Oppenheim (Maundy Thursday)

I'm currently sitting at my desk on a cold, wet afternoon, indulging my latest obsession - green tea - and I realize now that I have to run to the store before it closes. Tomorrow is Good Friday, or "Karfreitag." And, as I've learned (the hard way of course), Germans shut everything down for holidays - even church holidays . . . Being on break, this morning Thomas, Matthias, Ryan and I hopped the train to the small town of Oppenheim. Oppenheim sits on a hill between Mainz and Worms on the south bank of the Rhein River. Their Katharinenkirche is known as a prime example of late-Gothic German architecture. On our way up the hill Matthias noted a sign indicating that Martin Luther spent the night here on his way to and from the Diet of Worms in 1521. We also observed their strange fascination with frogs - brass and concrete sculptures of the amphibian on nearly ever corner - though we still don't know the story behind that. But perhaps the most interesting feature in Oppenheim is the "bone house" - a cellar underneath a small chapel just off to the side of Katharinenkirche. The cellar houses the bones - visible through an iron door - of 20,000 people collected between the years 1400 and 1750. Interesting.

Marburg (19.01.2008)

Today's trip began the way most of them do: with a wet, muddy slog down the hill to the platform at Glöcknerwiese. Any effort spent cleaning my shoes is usually undone by the time I get to the bottom. It was misting. I almost called off the trip to Marburg because I knew it would be overcast and probably rain most of the day. I'm glad I didn't.

Marburg is an important Reformation site. I don't feel like retelling the story myself, so here's Wikipedia's version (http://wikipedia.org):

"The Marburg Colloquy was a meeting which attempted to solve a dispute between Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli over the Lord's Supper. It took place between October 1 and October 4, 1529. The leading Protestant reformers of the time attended at the behest of Philipp I of Hessen. Philipp's primary motivation for this conference was political; he wished to unite the Protestant states in political alliance, and to this end, religious harmony was an important constituent. After the Diet of Speyer had confirmed the edict of Worms, the need was felt to reconcile the diverging views in particular of Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli to have a unified Protestant theology. . . . Although the two prominent reformers, Luther and Zwingli, found a consensus on fourteen points, they kept differing on the last one on the Eucharist: Luther maintained that by Sacramental Union, the consecrated bread and wine in the Lord's Supper were united to the true body and blood of Christ for all communicants to eat and drink; whereas, Zwingli considered bread and wine only symbols of the body and blood of Christ. On this issue they parted without having reached an agreement."

Meatloaf said "two out of three ain't bad." But, when we're talking about the true body and the true blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, 14 out of 15 ain't good enough. Luther is famous for getting so (and rightly so) adamant that he carved the word "est" (Latin for "is") into a table. "This is my body . . . This is my blood. . . ."

Here are some of my photos from Marbug:








(The room in Marburg Castle where Luther and Zwingli actually went at it.)



I thought this was a good one to end with . . .
Peace to you.

Worms

Today I had the pleasure of taking a road trip to Worms with one of my professors, Dr. Klän, a classmate, Thomas, and two guests - vicars visiting from South Africa. Highlights were St. Peter's Cathedral, the Luther monument, and the Jewish quarter on the edge of the Altstadt by the city wall.



Roughly: "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me, Amen." (above)


L-R: John Hus (seated), Martin Luther (standing, with "die Bibel"), Philip Melanchthon (above)