A Mighty Fortress

A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he, amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
does seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.

Martin Luther — 1529

A mighty fortress is our God or “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott” was written in 1529 by Martin Luther in German. This hymn was a part of the 1529 edition of Joseph Klug’s Geistliche Lieder. A mighty Fortress is based off of Psalm 68 and was the we could say Theme song during the protestant reformation. The first 3 stanzas of the text are directly from Psalm 46, in stanza 4 Luther is speaking directly about his persecution experience. The text invites us to trust that God is with us in the battle and that anything aged against us will not prosper. He uses the word “Earthly Powers” in stanza four that some say refer to the roman catholic authorities of Luther’s time. Or Powers to those that are against Christ. In the ending Line Luther reminds us “God’s truth abideth still; his Kingdom is forever!” This hymn is one of my favorites, it speaks so much about God’s nature as our protector as the one who fights for us, it reminds me of the verse that states “In this world you will face trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world.” This hymn reminds us that we as his people have a shepherd who watches over us in all times. Coming from a more modern church congregation I know for certain we rarely if ever do hymns during our Worship Services, and I believe using a hymn for our worship set might not ever happen, but the opportunity to share a hymn like this can happen in any modern worship service. Going to the Purpose Driven Church held by Pastor Rick Warren at Saddleback church one thing he said that I loved was “You must match your music to the kind of people God wants your church to reach…. The music you use ‘positions’ your church in your community. It defines who you are…. It will determine the kind of people you attract, the kind of people you keep, and the kind of people you lose.” So much truth to that, even at my church which is a mid-sized Mega Church we strongly believe that our music must attract people to Christ. A great series we have almost every year is called 40 days of worship. In this series we not only teach our congregation about why we worship the way we do at EastLake but we give them a history of what music looked like in the early church. One of our Pastors does this beautifully, he during the 40 days of worship gave an example of what Gregorian chant was. He played a part of it for the congregation and then said “If you’ve never heard this, it’s ok.” Then he switched over and gave an example of a Negro Spiritual “Go Down, Moses.” Then he played a modern Chris tomlin song. The point of the message was musical style has changed so much and will continue to change but the way that we express our worship to God remains the same, it must come from a heart of gratitude and a posture of surrender. I love the way Dr. Toledo explained this in a precious course he said “Worship is a celebration!” That is where our hearts should be at all times, if our churches would use series like 40 days of worship we could teach and introduce our congregations to hymns, canticles, Gregorian chant. That does not mean we have to stop singing elevation worship or bethel music songs, but introducing hymns like this with so much history behind them is so important for the life of the church. This series and introducing the history behind a Mighty Fortress and even who Martin Luther was, not only connects us with believers from a different time but also how much history our faith has and that people hundreds of years ago were worshipping the same God we worship today. Also what a beautiful reminder is, specially that first line “A mighty fortress is our God” I know with all my heart one or two people in our congregations need to hear that today.