Come, Jesus, Come

Tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent.  Advent is a strange season on the Christian calendar.  It is every bit as somber as the Easter season is joyous.  The music is different.  Not being a musician it is hard to say what makes it different.  It is just different. It is experienced differently.  Maybe it is the mood it creates, maybe it is the key of the music, or maybe the words.  I have never been sure. I just know it creates a different atmosphere in worship.  Nonetheless, I look forward to it.  

If I were in charge of worship tomorrow, we would be singing as the opening hymn for worship and the Advent season a Charles Wesley hymn.  Thinking about it makes me want to warm up my vocal chords by singing it tonight which would be a little early.  "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus" is the song.  It is not a song which has us singing about Jesus being born in the manger of Bethlehem, but about Jesus being "born a child and yet a King, born to reign in us, forever now thy gracious kingdom bring..."   There is something wistful, something longing within the words and music.  

What one of us does not long for a day when suffering will be no more?  What one of us does not long for a day when injustice and war will be no more?  What one of us does not long for a day when there will be no sounds of hungry children, shattered dreams, and the wailing of hopeless grief?  What one of us does not long for the day when reality will be "the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God..."  (Revelation 21:2).  "Come, Thou long expected Jesus...dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart."