I still possess a copy of the first sermon I preached when I was called to the pastorate. What strikes me as I reread it is my strong desire to be liked. While I tried to faithfully interpret Matthew 28, I cannot lie: I desperately wanted people to like me, knowing they would be voting on my call moments after the sermon.
The need to be liked must not have mattered much to Nicolai Frederick S. Grundtvig (1783-1872) when he preached his inaugural sermon in 1810. Following his University of Copenhagen education, Frederick became a high school teacher and tutor. He did not aspire to become a preacher but entered the pastorate solely to assist his ailing father, a Lutheran pastor in Copenhagen. Frederick was required to deliver a trial sermon titled, “Why the Lord’s Word has Disappeared from our Land.” It was a stinging rebuke of Danish pastors who had lost interest in preaching the gospel. Rationalism had become fashionable in Danish churches, which regarded reason as the gateway to true knowledge. When the sermon was printed, it created a firestorm, and the church denied Frederick a permanent call after his father died. He turned to writing and issued a strong rebuttal to the rationalism put forward in a book by a university theology professor. The professor sued for libel, Frederick was fined and censured from preaching for seven years.
Three things stand out to me about Frederick’s writing and ministry. 1. His influence on Danish education. As he watched miserable boys grilled on ancient Latin forms and schooled on the glories of Rome but kept in the dark about noble Nordic myths, he led the reform to focus on learning for life rather than passing examinations (he outlawed exams!). His emphasis on hands-on learning over book learning gave rise to Danish folk schools. 2. His distinctions between Christianity and Islam. He observed that Jesus’ divinity and humanity are so intertwined they cannot possibly be separated. Islam, in Frederick’s words, regarded the “divine and human nature as so different in kind that no living contact between them was conceivable. They deny the possibility of the incarnation of God’s Son and the fusion of the divine and human nature in the personality of the Lord Jesus Christ.” 3. His outlook on life as expressed through his hymn writing. Frederick wrote 1500 hymns during his lifetime and introduced “praise songs” to the Danish church. The positive nature of his hymns earned him and others like him the label “the happy Danes.” In a Good Friday sermon, he advised fellow Christians not to mourn for long. It is far better to celebrate Christ’s resurrection than to sit in gloomy despondency. One such hymn, “Hail, Our Reconciling Savior,” written as a prayer radiates praise: