The Ninety-Five Theses and Other Writings by Martin Luther & William R. Russell & William R. Russell & William R. Russell & William R. Russell

Author:Martin Luther & William R. Russell & William R. Russell & William R. Russell & William R. Russell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

Sermon on Luke 2:1–14, Christmas Day (1530)

December 25: Luther preaches one of the five sermons he preached on the Christmas gospel that year in the City Church of Wittenberg. The Reformer loved the Festival of Christmas (preaching sixty sermons on the Christmas gospel in his career). The evocative story, with its poor couple, stable, shepherds, etc., allowed him to tell of God’s love in ways that German peasants, living in a preindustrial, agriculturally based world, could readily grasp.

He emphasizes traditional views of the person of Christ here—that Mary’s baby was simultaneously truly God and truly human, the savior of the world. However important doctrinal formulations might be, Luther indicates here that intellectual assent to a set of abstractions about Jesus is not all there is to faith. Belief addresses a sinner’s deepest needs in a way that general religious propositions cannot.

The Reformer, therefore, speaks about “the second faith”—not simply to accept as information the idea that the child born in Bethlehem is the Lord of the universe, but to trust that this baby is my Lord and Savior. Such faith, such trust of the heart, is an active, dynamic reliance on Christ, engendered by the grace of God revealed at Bethlehem.

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