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On July 6, 1415, Prague preacher John Huss was led to the stake to be burned as a heretic. Huss was condemned for preaching the gospel, for calling for a return to the biblical faith, for cleansing a corrupt priesthood. The Council of Constance meeting on the Swiss border stripped him of his priestly vestments, a sooty chain was fastened around his neck, and just before the flames burned him, he, making a pun of his last name, Hus, which means "goose," said, "Today you are roasting a lean goose, but hardly 100 years will have passed and from these ashes shall rise a swan who will preach the gospel more fairly than I. And no net of yours will snare him, no trap capture him." Huss died singing. Just to the northwest of Prague, exactly 102 years later, Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation.

(The sound of Gregorian chant is heard. Suddenly, the peaceful music is interrupted by the sound of several hammer blows. Martin Luther enters dressed as a doctor, carrying a Bible.)

Big doors swing on the smallest of hinges. And my life became the hinge on which the Reformation swung. Bethlehem, Nazareth, Israel -- all nowhere places. Yet they were the hinges of history giving us Jesus, the Christ. Wittenberg, Germany, I, Martin Luther (bows), the doorway to the Castle Church -- all nowhere places, and a simple monk, yes, a modest man, yet they've become the hinge on which great things swing.

I must admit, I'm still a bit bewildered. All I did was nail 95 theses -- debate points -- on the door of Castle Church. And from there a chain of events was loosed that led to the Protestant Church. Like the woodpecker pecking on a tree when suddenly a bolt of lightning struck, splitting the tree in halves, the woodpecker got up, shook his feathers, and said, "God, I didn't know I had it in me!" Indeed, I didn't have it in me. But Christ did. And in his providence he gave his gospel of grace to the world.

The church of my day had lost the gospel of Jesus. What few Bibles there were belonged to the great cathedrals, they were written in Latin, and chained to the lectern. Only two percent of people could read. And those desiring to read scripture had to have the bishop's permission to do so.

Everywhere superstition abounded. Illiterate churchgoers said their rosaries while priests communed with God at the altar. In Germany there were said to be the relics of enough apostles to make up eighteen men. And a greedy church soaked the people selling church offices, indulgences, and a glimpse of the true cross along with other dubious relics.

Priests were sexually immoral, bishops were vainglorious, and at one time in the late 1300s, there was not one pope, but three, all hurling excommunications at one another. Germany was tired of the confusion, tired of being drained financially, tired of feeling insecure over salvation. All this and much more had transpired over the years to kindle in people a desire for renewal, for true knowledge, for an awakening.

In 1298 A.D., Marco Polo, returned from his travels to the Far East, published a book, much copied and eagerly read, detailing his marvelous exploits. The church asked him to recant of his fantasies. "Lies," they called them. "Behold the half of it I haven't told you," was his only reply.

Besetting disasters were to come heavy upon Europe. In 1347 the Black Death swept the continents from India to Iceland, killing entire monasteries, wiping out villages, half of city populations. And in the early thirteenth century the devil's own horsemen led by Genghis Kahn terrified us from the steppes of China to the gates of Prague, as unstoppable as a plague of locusts. Then came the Muslims. In the Middle Ages they took Jerusalem, then North Africa, Spain, and on into southern France. Indeed, these things fell heavy upon us.

Ah! But God was at work. Just nine years after my birth, Christopher Columbus encountered a whole new world. Johan Guttenberg of Germany perfected a movable type printing press. Great universities were beginning to tutor larger numbers of students. And the middle class was born. So many had died of war and plague that a workers'Êshortage resulted. This meant able-bodied laborers could demand more pay, and as they prospered, they could afford to move about, to gain an education, and to think for themselves.

I, Martin Luther, was born to a miner and his wife in Eiselben of Saxony in Germany. At great sacrifice my parents educated me, intending their son to become a lawyer and care for them in old age.

I schooled at Erfurt University. A bachelor's degree was followed by a master's and eventually a doctorate -- which my hat signifies. Two things were to happen in my studies to shape me in important ways.

One: ours was a death-stalked culture. Growing up, several of my brothers and sisters died of the plague. And a teacher, a friend of mine at the university, was murdered by a disgruntled student with an ax. His death terrified me. What if it had been me? Would I have gone to heaven or hell? I did not know.

The second event was a thunderstorm. I was returning one day to school when the sky blackened and suddenly a lightning bolt knocked me to the ground. "Saint Anne," I cried in prayer, "save me and I will become a monk!"

True to my word, and much to my father's dismay, I presented myself to the Augustinian cloister in Erfurt and devoted myself to God. I was a good monk, too. Desiring to please God and earn forgiveness of my sins, I applied myself to endless fasting, confessing of sins, singing of Psalms, and sleeping without a blanket in winter. Once I traveled to Rome on business for my order. There I climbed the Lateran steps, kissing the place where Christ fell. The pope had assured Catholicism that such a pilgrimage all but assured one of salvation. But all I could think when I finished was, "Who can say I did enough? That my works are good enough to merit heaven?"

I began to hate God. The prize of salvation seemed so out of reach for a sinful man like myself. My anxiety over my sins, my fear of God's judgment, and my terror at dying and being cast into hell left me exhausted.

