciscans, a lay community known for its exemplary charitable work (there is one in Aiken, SC, I’m told). Out of her dowry returned to her upon Louis’ death, she built a hospital in Marburg for the needy. She died on November 17, 1231, and was canonized a saint on May 24, 1235.
A well-versed Lutheran might have mental fireworks going off at the mention of her marriage to Louis IV of Thuringia. Thuringia is literally the heart of Lutheranism and its homeland. Louis’ court was located in a large castle brooding above the city of Eisenach, the initial construction begun in 1067 by an earlier Louis as an outpost of his expanding territory. Legend has it when he first glimpsed the mount where he would erect his castle, he supposedly said, “Wait, mountain. [German: Warte, Berg…] You will bear my castle! […du sollst mir eine Burg tragen!”] While most of us will miss the German play on words, it is easy enough to pick out WARTe and BURG, a.k.a. the Wartburg. Elizabeth was the young chatelaine of Wartburg Castle some three hundred years before Luther took refuge with an imperial ban on his head. But wait!!!, like Ginzu knives, that is by no means all. Elizabeth’s second child, Sophie of Thuringia, became the wife of Henry II, Duke of Brabant, becoming the ancestors of the rulers of Hesse. Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse (1509-1567) was the generous patron of the fledgling Lutheran reform, the ruler who provided in his castle, the Wartburg, the necessary shelter for Luther. It is the place where Luther flung an inkwell at a devilish torment, Martin declaring, “But I am Baptized!!!” One can still visit the room. It is also where he translated the entirety of the New Testament into German May 4, 1521 to March 3, 1522, his text becoming the foundation of New High German still spoken to this day.
Luther early in his career wrote letters to various poets and musicians, encouraging them to write hymns in a decent vernacular for the laity. In one letter he wrote that he did not believe that the Gospel “blighted the arts,” but that poetry and music were the servants and handmaids of God’s Word, second only to theology. One might imagine that his ten-month stay in the Wartburg shaped the text of his hymn, “A Mighty Fortress.” Not even Luther imagined that right down the mountain from his early, lofty perch in the Wartburg an infant boy would be baptized in the font of St. George’s Lutheran Church in Eisenach a century and a half later. The boy, no less than Johann Sebastian Bach, became the most gifted and famous of the numerous musicians of the unbelievably talented Bach family to serve both the Church and concert halls. He was later dubbed the Fifth Evangelist by Lutherans. (A former secretary of the Lutheran Seminary in Columbia had herself been baptized in St. George’s parish font a few centuries later than Bach.)
The Wartburg also was the inspiration for yet another musical giant, Richard Wagner, who in 1867 wrote the opera, The Meistersingers of Nürnberg, based on the legend of the Mastersinger competition which was held at the Wartburg. Hans Sachs, the Meistersinger in question, sympathetic to the early Lutheran reform, had himself written a poem in 1523, “The Wittenberg Nightengale.” Wagner quotes a line of the poem at the beginning of the opera: “Awake, the dawn is drawing near; I hear, singing in the green grove, a blissful nightingale…”
The Wartburg has served over the centuries as a crossroads of culture and religion, of faith and practice, and of the overwhelming generosity made possible by a blessed Hungarian woman’s faith, aristocratic birth, and considerable worldly possessions. Saint’s days are at their best when they affirm and encourage us by their lives to use the gifts and talents with which we have been blessed to serve those in need. Listen carefully and perhaps you’ll hear that “blessed nightingale” singing in your heart, too, sparking faith and action, or what Luther would call “a busy, active thing” so that wherever you are becomes a happening place of faithful living and witness, too!