Luther 500 Presentation

Those of you in the Saskatoon area may be interested in attending a presentation I am giving on our Luther 500 Tour.  Join us on September 29th at 7:30pm at St. Paul's Lutheran Church.

Day 10: By The Rivers of Babylon

 

On Day 10 I had an opportunity to visit the Pergamon Museum.  If you like to see "big things" this museum is for you.  The main item that I was interested in was The Ishtar Gate.  This was one of the main gates leading into the ancient city of Babylon.  It is an impressive structure that was built to both impress, and scare the heck out of the visitors to the city.  Let the reader understand that visitors weren't always willingly visiting the city.  Think of the Israelites who were attacked by the Babylonians and taken into exile in Babylon.  Daniel 1:1-7

This model of the giant gateway shows the processional way that lead up to the gates.  Sodiers with their weapons would have glared down from above at those walking into the city for the first time.

Along the processional way were pictures of lions built in relief coming out of the ceramic bricks to "welcome" you.  Everything about this entrance is meant to be intimidating.  Can you imagine what it was like for Daniel and the Israelites to enter this foreign, and powerful city for the first time?

Another impressive large structure in the museum is the Pergamon Altar. It is a monumental construction built during the reign of King Eumenes II in the first half of the 2nd century BC in the ancient city of Pergamon in Asia Minor.  The structure is an impressive 35.64 meters wide and 33.4 meters deep; the front stairway alone is almost 20 meters wide. The base is decorated with a frieze in high relief showing the battle between the Giants and the Olympian gods.  This is only about one third of the original structure.

Not far from the Pergamon Museum was another building I was hoping to see; The Church of St. Nicholas.  This church actually pre-dates the city of Berlin and is therefore the oldest church in the city.  

What makes this church interesting to Lutherans, however, is that one of it's Pastors was Paul Gerhardt who was probably the most prolific hymn writer of the Lutheran Church.  If have have sung the timeless hymn "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," you have Paul Gerhardt to thank.

The Elector at the time was Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg, who was Reformed. He was also growing impatient with a lack of success at his conferences to unite the Lutherans and the Reformed. So he put an end to the conferences in 1664 and published his "syncretistic" edict. Since the edict disallowed the Formula of Concord, one of the Lutheran Confessions as contained in the Book of Concord, many Lutheran clergy could not bring themselves to comply with the edict. Gerhardt was thus removed from his position at St. Nicholas Church in 1666.  Gerhardt was not willing to compromise all that Martin Luther and others had fought so hard for.

While the building is no longer used by an active congregation, it is kept alive as a museum and it plays host to a number on concerts throughout the year.

I then went across the city hoping to visit the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.  It is a church that was bombed during the war in 1943, and the people of Berlin decided not to demolish it or restore it but to leave it as reminder of the devastation of WW2.  This is how it is supposed to look, however when I arrived it was covered in  scaffolding and tarps.  Apparently bombed out structure wasn't so safe and they are in the process of preventing it from collapsing on tourists.  So much for that.

Years ago they did build a new church for the congregation to worship in, and from the outside it is very boring and unimpressive.

The inside, however, redeems the building.  That statue of Jesus hanging there is huge and if He ever falls on the presiding minister, well...I guess we would have to say that it was God's will.


On Day 11 I will check out two very unique Museums.

Looking Back: A Few Videos (Morning and Evening Prayer)

Now that I have returned (the young adults still have a few more days in Germany) and I have returned to the world of fast internet I thought I might post a few videos from the trip.

One of the things I especially enjoyed about the festival was that we began and ended each day with Morning and Evening Prayer respectively.  It is a wonderful way to "bookend" your day.  It was especially meaningful to have these services in the churches where Luther and the other reformers worshiped themselves.  The above video is as short clip of Morning Prayer from the Castle Church in Wittenberg where Luther is buried beneath the pulpit.

This next clip is the begging of Evening Prayer.  Evening Prayer often begins with what is called the "Phos Hilaron" or the Joyous Light.  The Phos Hilaron is the oldest Christian hymn that is not directly quoted from the Bible.  As it is sung a lit candle is brought into the community.  This reminds us that even though the sun has descended from the sky, we still have the Son of God, Christ, our eternal light with us always.

I have some more videos and some pictures from my time in Berlin that will be posted in the next few days.

Day 9: "Ich bin ein Berliner"

This morning the shuttle buses left Wittenberg for the airport at 5:30am.  Since that is an ungodly hour, and I had no flight to catch, I decided to venerate St. Mattress for a few more hours before taking the high-speed train from Wittenberg to the centre of Berlin.  We need to get a few of these in Canada.  What took 1.5 hours to drive took a little more than 30 minutes by train.  And the coffee they served was actually drinkable.

I found my hotel and checked in.  It is literally a block away from the famous Check Point Charley.  I hope to visit that location and its museum tomorrow (many of the museums are closed today--Monday).  The room is a single, and is little more than a walk in closet, but it is clean and has a funky European design.

