The Mark Brandenburg can serve as an example of how Lutheranism dealt with the challenge of epidemics in the second half of the 16th century. Andreas Stegmann shows that medical and political measures were combined with the all-important active ingredient of religious interpretation to treat epidemical ill. Understanding epidemics as God's judgment on own sin, repenting from it, and trusting in the promise of God's grace was plausible for people at that time and something which enabled them to act responsibly.