Advent - We Have Found The KingSmakprov

With that strange mix of excitement and dread common to every performer, I recall vividly a younger version of myself, one of the soloists in a performance of Handel’s “Messiah,” standing on stage and facing a vast audience. Suddenly the orchestra behind me began familiar notes in a minor key with the pulsating and increasing intensity of whole and half-step alteration in sixteenth and eighth note succession, building with each note and phrase a sense of foreboding.

The orchestra stopped its brief introduction, having set the mood, and with my being caught up in the musical moment I began to sing the words of Isaiah 60:2: “For behold! Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” As I sang these words, the orchestra’s accompaniment continued in that same minor-key, almost as ominous a way as before. Then, and just as suddenly, the music changed profoundly.

We found ourselves in a major key and the evocative perhaps even frenetic rhythms of the previous section were replaced with unison eighth notes, almost as a march of triumph to introduce the next part of the text – “But the Lord shall arise upon thee.” The music became practically lyrical, by the time I sang “and His glory shall be seen upon thee.” It culminated with the “serious” tone of a concluding minor key to accompany verse 3: “And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”

As a missionary, who happens also to be a musician, there are Scripture passages like this one in Isaiah 60:2-3 that I can scarce read without hearing in my mind’s ear the musical strains of Handel’s work. My imagination is further emboldened by this musical/missionary juxtaposition through the allegorical imagery of C.S. Lewis, who presents the Christ-figure, Aslan, singing into existence all that is and would be (The Magician’s Nephew).

Having sung and read these words, I wonder what soul music filled Isaiah, as he in his prophetic office delivered the Lord’s message here in Isaiah 60:2-3? Isaiah takes seriously the reality and danger of darkness – it is no illusion or mere inconvenience. In contrast, he also introduces hope, restoration and renewal of purpose in the promise of that glorious light who is coming, a King to put right what is wrong, the fulfillment of the covenant with God’s people in such a way that even the Gentiles are drawn to and included in this new Kingdom, forever destroying the wall that divides “us” from “them.” This coming King and unified Kingdom as the fulfillment of God’s purpose and promise for His creation is truly “Good News” for all and by anyone’s standards.

However, it is at this point that the joy of this soul’s music of a Kingdom and King, who has come and even now reigns and rules, turns our hearts to the missionary task. There are millions who don’t know that the King has come and ransomed us from the slavery of sin and delivered us into a Kingdom and new creation. They continue to live in the darkness we encounter in Isaiah’s prophecy. As citizens of this new Kingdom, we must be the means of extending our King’s light to the world, so that His glory might truly be seen upon all of us.

Rev. John Robinson, Missionary in Residence, Spiritual Life