PILGRIMAGE FOLLOWS FOOTSTEPS OF HISTORY
Group visits places Martin Luther lived or worked during the Reformation era
In this, the 500th year of Lutheran Reformation, it seems only fitting that many would tour the German sites connected with the event. Pastor Ron Bestvater, official chaplain for LuMinHos, the Lutheran hospital ministry, was one of them. He was joined by his father, Rev. JR Bestvater and his two brothers, David and Bryan.
The four were part of a 16-member group led by Mark Hedlun, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Saskatoon. The 11-day tour visited places Martin Luther lived or worked during the Reformation era.
The first Luther-related stop was Wittenberg, home of the university where Martin Luther was a professor. “There were two big churches in Wittenberg, Castle Church for the university and City Church for the people,” Bestvater says. “City Church was where Luther preached most of the time.”
The group also visited Luther’s home where he and his wife Katherine von Bora raised their six children, several nieces and nephews, and assorted students.
A highlight in Wittenberg was viewing a 360-degree computer generated panorama by artist Yadegar Asisi. It features a day in the life of 1517 Wittenberg when Luther fastened his 95 Theses on Castle Church door.
The next tour stop was Leipzig where one of the most important disputations took place between Martin Luther and Johannes Eck, the official representative of the Catholic hierarchy assigned to catch Luther in a statement of heresy. “Leipzig was also the home of Bach who took the beliefs and ideas of Luther and turned them into glorious music,” Bestvater says.
Eisleben also figured prominently in Luther’s life. There he was born in 1483, and died in 1545. His father was an iron ore miner nearby. “Mining conditions were very harsh, and Luther said, ‘If I can express the grace of God in words Eisleben miners can understand, I will have succeeded.’ ”
Luther attended university for two years to become a lawyer, but after surviving a tremendous lightning storm he decided to become a priest and entered the Augustinian Monastery in Erfurt.
“We attended a worship service at the monastery,” Bestvater says, “and heard glorious music by a Baptist choir from Sacramento and a sermon by Lutheran pastor from Chicago.”
The tour moved to Halle, the centre of Luther’s missionary work following the Reformation, then on to the city of Worms where Luther was put on trial in 1521.
“The Diet of Worms was a trial called by the Emperor who wanted to settle the divisions between Luther and the Roman Catholic Church,” Bestvater says. “The Church said reconciliation would only happen if Luther recanted his writings. Luther’s response included his famous, ‘To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand; I can do no other.’ ”
Luther was promised safe passage to and from Worms, but for his own safety, he was kidnapped on the way home (at the direction of Frederick the Wise, a prince of Saxony) and taken to Fredrick’s Wartburg Castle in Eisenach where he remained for 14 months. During that time, Luther translated the New Testament from Latin and Greek into a full and beautiful German that subsequently became the language of the people.
“Three residents of the castle impressed me. Luther, of course, and Elizabeth of Thuringia, the wife of Duke Leopold, who integrated faith and health issues, and fed and sheltered lepers, even bringing them into the castle. The third person was Brother Peter, an Anabaptist who was accused of treason because he preached against child baptism. My early Bestvaters were Anabaptist.”
The tour stopped at Buchenwald, the Nazi concentration camp known for its horrific medical experimentation.
In Dresden, they visited Frauenkirche, a magnificent Lutheran church rebuilt after the war.
The tour ended in Prague, Czech Republic, the home of Jan Hus, a Bohemian minister who lived 100 years before Luther and was considered a heretic because he advocated that common people should be able to partake of both the Eucharistic wine and the bread. Hus was burned at the stake.
A priest observing the execution claimed: “Before he died, Hus said, ‘You can cook this goose but within a century a swan will arise that will prevail.’ ” The swan became Luther’s symbol.
Bestvater can point to many significant moments on the tour, but he says what stands out is “the crucial aspect of Luther, which is the centrality of Jesus and what He is all about — forgiveness of sins. In forgiveness there is freedom which motivates us to get up another day to do our best for God.”
The Church said reconciliation would only happen if Luther recanted his writings. Luther’s response included his famous, ‘To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand; I can do no other.’ — Pastor Ron Bestvater