Whenever today's reading from Isaiah comes around on this First Sunday of Advent of Year B, the song below springs to mind (thanks to Maureen Ward for posting it on YouTube). It's not like I ever heard it very often, because we never sang it in church -- it seems too orchestral or choral for most music ministers to manage (unless, perhaps, you belong to a big church with a good-sized choir). But it has remained in the recesses of my mind, waiting for Isaiah's words to bring it back out into the open.
Somehow, the lyrics taken from Isaiah coupled with the melody always set my heart to aching... and once again, that longing and yearning for justice, peace, and goodness to reign is really underlined for me this Advent. I'm so tired of bad news, the daily distractions tweeted by a certain politician, and stories of environmental disasters caused by human greed. I'm ready for God to rupture the heavens and come to our aid. Aren't you?
Somehow, the lyrics taken from Isaiah coupled with the melody always set my heart to aching... and once again, that longing and yearning for justice, peace, and goodness to reign is really underlined for me this Advent. I'm so tired of bad news, the daily distractions tweeted by a certain politician, and stories of environmental disasters caused by human greed. I'm ready for God to rupture the heavens and come to our aid. Aren't you?
But perhaps the real reason that this song has stuck with me all these years is the alternate ostinato that affirms, "My shepherd is the Lord; there is nothing I shall need. Fresh and green are the pastures where he leads..." Advent is a juxtaposition of desperate longing and anticipatory hope, the state I find myself in on this First Sunday of Advent in 2017. So I share this song for the sake of any of my readers who can relate.
Have a blessed Advent...
Have a blessed Advent...
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