Emphasis Preaching Journal

When the lights begin to go out, the natural response is to panic and lose faith. Unless, of course, one knows where to look for light. Martin Rinkart knew. The pastor of a Lutheran congregation in a Saxon village, he lived through a time of plague which killed thousands in Germany, including a horrific number of his own congregation. There were weeks when he spent all his time preaching funeral sermons and accompanying corpses to the cemetery.