Johann Esch and Henrich Voes, Martyrs

Appropos of my conversation with Richard Abanes, on July 1, 1523, Christians who confessed the Apostles Creed but denied trifles like salvation by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith burned Johann Esch and Henrich Voes at the stake at Brussels, Belgium, because these two young Augustinian monks didn't think that the central doctrine of the Christian faith was a trifle after all.

Esch and Voes were the very first martyrs of the Reformation. When Martin Luther heard of their deaths, he responded by writing his very first hymn, Ein neues Lied wir heben an (Now Shall a New Song Be Begun, aka With Help of God I Fain Would Tell), which appears in The Lutheran Hymnal as Flung To the Heedless Winds.

Many other Lutherans would follow. As it happens, the month of July ends with the anniversary of the burning of another Lutheran martyr, Robert Barnes, by Henry VIII (on July 31, 1540. Henry's own Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, would be burned by Henry's daughter, Bloody Mary). Barnes first recanted and then reasserted his confession of Christianity's central doctrine. Historian Carolly Erickson writes that he died with such courage that dozens were converted to the Evangelical (in the original sense) faith on the spot. When Luther heard the news, it was a personal blow; "this blessed martyr, St. Robertus," as Luther called him, had been a guest at the Reformer's table many times

While in my first parish, I was dating a Mennonite woman. I was impressed with the place the Anabaptist martyrs played in the self-understanding of the Mennonites, and wondered whether our own rich history in that respect might do the same for Lutherans. I was pondering celebrating a kind of "Lutheran Martyrs Sunday" on the Sunday midway between the anniversary of the deaths of Esch and Voes on July 1 and of Barnes on July 31 when I happened to glance at the appointed Gospel lesson for that Sunday- which, as it happened, was Matthew 10!

That decided it.

I wrote two new verses for LBW 178 (LW 193 and 194), By All Your Saints in Warfare, for use in the service:

All praise for John and Henry,
Whose witness to Your truth
In fire and smoke foreshortened
Their brave and faithful youth.
But now their pain is over;
They dwell with You above.
Lord, give us all such courage
To witness to Your love!

Praise, too, for England's doctor
Of brighter faith than fame,
Whose witness to the Gospel
Glowed brighest in the flame!
Lord, grant that our confession-
Like Robert's- may inspire
In other hearts the kindling
Of Your most holy fire.

In this age of doctrinal indifference, as the truths of the Gospel are eroded by the spirit of the age even among confessional Lutherans, we need the example of our martyrs more than ever. We need to be inspired by their example- and perhaps also to be shamed by it.

We need to be reminded that not a single, precious word of the revelation of Jesus Christ is a matter of indifference or unimportance, and that their is nothing in the universe more precious than salvation (and sanctification!) by grace alone, for Christ's sake alone, by faith alone