From Head To Heart

From Head To Heart

Theological ideas alone cannot save, but they can be the seeds of spiritual transformation.

SO IT WAS in the life of Ulrich Zwingli, who arrived on December 27, 1518, at Zurich, where he would play a crucial role in the Protestant Reformation.

Zwingli was not born an idealistic revolutionary. He was well educated and demonstrated a keen intellect. His training, not spiritual passion, led him into the ministry. In short, the ideas of the early church fathers made sense to Zwingli, but he lacked true spiritual devotion.

This rift between head and heart manifested itself earlier when, amid his persuasive sermons and popular ministry in the Swiss town of Glarus, someone exposed Zwingli’s wanton relationship with a mistress. His conscience was pricked but not yet transformed. At this time Zwingli reluctantly accepted a post at Einsiedeln, a monastery and place of pilgrimage. There where indulgences promised a hollow forgiveness through material means, Zwingli turned his thoughts to the Scriptures, to the writings of the early church, and to his own heart.

As he preached there on God’s grace, Zwingli began to find the rituals and trappings of the Roman Catholic Church lacking, and he publicly denounced the local seller of papal indulgences. Grace could not be bought and sold, he surmised, and while decrying the false hopes permeating this small town, Zwingli sought the Scriptures for an understanding of free grace. After all, his own soul was at stake.

God only knows when Zwingli discovered this saving grace, unmerited by pilgrimage or indulgence, but at Einsiedeln Zwingli confessed his own sins publicly and declared Christ’s saving grace to be sufficient for the salvation of souls. Soon officials from Zurich noticed his powerful oratory. They had reservations about him, based on his past reputation, but he appeared changed. They soon invited him to become a priest at the Zurich Great Church. Europe would never be the same, and neither would Zwingli.

Zwingli entered a city primed for the Reformation. His employers had little idea they were hiring a Reformer, and Zwingli himself might not have known how much he would change. Zurich’s citizens, known for their fine army and penchant for political independence, found themselves drawn to their new preacher. The message that a person could come to Christ individually, sin in hand, apart from the mediation of Rome, resonated with the people. In a revolutionary step Zwingli declared he would preach his own sermons on the Gospel of Matthew rather than follow the official Roman lectionary. The crowds responded enthusiastically, flocking to hear the Word of God fresh and newly proclaimed. Zwingli found himself preaching in the marketplace on Fridays so the crowds from surrounding villages might hear him. He proclaimed the sufficiency of faith in Christ, the deficiency of superstition and indulgences, the necessity of true repentance and godly living, and the importance of caring for the poor and needy, the widow and orphan.

And widows and orphans there would be. In the summer of 1519, while vacationing, Zwingli received a desperate call to return home. The plague had arrived. Three out of ten people died. Throughout this ravaged, desperate city, Zwingli diligently ministered. While attending to the sick and dying, he also became ill and lay for many days at death’s door.

Zwingli eventually recovered and went on to become the leading figure in the Reformation in German-speaking Switzerland. But it was just a matter of time before war broke out between Protestants and the armies of the pope. A lifelong military chaplain, Zwingli died on the battlefield of Kappel in 1531, defending a threatened freedom: the preaching of the gospel he had come to know and love.

Reflection

What factors do you think contributed to the success of Zwingli’s ministry? Are you surprised to learn that God mightily used a person who had a mistress in his early days as a pastor? What lessons can you learn from the life of Ulrich Zwingli?

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. . . . Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.

Psalm 51:1-4