Right outside my hotel is this cool work of art.  It is huge (check out the car behind it).  In Saskatchewan we seem to weld a few hunks of metal together and let it rust and call it art.  I think I prefer this.

As I was touring around on the subway system, I came across the TV tower.  This tower was built by the communists in East Berlin.  It was built near a beautiful church will a tall steeple.  The idea was to show how this "new order" would tower over the "religious past."  It is an ugly building and truly towers over everything.  Once it was built, however, they realized that when it reflected the sun a bright cross is created.  (It is not quite as distinct in the picture as in person.  There is no mistaking that this building is constantly glowing in the shape of a cross.)  The communist government was not happy with this, and tried many things to dull the image, but nothing worked.  I guess they underestimated who they were dealing with.

As I was walking down the street I could hear these guys from about a block away, partying and singing.  It is a bar on wheels.  Leave it the Germans to turn drinking and driving into a sport!

Tomorrow I go to museums and churches.  

Day 8: So long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Goodbye.

Today was the last day of the Luther 500 Festival.  The morning began with a "Sunday School" class where Gerald Coleman, author of the song, "The Lamb, The Lamb," which is included in our hymnal, led us in a session that assured us of God's love for us no matter what we have done.  He then gave us some paper and an envelope that were were to address to ourselves.  The idea was to write down some of the special moments from this festival.  Sometime later these envelopes will be sent to us and we reminisce about the times we had here in Wittenberg.

After lunch we gathered for our closing worship.  The theme for the day was "I am Baptized," a phrase that Luther used often in troubled times.  In his sermon, Rev. Scott Moore reminded us to "remember our baptism" and gave us an opportunity to do that during the service.  

Congregants were encouraged to come forward, dip their fingers in the water and make the sign of the cross to remind them that that have been baptized and made an heir of heaven.  A fitting end to a festival full of God's grace.

After the worship service ended, the young adults from Saskatoon went on to Berlin and then to Fankfurt.  I stayed one more night in Wittenberg and joined the remaining travelers for a boat cruse on the Elbe River.

We had some fantastic and unique views of Wittenberg from the river.  It was a good time to unwind, enjoy a beer, and visit one last time with people from the four corners of the world.

Pictured with me here is Victor.  He came all the way from South Africa to attend the Luther 500.

With all being accomplished we bring this memorable festival to a close.

Tomorrow I travel to Berlin by train, and in the next few days, plan to visit a number of interesting sites including The Berlin Wall, Check Point Charlie, and the Pergamon Museum.  I hope to be able to blog about these places as well.

Gute Nacht.

Day 7: "I get to do what?!"

Today offered quite a unique experience.  While Wittenburg is a community that speaks little English as a first language (German of course is first, but many around here grew up also learning Russian during the era of "East Germany") there is a ministry that is offered to those who speak English, both the tourist and the residents.

They offer a weekly worship service on Saturday evenings.  The pastor who is covering for these two weeks offered to let me read the Old Testament lesson for the worship service at the Town Church.  This is the church that Luther preached at most often.  It was very humbling to publicly read the Word of God in this historic Church of the Reformation.

One of the groups performing at the Luther 500 was Alathea, a fantastic duo from Tennessee.  Check them out at http://www.alathea.com  

We then ended the night with Evening Prayer in the Convention Cetnre.  Not nearly as aesthetically appealing as the Castle or Town church, but none-the-less, the word of God was proclaimed and heard, and souls were fed.


Tomorrow the festival will officially end, and I will move on to Berlin for a few days.  I hope to post from there as well.

Day 6: No Bull

After Morning Prayer in the Castle Church I headed over to a session on rare reformation books and the process of restoring them.  This took place in the Luther House which is pictured above.  This house was a wedding gift to Luther and Katie from Fredrick the Wise.  -Crock pots were not a wedding gift option yet.

One of the books they showed us was an early edition of Luther's Works.  It was printed in 1570.  They even encourages us to touch the pages, without gloves!  It seemed very wrong, but I wasn't about to decline the offer.  The archives here store about 30,000 books, many of them in rough shape, not so much from the effects of time, but from overuse.  The pages are holding up considerably well, due to the high quality of paper, but the covers are very worn and damaged; "Kaputt," was the word of the day from the archivist.

Much of the Luther House displays artifacts from the reformation, but one of the most interesting rooms had almost nothing on display in it.  This was the living room where Luther and his house guests would gather after a meal and discuss theology and other matters.  Much of the "Table Talk" writings that we cherish (and chuckle at) came from this room.

A short walk from the Luther House is the place where Luther burned the Papal Bull announcing his excommunication.  This is a peaceful garden now, but the action he took here was very controversial and viewed as attack against Rome.

In the evening we gathered at the convention centre, and were joined by German youth who will be with us now for the weekend.  I'm not sure if we impressed or shocked them when we prayed the Lord's Prayer in German.  Possibly it wasn't even recognizable the way we said it.  The picture above is the view from the balcony.

Here's a picture of the guy hanging out in the balcony.

Tomorrow we spend more time in large group sessions, and then I plan to attend a session on Taize singing.