I love this time of year. I get to sit at the piano with stacks of choral music and plan repertoire for the upcoming season. It can be a hit or miss process. Sometimes you find great texts with bad music, sometimes great music with a text that makes you cringe. And then there are the winners: the pieces that you know will sing themselves and whose text and music dance together perfectly.

Here’s an Advent text that I’ve fallen in love with, even though the musical setting by Craig Phillips is still growing on me.

“The Creator, the Wisdom of God draws near.
The mist of the prophet’s promise is dispersed.
Joy clears the skies, truth is resplendent,
the dark shadows are dispelled,
the gates of Eden are opened,
Adam dances in exultation:
Our Creator wills to fashion us anew.”
- from the Orthodox liturgy

I think we often miss Advent as a time of recreation. More and more I feel it as a season that invites us first into the waste and void before Creation – not a cheery or comfortable place for all you folks who love Christmas carols on the First Sunday of Advent! But as God’s creative, shaping breath – living Word and Wisdom – enters the world anew, we see the possibility of new life. We see that we indeed have access to Paradise, that our relationship with God is restored, and that God even wills to change our shape (that word refashioned really pulls at me), or even smooth some of the rough spots over.

Here’s another phenomenal music/text combination that jumped out at me. The text is by the amazing poet/preacher Thomas Troeger (see an earlier post about him) set to a gorgeous tune by K. Lee Scott. It’s published by Oxford University Press for those who might be interested.

“Too often God, your name is used to sanction hate and fear
so love and justice are refused to people you hold dear.
O never let us use your name to harm or hurt or kill
or consecrate a vicious aim as your almighty will.

But move through us in deeds that spell your name as Love and Light,
for faithful actions far excel beliefs that we recite.
Let naming you through how we live become our public creed:
the clearest witness we can give in meeting human need.

And keep us ready to receive the good that others do,
that helps expand what we believe and why we trust in you.
For where deep love and justice meet we see anew your face
and for a moment glimpse complete the world transformed by grace.

That vision opens wide the church to look beyond our walls,
to honor all who ask and search for where your spirit calls.
their questions and their wondering help us more fully claim
our mission as an offering that glorifies your name.”
-Thomas Troeger

I can’t say much more to that than a hearty, “Amen!”