At the end of each school day your homeroom teachers lead you all in a thankful moment. Sometimes it can be hard to be thankful, but we have so many reasons to be thankful! Do you know what is it like to be thankful in bad circumstances? One remarkable hero of thankfulness was a little known German pastor named Martin Rinkart, who lived over 400 years ago.

 

Martin Rinkart was born in 1586 in Eilenberg, Saxony, what is now Germany. Eilenberg was a country village with a small walled city. Martin was the son of a poor coppersmith.  He wanted to serve the people in his village, so he became a Lutheran pastor.

 

Then the Thirty Year’s War struck Germany. We don’t hear much about this war because it happened such a long time ago. But this war caused unimaginable destruction, death, and famine across Europe. All the countries in Europe were at war with one another. The people, cities, and villages in Germany suffered the most. Many had their homes and property burned. Enemy soldiers treated them cruelly. Survivors ran for their lives and left everything behind hoping to find friendly people and some protection in the next town. This war went on for thirty years!

 

Eilenberg was not destroyed, but because people came for protection, there were too many people crowded together within the town’s walls. A very bad illness called a plague spread quickly. Almost 5,000 people died of illness that year in the small city. Soon Martin Rinkart was the only pastor left alive to perform funerals. Sometimes he had to perform funerals for up to 40 or 50 people in one day! His own wife even died, yet he kept giving his energy to aid the people of Eilenberg.

 

What made the plague worse was that the people couldn’t leave the city. The enemy army of the Swedish surrounded them in what is called a siege. The Swedish said they would starve the city out unless the men and women of Eilenberg gave them a huge sum of money. So what do you think they could do?

 

Martin Rinkart was the hero of the city. All alone, he left the safety of the walls to negotiate with the enemy army, and he did so with grace, courage, and faith. He got the Swedish army to accept a sum of money that the city could pay, and soon the siege was lifted.

 

Despite all the horrible things that had happened that year, Martin Rinkart composed this hymn of Thanksgiving to God for the deliverance of Eilenberg. In German, the title is Nun danket alle Gott. No Thank We All Our God.