Have you been to a wedding in this traditional month for weddings? Had you lived in Wittenberg, Germany in 1525, tomorrow you might have attended Martin Luther’s wedding.
Celibacy didn’t spark the Reformation; the rediscovery of God’s undeserved kindness in Christ did. Luther felt the Gospel frees us from groveling to human church rules, a freedom that could be expressed by clerical marriage. Still, the prospect of marriage didn’t appeal to Luther personally. So when a former nun, Katharina von Bora, suggested Luther could marry her, he thought “no.”
We men may be slow but sometimes we eventually get it. On June 10th Martin and Katie were betrothed, which in those days constituted a legal marriage. And at 10:00 A.M. on the 27th, “Luther led Katharina to the sound of bells through the streets of Wittenberg to the parish church, where at the portal in the sight of all the people the religious ceremony was observed. Then came a banquet in the Augustinian cloister, and after dinner a dance at the town hall. In the evening there was another banquet.” (Roland Bainton, “Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, 290).
When Luther had sent out the invitations, he wrote to a friend, “You must come to my wedding. I have made the angels laugh and the devils weep.” May all our marriages do the same!
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