"A Mighty Fortress is Our God" - Psalm 46

“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” It’s the Lutheran epitome of the Star-Spangled Banner, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the 1812 Overture (with cannon-fire) all comingled with Dixie. It makes our blood pump a little stronger and we stand just a bit taller as we sing it. Martin Luther wrote it around 1528, a Christ-centered rendering of Psalm 46. Open your hymnal and look at it with me.

In verse one, God is our fortress standing firm against the devil’s attacks, even though by the end of verse 1 it appears satan is winning the battle (“on earth is not his equal”). Verse two doesn’t seem to render much hope – no matter how hard we try, we cannot hope to defeat him. God, in His mercy, provides a champion: Christ Jesus, His Son. Stanza three gives us powerful imagery of the eternal combat that has raged since almost the beginning of time: one can imagine demons, snapping, hungry to devour Christians while their chief roars in anger, but they unable to touch us. One little word stops them, cold. What is that word? In sermons, Luther sometimes implies the word is “Jesus;” other places, it’s calling the devil what he is, “Liar;” in other readings, it’s implied Jesus’ final word from the cross, “Finished.” The final verse plays on the name of Jesus as the Word made flesh: the Word – both/and Jesus and the His words – and His Kingdom, of which we are part, endures forever. 

Luther wrote the hymn based on a Christ-centered reading of Psalm 46. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling…” This text, too, fills us with a sense of hope, endurance, and courage in the face of life’s difficulties. So, with the drumbeats of war in Europe and the Middle East, we pray “God is our refuge and strength.” With political chaos in Washington DC and in communities across our country, we pray, “A very present help in times of trouble.” As society becomes less and less caring, we pray, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way.” As communities struggle with floods, tornadoes, and drought, we pray, “though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.”

It’s relatively easy for us to sit here in our church and in our homes, with climate-controlled comfort with food in the pantry and in relatively good health, clean clothes on our back and a place to call home, and sing the battle hymn of the Reformation, or read the Psalm. We can even defiantly shout – for Lutherans, perhaps just think loudly – “Let the waters roar, let the mountains tremble…” It’s easy to say it and affirm it when all is well and good.

But when life hits hard, when the proverbial waters start rising around our head, shoulders, knees and toes, when emotional mountains shake, rattle and roll, when our world is threatening to collapsing around us, it is much more difficult to trust and pray “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.” What happens when we are grieving loss or death? What about when we are mentally broken? What about when depression makes it so difficult to go to work, and interface and interact with people that just getting out of bed is a small miracle? What about when our kids struggle, or our parents struggle, and we just can’t fix it? We turn to the Lord, yes, but sometimes, it is as if our prayers fall on deaf – or at least, non-listening – ears. When life is hard, and life narrows down, where is the God who pledged to be in our midst? Where is the God who lifts out of the muck and mire? Where…how do we as God’s people find comfort in times like that?

That isn’t asked from a vacuum. Those are not rhetorical questions. I mean it quite sincerely when I ask: Where is the God who pledged to be in our midst? Where is the God who lifts out of the muck and mire? Where…how do we as God’s people find comfort in times like that?

The last few months have not been kind to my mind and my spirit. Truth be told, I get inside my own head, and my thoughts aren’t always helpful. I’m kind of like that cartoon character, Pogo, who quipped, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  I found myself wrestling with these very questions. Where is God in the shadows? How can I see Him when I can barely see anything outside my own struggle? I know Psalm 46, mostly by heart, and I prayed it often. But, again being honest, those words sounded hollow. I felt less like Psalm 46, “God is our refuge and strength,” and more like Psalm 13, “How long, O Lord, how long? Will you forget me forever?”

