Sometimes we expend a good deal of time and energy with the expectation that hard work and good intentions will bring us happiness; but instead we find sorrow. The long-planned vacation or pursuit of a career can find bumps in the road. Luther’s life 500 years ago should have been an occasion for great joy; but it was mixed with turbulence.

Luther spent his second year at the monastery preparing to be a priest. First he became a subdeacon, then a deacon. Finally, on May 2, 1507, after being ordained, he celebrated his first mass. The mass is the liturgy in which an ordained priest celebrates the Lord’s Supper. A majority of Luther’s fellow Augustinian monks were priests. Celebrating the mass was one of their chief duties. Many masses were said each day. These masses involved issues that Luther later rejected as contrary to Scripture: a solitary priest performing it as a private devotion, conducting it as a sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead, and the buying and selling of masses. Along with celebrating the mass, an ordained priest heard private confessions.

In preparation for these duties, Luther had to work through 89 lessons in a book prepared by Gabriel Biel, published in 1499. Biel was a German scholar who held to a mechanical theory of the sacraments and, with this, to an exaggerated power of the priests administering them. In these lessons, Biel discussed the entire liturgy, the consecration, indulgences, the veneration of the saints and the presence of Christ in the sacrament as they were understood from the Bible, the early church leaders and philosophical theories. At the time, Luther considered it the best book on the subject. But it still troubled him as he later admitted, “When I read it, my heart bled.” In Biel’s medieval mass, one confronted the holy Christ not only as Savior but also as Judge. The question and requirement of worthiness haunted the devout Luther.

In a letter inviting his friend Johannes Braun to the May 2 celebration, Luther describes himself as a miserable, unworthy sinner, made of dust, called by the glorious Lord, who is holy in all His works, to this high task. It was considered a serious sin to make a mistake in performing the Roman mass.

Luther’s first mass was much anticipated. However, when the day arrived, Luther faltered. In the midst of the mass, Luther was overtaken by the fear of appearing before the holy Judge. He wanted to run away and told this to the priest who was assisting him, but he was ordered to continue. He so feared mishandling the elements that he dreaded what was supposed to be the highest privilege of a priest. The Supper Christ instituted for the comfort of weak souls, mangled through the tradition and philosophical theories of men, had become an unbearable burden. The difficulties Luther experienced in celebrating his first mass did not end once he mastered its mechanics. At times Luther would halt a mass already in progress in order to repeat the confession he had made before it began. And when the mass was over, his fear remained.

One thing about May 2, 1507, that did give Luther some joy was seeing his father for the first time since he had entered the monastery. Hans Luther entered the courtyard with 20 or more horsemen and a caravan of wagons carrying friends and relatives. Although he did not approve of the course Martin had taken, he gave a generous donation to the monastery to cover the expenses of the celebration. While dining after the conclusion of the mass with the guests and the monks, Martin explained his experience in the storm several years earlier that had led to his vow to enter the monastery. He told Hans, “My new life is quiet and godly.” His father snarled, “Would that it may not have been a mere illusion or deception.” And he later added in the presence of everyone, “Have you not read that you should honor your father and your mother?” Nevertheless, Hans grew to admire his son. His son would have a place in history and, greater treasure by far, Martin would finally know and herald a gracious Christ.

Later that year Luther began a five-year program of studies and disputations that would make him a Doctor of Theology and take him to Wittenberg to be a teacher of the church. It was there, after the repeated study of the Scriptures, that the veil which human wisdom and tradition had cast upon God’s good gifts would be lifted.

Thomas Smuda is pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Deshler, Ohio.