Reformation Monday: Diet of Worms

This historic event is every young teens favorite part of the Luther story.  Who doesn't think a diet of worms is a bit funny?

But of course, worms had nothing to do with this important confrontation between Rome represented by the Papal Nuncio and Martin Luther, represented by himself.  They stood before the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V; Luther was to answer for his writings and recant as demanded by Pope Leo through his representative.

Called into session in 1521, the Diet was a meeting, similar to the US Congress but of course on a much smaller scale and in Germany.  Worms was the city in which the Diet was held. Luther was summoned to appear before the Diet, having already been denounced by the Pope and excommunicated.

It was dangerous for Luther to travel to Worms under the ban of excommunication so his prince, Frederick required a guarantee of safe passage to and from the meeting.  (This was essential since a hundred years earlier, reformer Jan Huss was summoned under just such a guarantee and when he arrived they burned him at the stake).

There isn't an exact recording of what Luther said when called on.  He did admit that all the writings laid out before him were, in fact, his.  When asked to recant, he asked for a day to think it over.  The next day, he refused.  We have all heard the story of him saying, "Here I stand.  I can do no other."*  No one is really sure he actually said that, but it gets quoted all the time. Certainly he said something quite similar.

After Luther's departure, the Edict of Worms was issued which made Luther an outlaw, subject to arrest by anyone at anytime.  On his way back home from the Diet, Prince Frederick kidnapped Luther and hid him in the Wartburg Castle where he spent his time in isolation translating the Bible into German.....and fighting the devil (although that is another Monday's story).

When I think about this episode I am struck by the sheer courage of the man.  He knew what he was risking; enemies of the Pope died slow and painful deaths....and yet for Luther there was no other path.  It is the courage and witness of men and women like Martin Luther which remind us of the radical nature of professing Jesus as Lord.  They form the 'great cloud of witnesses' who sustain those who desire lives of faith.  Thanks be to God.



**I have a pair of socks I bought in Wittenburg, Germany with those exact words printed on the soles.  I love the word play.