Saturday, December 20, 2014

Saturday of the Third Week of Advent



Praise the Lord with the harp;
  play to him upon the psaltery and lyre.

Sing for him a new song;
   sound a fanfare with all your skill upon the trumpet.  Psalm 33:2-3


As I drive home after a flurry of errands, I decide it is time for some Christmas music. I reach for the radio knowing that one of the local stations plays nothing but holiday tunes this time of year. I hope for a good classic carol as I hit the dial and suddenly I am awash in the Kyrie from Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Glorious.

It takes me a moment, then I understand. The sound system is bluetoothed into my phone which is in my pocket. A miracle of technology has accessed the next album on a playlist I had listened to a few days before. I can’t decide which is more stunning—that my phone is playing Bach or the music itself.

I realize that I have turned a corner and am now being carried by the choral momentum headlong into celebration. It is time to sound the fanfare. It is time to announce that someone really important is about to appear and something really fantastic is about to happen. It is time for pomp and flair and flourish. It is time for this miracle. Come Holy Spirit. Come Jesu. Come.



Image: An Angel Playing a Flageolet, Sir Edward Burne Jones
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014