Live Coal: The Fortress and the Rose

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Psalm 46:1

In the book, In The Arena of Faith, Erich Sauer communicates the colorful nature of the Reformation in an almost visual way. His German directness and generous use of Bible similitude combine to make his books a gymnasium for the brain. The strength of intellect and strength of faith revive the characteristics of the reformer, Martin Luther. Many have written about him, but none have sounded quite so… German about it as Erich Sauer.

According to well-known history, Martin Luther self-published his Ninety-Five Theses on the Wittenberg Castle door on October 31, 1517. The Wittenberg castle was no match for Luther’s faith in the word of God, a faith expressed in song in “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

That Word above all earthly pow’rs

No thanks to them, abideth;

The Spirit and the gifts are ours

Through Him Who with us sideth.

Let goods and kindred go,

This mortal life also;

The body they may kill:

God’s Truth abideth still;

His kingdom is forever!

That is what most know of Luther; the massive, bold, demonstrative background. Sauer’s review of Martin Luther’s life in the first chapters of In The Arena of Faith refocuses my mind to see not only the background, but a sparkle of color in the foreground that provides a beautiful description of Luther’s faith.

"During my travels I have often visited places well known through the life of Martin Luther. In fact, I have visited most of them: 

Eisleben, where he was born and died; 

Eisenach, where he went to school and studied the classics; 

Erfurt, where he visited the university and the later in the monastery cell sought a merciful God with many a sigh and a tear; 

Wittenburg, where he was Professor and where he nailed up his Theses and burnt the Bull of his excommunication by the Pope; 

Wartburg, where he translated the New Testament; 

Worms, where he confessed his good confession before the Emperor and the Imperial Diet; Marburg, Coburg, and Halle. 

In most of these places one sees the so-called "Luther Rose" on the doors and walls of these houses or in the collections of the letters and documents of the great Reformer.

This rose represents Luther's coat of arms and was designed by himself. By means of this rose Luther wished to express the main principles of his own faith and of his personal experience of salvation. It is the "symbol of my theology," he once said. In the centre is a black cross in the midst of a red heart, and the whole is surrounded by a white rose on a blue background, surrounded by a golden ring. With this form of seal Luther wished to express symbolically in form and colour what he once wrote in a letter to Lazarus Spengler, the clerk of the city of Nuremberg. It was written ont he 8th of July, 1530, during his stay in the castle of Colburg, at the time of the Augsburg Diet: 

"The first must be a cross, black in the heart, so that I remind myself that faith in the Crucified One saves me. For if we believe in our hearts, we are justified. Even though it is a black cross and mortifies and hurts, yet it leaves the heart in its natural colour (red). It does not destroy our natural personality. It does not kill, but it rather allows us to live. For the just lives by faith. The heart must be set in the midst of a white, gay rose, in order to show that faith produces happiness, comfort, and peace, and not as the world gives. For this reason the rose must be white and not red. For white is the colour of the spirits and all angels. This rose is set in the centre of an azure background in order to show that this joy is the beginning of a future heavenly joy. And this background is set in a golden ring in order to show that this blessedness in heaven is everlasting and will never end, and is more precous than all joy and earthly possessions, just as gold is the most precious of all metals."

On another occasion Luther expressed himself on the same subject as follows:

On roses walks the Christian heart,
E’en though the cross be here its part

Sauer wrapped together this tender flower with a triumphant refrain.

Holy joy, heavenly nature, and everlasting glory is our blessed lot where faith in the Crucified One is the true possession of our heart and the centre of our life. The cross is not a symbol of destruction but of life. It is inextricably connected in Scripture with the resurrection. For Christ's death is at once the death of our death and therefore life and eternal bliss. 

Thus Martin Luther’s life and faith is encapsulated in two strikingly divergent symbols: a white rose, and a mighty fortress.

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