In spite of all appearances during that year of waiting in the shadows, God was not finished with Luther, and Luther was not finished with the Reformation. To quote a popular line, things were not falling apart—they were merely falling into place. 

I love studying the Reformation at this season of the year. I am invigorated by listening to lectures about it on sunny, summer walks, thinking about the coming fall, which points toward another Reformation Day.

Recently my mind was drawn back to the Wartburg Castle, and I thought of Luther spending nearly a year in hiding there from May of 1521 to March of 1522, following his victorious stand at the Diet of Worms. I wonder if, while he was enduring such a trial, he ever considered his stay to be a waste of precious time.

We know that Luther experienced health struggles during that year, and that he was frustrated enough by his circumstances to make an incognito trip to Wittenberg in December of 1521. Indeed, how incredibly discouraged he must have been on occasion! Here he was in the prime of life, at the pinnacle of his ministry, spending months hidden away in obscurity in that castle. The Reformation was less than four years in the making, and Luther had come off a banner year in 1520, which saw the publication of three of his most influential books: To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church and The Freedom of a Christian Man.

That year had ended with Luther burning the papal bull, which levied 41 charges against him. He performed his act of defiance amidst a raucous celebration of students at Wittenberg’s Elster Gate on Dec. 10, 1520. This led to a second papal bull of excommunication and Luther’s courageous stand at Worms in April of 1521.

But then, for most of a year, there were no cheering crowds urging him on, no students to teach, no congregants to counsel, no lectures to present, no sermons to preach. Disguised as Junker Jörg, or Knight George, the bearded, long-haired Luther betrayed no connection to the movement he had launched, which was in the process of shaking the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire to their cores.

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