The Third Sunday of Advent, 2011: The Dream Isaiah Saw

I've been postponing an Advent post, but when I heard this song performed live this past Sunday at the 2011 installment of the annual Morganton Combined Choirs Concert at First Baptist Church-Morganton, NC, I figured it would be the best of anything with which to start my new year of blogging. By the second chorus, I was overwhelmed, completely undone by the Spirit's Word given to Isaiah, poetically rendered in English by Thomas Troeger, set to music by Glenn L. Rudolph, and performed by an 80-something voice choir, organ, brass ensemble, and percussionists, in an aesthetically Beautiful building:

Lions and oxen will sleep in the hay,
Leopards will join with the lambs as they play,
Wolves will be pastured with cows in the glade,
Blood will not darken the Earth that God made.

Little child whose bed is straw,
Take new lodgings in my heart.
Bring the dream Isaiah saw:
Life redeemed from fang and claw.

Peace will pervade more than forest and field:
God will transfigure the violence concealed
deep in the heart and in systems of gain,
ripe for the judgment the Lord will ordain.

Little Child whose bed is straw,
Take new lodgings in my heart.
Bring the dream Isaiah saw:
Justice purifying law.

Nature reordered to match God’s intent,
Nations obeying the call to repent,
All of creation completely restored,
Filled with the knowledge and love of the Lord.

Little child whose bed is straw,
Take new lodgings in my heart.
Bring the dream Isaiah saw:
Knowledge, wisdom, worship, awe.

-Thomas Troeger

Tears streaming down my face, I believe I perceived the Spirit pulling my soul to long for the fulfillment of God's promise given to Isaiah...in my life, in the lives of those I know and love, and in the life of our world. It is this particular longing that finds natural expression in observing season of Advent. And for those of us who recognize that all is not right with the world, I think it's the only honest thing to do, really...observe Advent before celebrating Christmas. Personally, I cannot but do just that; I feel the darkness, it is so real to me: the fang and claw, the violence of [both my] heart and systems of gain, the reality that Creation is not as God intends.

So, I pray with with Israel: (Psalm 80:19): "Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts; cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved," and sing, believing in the joy to come, "Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves" (Psalm 126:6).

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing,
through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.