Advent: Anna #13

A light to the nations,

   that my salvation may reach

   to the end of the earth. (Isaiah 49:6)

Dear Anna,

You will be home for Christmas. Can’t wait to see you “face to face;” as the Bible likes to say. On the first Sunday of Advent, the congregation sang a Charles Wesley hymn, “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.” I teared up. How come?

Maybe it is because when we sing one of Her precious hymns, simply and unpretentiously, something real happens. A hymn becomes precious to us when text and tune embrace and maybe even dance:

Come, thou long expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free…

hope of all the earth thou art;
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.

I wished you were with me to sing the hymn and to discuss the lyrics. What do you think? Isn’t it something how the hymn speaks of the largeness of Christmas and the mystery of human longing: “dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart?” Maybe that is what we celebrate during Advent—how the Gospel is always bigger than we figured.

Love, PAPA