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Lutheran church plans a “mass-baptism”
Eisleben, Germany -- On November 11th, 1483, the great reformer, Martin Luther, was carried up the street from the house where he was born to the church of Saints Peter and Paul. With Martin’s father and godparents standing by, the local priest held the day-old little Luther naked over the baptismal font and dunked him three times into the cold November waters of God’s certain grace. “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” He was named Martin because November 11th is the feast day for Saint Martin of Tours. Certain that Martin was now saved for all eternity, his father brought him home to begin his life as the son of a copper mining prospector. It is 525 years later in the same city now called Lutherstadt Eisleben. The pastors of that same church where Martin Luther was baptized, along with a couple of neighboring pastors from Eisleben, are planning something big in honor of the 525th anniversary of Martin Luther’s baptismal birthday. Their goal: baptize 525 people in Saints Peter and Paul church on November 11th, 2008. It is a lofty goal to be sure. But will they be able to make it happen? Claudia Bergmann, one of the pastors of the historic church says, “Will we reach 525? I don’t know. But what better way is there to find out then to try?” There is a lot of excitement surrounding this event. There are already people registered to be baptized or to have their children baptized. Lot’s of people are talking about what baptism means in a town where only 13% of the population is Christian. Some are traveling from all over Germany in order to receive the sacrament of Baptism in this historic place at the remains of the very font in which Martin Luther was baptized. Hundreds of newspapers throughout Europe picked up the story and have been writing about the “mass-baptism”. The pastors in Eisleben are thrilled about the press, but not about the choice of words. “We aren’t going to baptize 100, 200, or 525 people all at once,” says Pastor Claudia Bergmann. “It won’t be a mass-baptism. No fire hoses or anything unworthy of the sacrament of Baptism. One at a time. If we reach our goal of 525, we will still only be around 18% of the number that were baptized on Pentecost. I think that’s a pretty humble start, don’t you?” There are also critics. Some pastors have written to the church newspapers and criticized the spectacle of a large event called Luther525. They are concerned that it’s being done just for show. In response to that, Hauke Meinhold, pastor of the neighboring St. Anne’s Lutheran Church says, “We expect each person to have had appropriate baptismal instruction. If the candidate is from someplace else, they will have to show us a letter from the congregation where they received this instruction. We will not baptize anyone who shows up that day. We want to be responsible about this important experience even if that means we only celebrate 50 or even 5 baptisms.” Whatever happens, it is certainly expected to be the highlight for the church in an area of the world where the role of religion has become less significant in the lives of most people.
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Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, May 18, 2008. 