Advent #5.1 of 10:

With Healing in his Wings.

(Malachi 4:2)

Sunday afternoon, along with our friends whose home had been plundered the week before, we attended a presentation of “A British Christmas” by the Valley Concert Chorale. The performance began with the choir singing from the back of the sanctuary Once in Royal David’s City. The pipe organ accompanied without overwhelming. One could hear the words to the haunting melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ9JVAzDpxs. The audience was invited to sing along on the third stanza as the chorale formed a processional to the dais. I couldn’t sing without tears. Hard to explain. I suppose it has to do with age. I’m moved by tradition, beauty and pageantry. All this high culture with the simplest of lyrics: “Once in royal David’s city, stood a lowly cattle shed…” I love every word: “once” for example. It doesn’t happen every day; but, “once in royal David’s city” it happened.

Afterwards, during dinner, we discussed things. We talked of the break-in of their home and the beauty of the concert. They said, more than once and in several different ways, “This has been healing.”

They were so grateful for all the friends and family who helped put their plundered home back in order; making it beautiful once again. But during dinner, they went on to talk of a personal healing that has to do with that “lowly cattle shed,” as the choir sang, “where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed.” As the prophets foretold, this is The One who comes to us “with healing in his wings.” It is the kind of healing that restores our shattered souls and makes us whole.