A Song as We Wait

This is my Advent song. I grew up attending St. John’s Lutheran Church downtown in Des Moines, IA, and I always sang in our church choirs from the time I was in early elementary school until I left for college. As I remember it, in the young children’s choir we usually stood at the front of the chancel on the red carpet steps facing the congregation. The high school and adult choirs sang from much higher up in the front balcony. But I remember being guided up the staircase and into the balcony to line up in front of the older singers for this song, squeezing between them and the musicians playing stringed instruments seated in front. We children just listened to much of the song standing in the bright lights and rich sounds, until a special section toward the end where the other voices paused and we sang, “He will love the little children, He will hold them in his arms, Love Him and trust Him as a little child, Behold your Lord comes to you” and then all the voices joined in and we finished together. It felt glorious and sacred to be part of this music, singing our hope and trust for the love that comes to us in Jesus – to even the smallest of us!

Only a few years later when I was still quite young, I remember our church choir director asking us for suggestions of music we wanted to sing. I was brave enough to ask for this song, “Climb to the Top of the Highest Mountain.” Imagine my surprise and disappointment when he told me, “We can’t do that now, that is an ADVENT song.” Advent?! I had to wait until Advent?! I did not want to wait, I wanted to sing it sooner! I wanted to sing it whenever I wanted! I wanted to sing with everyone and create the music voicing the beautiful promise that comes to us with Jesus! Who wanted to wait until Advent?! But I also think I began to think of Advent as its own season with special music just for this time, preparing for our celebration of Christmas. As I think of it today, Advent is a season of hopeful anticipation, of eager and intentional waiting, with vision for what we await and confidence that we wait to embrace joy and love coming to us. Perhaps it was God’s irony that I should learn to wait with eager anticipation for the very church season focused on practicing hopeful expectation!

Maybe you have a song that is dear to your heart, like this one is for me. Does God remind you to pay attention when you hear it? Bringing it to you to hear when you do not expect, and keeping the song alive inside you? Maybe a seasonal song that you sing at other times, like my daughter wanting to sing Christmas songs in the summer? I experienced a kind of nudge from God with the same song again when I attended Luther College (a few years before the choir singing in 2013!) and our choir director brought out “Climb to the Top of the Highest Mountain” for our choir to learn for the “Christmas at Luther” program that year. I still have the old Luther Christmas CD today with the music including that song, and now I can play it at home and sing along. It has become part of my Advent tradition, to keep this song in front of me as I honor the weeks of Advent and remember the familiar promises of this season. Are you singing something also, wherever you find yourself this year?