Luther wrote his hymn in a time of world-wide chaos. The Black Plague had hit his part of Germany. The Turks were invading the Roman Empire, threatening Germany to the east. Catholic armies fought against “rebel” Lutheran forces. Within the church, Roman Catholics, other Protestants, and Lutheran theologians often engaged in hot theological debates that sometimes turned violent. Personally, Luther had a child die in the plague. He was less than ten years removed from what many historians deem a psychological break-down. Having been public enemy, wanted dead or alive by both secular authorities and the Pope himself, friends kidnapped him and squirrelled him away in the high castle of Wartburg. Reportedly, he saw the face of the devil in his room, throwing a bottle of ink at it and ordering him to depart in the name of Jesus Christ. Other times, he was so depressed that over and over, line after line, he wrote in Latin, “I am baptized,” filling precious pages of paper with those words while clinging to God’s promises to him in Water and word.

Water and word… That is where our Lord is. That is where the Psalmist takes us, too. “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns,” (Ps. 46: 4-5).

OK…so how does that help?

You remember how Jesus connected the temple with Himself: “destroy this temple [referring to Himself] and I will raise it again in three days,” (Jn. 2:19). In the introduction to His gospel, John make it even clearer: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling (literally, His tenting) among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth,” (John 1:14). Psalm 46 is helping us connect these dots: the tabernacle of God is no longer a place but a person – in Jesus, God is present among His people. In Christ, God is entering into time. In Christ, God is a present help in time of trouble. In Christ, God is restoring creation towards Eden by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, driving demons out, and raising the dead. In Christ, God provides living water so that whoever drinks of Him will never be thirsty but will instead have eternal life.

And, we’re back to water flowing to the city. Again, the city isn’t a place – it’s people, and the locatedness of the people isn’t geographical, but spiritual – that is, the Church. The mercy of God flows to the Church, distributed to the people through…water and word.

Luther teaches us to make the sign of the cross – a tangible reminder of our Baptism and God’s name being placed upon us. If God loved us enough to send His Son to rescue us, if He loved us enough to place His name on us, if He loved us enough to forgive us our sins and pledge an eternal home for us in the resurrection of all flesh, how much more certain we can be of His help in this time of trouble.

In your baptism, God is readily found, an omnipresent help in times of trouble.  Write it down, if it helps you remember: I am baptized.

Isn’t it a beautiful irony, that when waters of life roar and foam and rise and threaten to overwhelm, our Lord calls us back to the calm, comforting, washing gift of Holy Baptism, washing away our sins, pouring out on us the holiness of Jesus, giving us the gift of eternal life in that heavenly city of God? I am baptized.

You have been baptized into Christ’s death and Christ’s resurrection, an ongoing present-tense reality with an eternal reward in the resurrection of body and the life of the world to come. I am baptized.

St. John picks up this image of a heavenly river in His Revelation, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” (Rev. 21: 1-2). And then John sees it: “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb,” (22: 2). I am baptized.

In Christ, I am God’s and nothing can separate me from His love. Mark yourself with the sign of the cross, the daring brand of Jesus, placed on your head and heart. Open His Word and His promises contained therein. Read the Psalms – the prayerbook of the church. Water and word; Word and water. I am baptized.

So, when the waters roar and foam, when the mountains shake, when the shadows lengthen, when the valley of the shadow is frightening, God is present. God will carry you through the storm and through the flood. But, then again, that’s nothing new for Him. He’s already done it.

God is your refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. How present?

He is present in His Son, who entered time and creation to save you.
He is present in His Word, delivered through His Son, to proclaim His love for you.
He is present in water, poured over you, uniting you to Christ and forgiving your sins.
He is present in bread and wine, both the meal and the host, for those who are weak and struggling.
He is present here.
He is present for you.

You notice, it's Reformation Sunday and I haven't said much about Martin Luther. That's because if he were here, he would scold us if we talked about him. Instead, he would point us to Jesus. So, Jesus is where we go this Reformation Sunday, every Sunday, and every day of our lives. 

Earlier, I said “Life is hard and life narrows down.”  I took that line from a devotion written by Rev. Arnold Kuntz. The rest of the quote is this, "Life narrows down, and crisis comes. And suddenly only one thing matters, and there, in the narrow place, stands Jesus." (Devotions for the Chronologically Gifted, St. Louis: CPH, © 1999; p. 46)