TOMORROW’S SUNDAY

According to one wit, Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. Whatever, there is no doubt that Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, the city of J. S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn, unashamedly Christian composers. Travelling back from Berlin from Leipzig our train came to an unexpected , unwelcome stop just north of Wittenberg, in Lutherstadt. There it remained immobile for fifty minutes: “The ancient prince of hell hath risen with purpose fell” The next day I was back in Lutherstadt to join with Germany’s great and good to rejoice in Luther’s nailing of the 95 theses on the castle church, Wittenberg. It was 500 years to the day that Martin Luther declared his theses. Luther was not only a distinguished professor at Wittenberg ( University of Hamlet’s Prince of Denmark); he was a fine poet and composer. On November 1, at the Philharmonie, the Berliner Oratorien-chor gave a concert dedicated to Luther: Otto Nicolai (Kirchliche Festouvertüre); Mendelssohn (The Reformation Symphony) and Brahms (A German Requiem). Tomorrow is the second Sunday in Advent when we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Luther described Jesus as “the proper man” who fights for you and me in the seeming never-ending battle against the almost impenetrable darkness of doubt, fear, confusion and sin. The world at present is very dark – consider the little ones( the holy innocents) of Burma’s Rohinga Muslims; of Syria; of the Yemen, but let us pray in their darkness that somehow the Advent light will shine on them, remembering Luther’s confident hope that God’s word shall have its course. It was another \martin Luther, Dr Martin Luther King who had “a vision...that one day...” God’s Kingdom would come on earth. As we are prepared, by God’s grace, this Advent for Christmas, let us assert with Martin Luther: ein feste burg ist unser Gott: a safe stronghold our God is still.