Paris is like most major cities, crowded and busy. There is traffic noise, police sirens, cars honking, and people everywhere. Coming from a small town it's over stimulating and can be nerve wracking after a while.
Paris in the 16th century, especially in the early 1500's was still a large cosmopolitan city. Then it was some 200-300 thousand people. Today it's over 2.5 million. While that's large, the 200,000+ number in the 1500's must have been overwhelming. Think of the needs for sanitation, water, how to move around without buses or cars, etc...
Yet here is where the Reformation began. A small group of people became convinced of the need for reform. They were within the Catholic Church but saw the abuses and power structures as nothing more than human beings desiring money and power (and the sexual power too). Bishop, ArchBishop, even positions of Cardinals and Pope were bought with money and political favors. Families controlled the power structures and emperors were either in control of Popes or Popes were in control of Emperors.
The reformers were people of faith who wanted the church to be purified of that abuse. They sought a return to the scriptures, and the reading of the Bible in the language of their people. They sought a church that preached and believed in a Gospel of Grace in Jesus Christ - plus nothing, minus nothing.
Many had tried to bring about Reform for a couple of hundred years before, only to see the attempts to be squashed by the power of the church's hierarchy. John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and others were either driven away or martyred.
Then in the early 1500's a group of reformers came together in Paris. Eventually they would be called "Hugenots". The derivation of the name is not completely known, but they were believers, faithful to God and desirous of a more pure church, who simply wanted to live out their faith in community. They gathered together in secret, worshipping together and preaching the word. They evangelized and sought to bring about a movement for reform within the church in France.
AND, for that they were crushed. Tens of thousands of them were killed, driven from France, or fled on their own. They were among the many martyrs that fulfilled the old saying - "the blood of the martyrs becomes the seed of the church".
This is where I came to Place Maubert
It looks like a small park, and if you look across the street beyond the cars you can see the outdoor market that still sets up today.
Here in the early 1500's Hugenot believers were publicly burned alive for not renouncing their faith in the Gospel of Grace alone. Here, the King of France brought together his court and the leading officials of his Kingdom, as well as 1000's of people to watch Hugenot believers be martyred - burnt alive - and warned all of those watching and listening that this is what would happen to anyone who would seek to step away from the Catholic Church and his Kingdom authority.
I was struck by the fountain that exists there today.
Jesus is the fountain of Life. From him comes Living Water.
"If anyone would come after me, let him renounce his life..."
"Come unto me all you that are thirsty and find rest for your soul..."
"I am the living water, whoever drinks of me will never thirst again..."
The early Hugenot reformers drank of the Gospel of Grace and nothing else could satisfy their souls than that Grace. And for that they gave their lives.
Those early believers in Reform did not shrink from the death that would come to them - believing that there was a better reward for their faithfulness to Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Grace.
Place Maubert...a reminder that the present can change, but never erase the past, and its from the past that our legacy comes.
May we have the same desire of heart to be faithful to him as these Hugenot believers did in all ways - no matter what may come our way.
Peace
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