"...it is a high article to believe that this infant, born of Mary, is true God; for nobody's reason can ever accept the fact that he who created heaven and earth and is adored by the angels was born of a virgin." To whom is this joyful news to be proclaimed? "Those who are faint-hearted and feel the burden of their sins, like the shepherds, to whom the angels proclaim the message, letting the great lords in Jerusalem, who do not accept it, go on sleeping."
As hard as it may be to believe, this is what we preach..."Mary bore the child, took it to her breast and nursed it, and the Father in heaven has his Son, lying in the manger and the mother's lap"
Luther is concerned that Mary as the mother of Jesus can or has become an idol, elevated above the child she bore. We hear some of that in this language....
"So great should that light which declares that he is my Savior become in my eyes that I can say: Mary, you did not bear this child for yourself alone. The child is not yours; you did not bring him forth for yourself, but for me, even though you are his mother, even though you held him in your arms and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and picked him up and laid him down.
"But I have greater honor than your honor as his mother. For your honor pertains to your motherhood of the body of the child, but my honor is this, that you have my treasure, so that I know none...who can help me except this child whom you O Mary, hold in your arms.
"If a man could put out of his mind all that he is and has except this child, and if for him everything - money, goods, power, or honor - fades into darkness and he despises everything on earth compared with this child, so that heaven with its stars and earth with all its power and all its treasures becomes as nothing to him, that man would have the true gain and fruit of this message of the angel....'for unto you is born this day the Savior.'"
Luther wants folks to take Jesus as a gift to and for them. Jesus is a gift 'to you' and 'for you'
May you O man, "learn that Christ, born of the virgin, is the Lord and Savior, but also accept the fact that is your Lord and Savior...he is more mine than Mary's, for he was born for me, for the angel said, 'To you' is born the Savior."
"If St. Bartholomew or St. Anthony or a pilgrimage to St. James or good works save, then they surely are my savior....But then what is left of the honor of the child who was born this day, whom the angel calls Lord and Savior....If I set up any savior except this child, then he is not the Savior. But the text says that he is the Savior. And if this is true -and it is the truth - then let everything else go."
To sum it up: It is Jesus. Only Jesus. All Jesus....and nothing else.
Text is taken from Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings, edited by Timothy F. Lull, 1989, p227-35
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