”The Glory of the Lord Shall Be Revealed” by Melanie Rigney
A
voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in
the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every
mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the
rough country, a broad valley. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and
all people shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 40: 3-5)
Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation. (Psalm 85:8)
Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one
day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does
not delay his promise, as some regard "delay," but he is patient with
you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
(2 Peter 3:8-9)
And this is what (John) proclaimed: "One mightier than I
is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his
sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit." (Mark
1:7-8)
Piety
Lord, open my ears that I might hear You. Open my eyes
that I might see Your glory. Open my soul and make my way to you plain.
Study
For some
people, Advent really starts when the candles are lit. For others, it really
starts when the tree is up and the house decorated (don’t start in about why you
should wait to do that). For me, it really starts when I listen to the Isaiah
parts of George Handel’s “Messiah.” It’s impossible for me to study Isaiah
without hearing Handel’s music. Together, they are like anything else
holy—every time you regard it, you learn something new.
That happened
to me as I sat down to write today’s Tripod, more than two decades after my
first sing-along “Messiah.” This time, I didn’t think about the exiles’ way literally
being made straight, or of John the Baptist preparing the way of Jesus, as we
read in today’s Gospel from Mark. No, I thought about this a bit more personally, more intimately. We are all in a
desert here on earth—sometimes, more parched and desolate than others. Our
paths can be crooked, our valleys deep, the mountains seemingly impossibly
high. The way may include people who have grievously wronged us, sometimes
intentionally and just for sport. It may include cruelty and pain. It may
include despair and bitterness and loneliness.
Or we can
invite Him in as our traveling companion—fully. We can surrender to His
direction, without concern about the time or the length of the trip. And when
we have the faith and courage to do that for even a few seconds, we see and
feel and taste the difference. The sourness of regret dissipates. The burden
that was so unbearable, that hurt our shoulders just to think about it, falls
away. The pained breathing stops and our lungs and chest open up. The relief
may be brief at first. But the more we believe, the more we trust, the better
we feel, even if not one of the difficult situations changes in any visible manner.
And that is a
way of living to which we can all aspire, regardless of whether the candles are
lit or the tree is up or the music is on.
Action
Look
for the glory of the Lord today in a situation that causes you pain. Find
comfort in Him.
Image credit: By George Frideric Handel 1685–1759 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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