This is when my pastor, the Reverend Johann Von Staupitz, suggested I divert my monkish energies and self-strivings to teaching at a newly-opened university in Wittenberg, Germany, a walled town of 2,500 people with just as many students. He dispatched me to the Augustinian monastery there, and for the first time in my life I began to study systematically the Bible and prepare my lectures.

My office was in the tower. There I poured over the Psalms, the book of Romans, and Galatians. I came to see the Bible was alive. It has a voice that speaks to me. It has feet and it chases me. It has hands that grasp me. And it was in these studies that Jesus Christ laid his claim on my life. Romans 1:17 was especially difficult for me: "The just shall live by faith."

Let me explain. The word "religion" is a Latin word. Re means "again." Legio means "to bind." Hence, religion is to bind back.

Now all religions agree on two facts: 1) We once had a close relationship with God. 2) We lost it in sin. Where religions disagree is on how that relationship is restored.

Most religions are active religions. Man must do something to earn God's love -- behave, pray, give alms, self-denial. Yet I came to understand that Christianity was not an active religion, but a reactive religion.

The gospel teaches that our relationship with God is so hopelessly broken that we could never fix it ourselves. So God, in his love, repaired it for us in Jesus Christ who died in our place on the cross, who rose again, and now offers us salvation as a gift to be received by faith.

When I was a child I climbed a tree and, looking down from my perch, grew frightened. I surely didn't want to go any higher. But when I looked down I became dizzy with heights and clung to the tree, screaming in terror. That's when my father came to the base of the tree, held out his big strong arms, and soothed, "Jump, Martin! I'm here. I'll catch you!" I fell safely into his arms. Reading the Bible I came to see my sinful plight the same. I was up a tree in sin. Not wanting to go on, yet I could not climb down by myself. So I was helpless. That's when Jesus came to me saying, "Trust me, Martin. Let go of your sins. Fall into my arms. I will save you."

So it was I came to understand salvation was a gift to be received, not a prize to be won. I saw the gate of heaven opened and by faith in Christ I stepped through.

About now, my new faith was sorely tested. A Bishop needed to pay for his office, and the pope of Rome needed more money to build his new Vatican church. So they issued a sale of indulgences. Johan Tetzel, the priest, came into a near region with his flamboyant preaching, "When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs!" I was incensed. How could the church so brazenly preach something so contradictory to the Bible? That's when in my thirty-fourth year of life I nailed the 95 theses on the door of the castle church. October 31, 1517, Halloween, the eve of All Saints' Day when Christians talk of death, heaven, and our security with Christ.

Now you need to know colleges are always debating something or another, and we used the cathedral door as a bulletin board. It was there I simply served notice that there were 95 points of disagreement I had with the church. And I wished to argue them from the Bible to see if the church was right or wrong.

When the printing press published my list, it was as if I'd struck a match in the dry tender of medieval discontent. Soon all of Europe was discussing my issues. And over the next several years I was maligned by the pope as a "drunken monk with a quarrel" and hauled before civil and ecclesiastical courts in Heidelberg, Augsburg, Leipzig, and Worms. The pope called me "a wild boar loose in the Lord's vineyard" and excommunicated me, also ordering that my books be burned. I, in turn, burned his excommunication bull along with a number of unbiblical Catholic writings. This I did in Wittenberg in 1520 at the city gate. There was no going back now! As we say in German, "The bear is loose!"

When I was proclaimed an outlaw of church and state, Emperor Charles V called me to the city of Worms on the Rhine River in western Germany. There I was to give an account of my discoveries from reading the Bible. My friends begged me not to go. I would be arrested and put to death, they feared, like John Huss. But God's Spirit bade me go! And to my comfort 100 German knights and my prince, Frederick the Wise, vouchsafed my protection.

A crowd of over 2,000 rejoicing people met me as I entered the city. I, a simple monk, brought to stand before emperor, cardinals, bishops, and princes for the hope of the gospel! Expecting to debate, I was silenced, scolded, and told to recant or face death. Asking for a day to think it over, I came back the next day, and in a small voice said, "I cannot recant. My conscience is bound to the Word of God. And unless I can be proved wrong from scripture, here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen!"

The church gave me a running head start before they'd seek to arrest me for execution. But Prince Frederick kidnapped me to the castle in Wartburg. And there I grew a beard and carried a sword, calling myself Knight George. In my ten months of hiding out I managed to write sermons, tracts, even books arguing my biblical views. The Lord even gave me grace to translate the New Testament from Greek to German in but eleven weeks. All of these were printed and read by an ever-widening and eager public. Thus I was doing battle with Satan using pen and ink and paper -- and the Word of God!

Meanwhile in Wittenberg the pot of reformation was boiling over. My good friend Philip Melenthon seemed helpless in his leadership. Professor Carlstadt offered full communion, said mass in German, priests married, monks and nuns quit the cloister, and students rioted, smashing icons and statues. Pastor Thomas Munizer even voiced the violent overthrow of civil order by the peasants.

