April, 1513.
I have asked Dr. Luther, and he says it is because the devil makes a great deal of the religion we see; that he pretends to be Christ, and comes and terrifies people, and scourges them with the remembrance of their sins, and tells them they must not dare to lift up their eyes to heaven, because God is so holy, and they are so sinful. But it is all because he knows that if they would lift their eyes to heaven, their terrors would vanish, and they would see Christ there, not as the Judge, and the hard, exacting Creditor, but as the pitiful, loving Saviour.
I find it a great comfort to believe in this way in the devil. Has he not been trying to teach me his religion all my life? And now I have found him out! He has been telling me lies, not about myself (Dr. Luther says he cannot paint us more sinful than we are), but lies about God. It helps me almost as much to hear Dr. Luther speak about the devil as about God—"the malignant, sad spirit," he says, "who loves to make every one sad."
With God's help, I will never believe him again. But Dr. Luther said I shall, often; that he will come again and malign God, and assail my peace in so many ways, that it will be long before I learn to know him.
I shuddered when he told me this; but then he reassured me, by telling me a beautiful story, which, he said, was from the Bible. It was about a Good Shepherd and silly, wandering sheep, and a wolf who sought to devour them. "All the care of the Shepherd," he said, "is in the tenderest way to attract the sheep to keep close to him; and when they wander, he goes and seeks them, takes them on his shoulder, and carries them safe home. All our wisdom," he says, "is to keep always near this Good Shepherd, who is Christ, and to listen to his voice."
I know the Lord Jesus Christ is called the Good Shepherd. I have seen the picture of him carrying the lamb on his shoulder. But until Dr. Luther explained it to me, I thought it meant that he was the Lord and Owner of all the world, who are his flock. But I never thought that he cared for me as his sheep, sought me, called me, watched me, even me, day by day.
Other people, no doubt, have understood all this before. And yet, if so, why do not the monks preach of it? Why should Aunt Agnes serve Him in the convent by penances and self-tormentings, instead of serving Him in the world by being kind and helping all around? Why should our dear, gentle mother, have such sad, self-reproachful thoughts, and feel as if she and our family were under a curse?
Dr. Luther said that Christ was "made a curse for us;" that he, the unspotted and undefiled Lamb of God, bore the curse for us on the cross; and that we, believing in him, are not under the curse, but under the blessing—that we are blessed.
This, then, is what the crucifix and the Agnus Dei mean.
Doubtless many around me have understood all this long ago. I am sure, at least, that our Eva understood it.