Today is Epiphany. We had a service of lessons, carols, and poems.

A Poem by Madeleine L'Engle

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn--
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn--
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

The pastor used as her sermon a sermon by Martin Luther on the Christmas story. Last week part of the text was, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt." I mentioned to her that one of my relatives talks about Jesus being a refugee and (sadly) how appropriate that image is for so many people in our time. Martin Luther also makes that point in his sermon from the early 1520s (although the word "refugee" doesn't occur in the English translation). Today my pastor poignantly elaborated on that aspect of Luther's sermon as we remembered people forced to flee their homes to find safety.