Wittenberg

Today we went to Wittenberg. This is why we came all the way to Germany this week. 500 years ago on Tuesday (we missed it by a couple of days due to some scheduling conflicts with our babysitters), Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. This event sparked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of history.

I happen to be married to a big reformed theology nerd. Over the summer, I hatched a plane to surprise him for his birthday with tickets to Germany, to see Wittenberg in person on the anniversary of the 95 Theses. It was pretty complicated as I had to get out of jury duty by writing a letter to a judge, I had to talk to his boss and get him out of work, plus I had to coordinate childcare and Gabe is not very big. But this was a once-in-500-years sort of event, so I had to try.

Pat was shocked and completely thrilled. I'm not sure that I'll be able to top this birthday next year...

Fast forward to now, and this is where we stood today, in front of that famous door.

The church itself is beautiful. We sat inside for a long time, just absorbing it all. Eventually someone started playing the organ, which was amazing. I'm not a huge organ person unless you're talking about inside an old church. Then absolutely, yes.

We wandered to the Lutherhaus, the house where Luther and his wife lived. They have a rather extensive museum and we were able to see his robe, his pulpit and large quantities of his writings. Since they were all in German, we couldn't read them, but we could see them just the same.

We stopped by the other church, which is where Luther did most of his preaching, as well as where he got married. We didn't stay too long, as there was a church service about to start and we didn't want our sightseeing to get in the way of actual worship.

I was actually surprised at how quiet the town was, given the fact that we'rr only a couple of days off of the big anniversary. And once again, I was saddened by the fact that most of the tourists that were there were old. There were very few people there under the age of 40, and most of then had clearly been dragged there by their parents and were ready to go home. I realize that my generation as a whole is not a church-going generation like some of the last have been, which is sad in and of itself, but the fact that no one is interested in even seeing where this huge historical event happened in the life of the church is a sad commentary on the state of our generation.

At least Pat and I had a good time!