Isaiah 40: 1-11
Psalm 96
Matthew 18:12-14
Lately, when I wake in the night, I have been going back to sleep listening to the words of Isaiah 40 in the Handel’s Messiah. “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, says your God,” the tenor intones. First, an aria, so gentle and decorated that the tender music, “every valley…” is carried into all parts of my troubled mind.
And then, if I am not at peace, plagued instead by bad thoughts or nightmares, I can chase them away with the full chorus and orchestra raucously proclaiming, “And all flesh will sing together!!”
Somewhere in there, in that time, the nightmares fade, and I join in, singing to the Lord a new song, as I sing with “all the earth”, the fields, the seas, and all in them. I am not lost and alone, frightened and crying in the dark of night. I sing a new song with all, one of hope, glory, plenty, and honor.
The new song is from one not lost, wailing and shaking from the threats conjured in the depth of bad dreams, but from one joining the chorus, singing and proclaiming peace, the song of one found, known, and being carried home. Amen.
Maggie Grace Moore
