Review—Martin Luther’s Christmas Book

The great reformer and theologian, Martin Luther, was a child of faith when it came to Christmas. Not that sixteenth century Saxony celebrated Christmas anywhere near the fervency that it is celebrated today, especially in the United States. Luther instead saw the Promise of Christmas, a baby that was the fulfillment of God's promise made first to Adam and Eve after the fall into sin and reiterated and expanded through the prophets through the ages.

Luther also loved to preach on the Incarnation and the great birth in Bethlehem. Noted Luther scholar Roland Bainton (Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther) collected Luther's best sermons touching upon the main points of the Incarnation and birth of Christ. In total there are seven sermons and Luther's Christmas hymn, "From Heaven High" (Von Himmel Hoch; I grew up knowing the title as "From Heaven Above to Earth I Come"). The sermons cover "Annunciation," "Visitation," "Nativity," "Shepherds," "Herod," "Wise Men," and "Presentation."

In the introduction Bainton points out that Luther's simplicity comes from stating only what Scripture asserts; nothing more, nothing less. The three wise men are inferred not because Scripture says there were three, but because there were three gifts. As Luther says, "There could be half a dozen." Luther also seeks to set straight such things as the Immaculate Conception (the belief that Mary was conceived and born without sin so that Jesus could then be born sinless. By the way, if God could cause Mary to be born in such a manner, why didn't he cause all people to be born such? He wouldn't have had to die on the cross then. And how many generations must "sinlessness" extend to remain valid? If Mary had to be sinless in order for Jesus to be sinless, didn't the same need to apply to Mary's mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, ad infinitum?).

Bainton selected the sermons where Luther marveled not at the miraculous but at the human aspects of the Christmas story. Realize that many myths and beliefs in the Roman church were layered in miracles and miraculous signs. This had little allure. But the fact that God chose to work with and through humans-that was the marvel!

Luther the preacher also relates to his people. No one likely wondered why this baby was born in Bethlehem, but Luther points out that Jerusalem five miles away was the royal city, the leading city in Palestine. As Luther preached, he distinguished Bethlehem from Jerusalem for his hearers: "He (the angel) went to Bethlehem, a dung heap compared with Jerusalem, as Pratau is compared with Nürnberg. And he did not go to the town of Bethlehem but to the shepherds." No doubt you have caught the crassness of Luther, relating a deficiency of a local town.

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