I had to return. I had to risk my life by coming home to take control of matters before the gospel was discredited by lawlessness. So, with Saxon nobles protecting me, I returned to live out my life in Wittenberg, doing battle with the devil with sermons and prayer, with discipleship and love. All from God's Word.

Over the next decades my life was a bustle of work. In 1534, we published the entire Bible in German. Why, the translation was so good Moses seemed more German than Jewish!

I wrote Three Treatises, and then my best work, The Bondage of the Will, along with countless tracts and sermons.

In 1527 while struggling with a long bout of depression, I took a German beer-drinking tune, paraphrased the words of Psalm 46, and created the hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God!"

You ask about my personal life. At the age of 41, I took a wife. It happened in the most amazing way! Twelve nuns asked me to help them quit the covenant for the Protestant faith. I arranged for a fishmonger to smuggle them out in empty pickled herring barrels. Three of them returned home. I found husbands for eight others. But for the twelfth lady I came up empty time and again. She was 26, red of hair, and named Katherine Von Bora. My father said I should wed and sire children to ensure a heritage. I began to see it as a way to set an example of the freedom scripture gives priests to marry. And it also seemed a good way further to spite the pope. I told Katie that while I did not love her I could certainly learn to do so in Christ. And so we wed. You can imagine my surprise waking the next morning with pigtails on my pillow.

And ours was a happy household. I wouldn't trade my Katherine for all the wealth of Venice. Six children were our issue over the years. As the Prince gave us the old monastery to live in, our household bustled with children, guests, and students. We punctuated the table talk with my lute playing, the singing of Psalms and hymns! Christmas, when the snow lay on the ground and we celebrated God's gift of Jesus, was my favorite. Coming home from a Christmas Eve service, I spied an evergreen tree ice-icicled and aglow in the moonlight. It was so lovely I cut it down, hauled it by the fireside, and decorated it with candles for Jesus' birthday. Looking back, that was the first Christmas tree, a Yule tradition Germans brought with them worldwide. I also wrote for my children a carol lullaby, "Away In A Manger." Ah, it is an earlier heaven to have a wife, a family. What a contentment to rock a baby's cradle while writing a sermon!

Yes, indeed! But there were hardships. The uprising of the peasants led to a bloody civil war costing thousands of lives. The Reformation splintered into a thicket of unholy confused congregations. And my list of ailments multiplied like pimples -- hemorrhoids, diarrhea, gout, obesity, depression, constipation, insomnia, dizziness, ulcers on my leg, kidney stones, and a maddening ringing in my ears.

About now, some of us Protestant leaders undertook to visit the reformed churches of Saxony. To our great despair we found them to be in a sorry state --Êignorant pastors, corruption, sin, and bad doctrine. Out of our visit came a push for better schooling, the greater use of hymnody to teach sound doctrine, and I wrote an easily remembered catechism as a means to teach the Bible to all people. We even developed the Augsburg Confession to help ministers to stay within the boundaries of biblical thought. In 1517, I said, "No," to the people and "Yes," to Jesus. Now in 1530 the people were joining me in saying, "Yes," to the gospel.

In living as a reformer, I learned firsthand that criticism is the easiest part of any job. It is far easier to criticize the church and walk off than it is to put something better in its place.

Sometimes I despaired at the foolishness I saw all about me. I once went on strike in the pulpit, refusing to preach. The students were so unruly, so ... vile and incorrigible, I told Katherine to pack up, we were leaving. But farewell to all those who want an entirely purified church. Theirs is plainly wanting no church at all.

My consolation came in visiting a dying youth. When I asked him, "What will you take with you to God?" The boy said, "Everything that is good." "But,"ÊI pressed, "how can you, a poor sinner, bring anything good to God?" The youth said to me, "I take a penitent heart sprinkled clean by Jesus' blood." When he said this, I knew the gospel I had labored to preach was doing its work all over Europe. My heart swelled with joy, and I told the youth, "Then go, dear son. You will be a welcome guest to God."

In my later life, my daughter Magdalena died of sickness as I held her in my arms. I wept over her grave. With all my troubles as an outlaw, with all my health struggles, and the stress of leading the church, I told Kate one day, "I am sick of this world. And it is sick of me."

In my sixty-second year, while traveling with my three sons attempting to settle a dispute among Christians, I fell ill at Eiselben. Severe chest pains and other miseries beset me. At 2 a.m. on February 18, 1546, I uttered my last words, "We are beggars, it is true." Then I died safe in the arms of Jesus.

I'm buried beneath the pulpit of Castle Church in Wittenberg. And today in Worms where I stood firm in the faith of Christ, there is a statue of me holding a Bible in one hand while pointing to it with the other. The inscription reads, "If it be God's work, it will endure. If man's, it will perish."

Today, Lutheran Christians stand as a testament to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the largest Protestant denomination in the world. Through Protestant faith the gospel has circled the globe with churches, universities, hospitals, missionaries, art, music, and justice. And the world is the better for it.

(Strains of J. S. Bach's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" begin to rise.)

But ours is an unfinished work. For this life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it. The process is not yet finished, but it is going on. This is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.

(As Luther says his last line, he exits through the central aisle.)