A Meditation with Music for the Fourth Sunday in Advent
“The Little Advent Stream” and “La Nativité Ouverture” (The Nativity Overture)
Sometimes a poem coupled with a piece of music can work wonders. We invite you to read our humble scribbling in the sand and then listen to the soundtrack. The Lord bless you with the reality of the reigning Savior.
Meditation: “The Little Advent Stream”
© 2024 by Michael A. Milton
Our only days rush by before us,
Like a freezing stream hidden in the crevasse of a mountain.
Unknown, unseen—silver twigs and speckled River Birch leaves, wet and woody,
Frozen fields of ice conceal any sign of life beneath the cap.
The little tributary moves,
Its currents unyielding, coursing like the infinitesimal forms of life—
Working obediently, willingly, intuitively, intricately—
Toward an unstoppable destiny.
So it is with Advent: Christ has come.
His coming, decreed before the foundation of the earth,
Was ever without doubt, despite the supposed prevention
Of apparently formidable empires of history—
The Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman—
All the towering forces of men could not halt
The quiet, inexorable advance of Promised Redemption.
Quiet. Trickling. Indomitable.
Thus, our Lord was born in a faraway corner,
Unnoticed by many who lived and breathed the same air.
His Advent appeared, and time was split in two,
Yet the cobbler and the milkmaid, the iris and the mint,
Cobbled and milked, flowered, and spread.
So where are we, then?
If Advent has divided the hours, yet the minutes of life continue as before,
Where are we?
Silence, my child, is not a sign of inactivity,
Nor is vision required to perceive the hidden realm.
For Advent marches on like that secluded stream:
Unseen by most yet unstoppable by any.
The promise of Advent is not in the slightest peril,
Though the whole world ignores the ancient sage and the mysterious sign,
The divine promise is always revealed to those who will see.
Our lives, too, flow like the December stream—
Quiet but for some infrequent gurgles,
Intense seconds of swishing past the river rock iced over, thickets
Inaccessible but to those who appreciate the elegance of stillness—
Unperceived ripples of instinctive hope nestled in the ravines
Of distant mountain passes.
Yet God knows. God sees. And that is Enough.
You are moving toward your destiny,
Channeling like an Appalachian stream in December.
So it is with Advent: Christ is coming again.
New life. Resurrected life. A new heaven and a new earth:
There, over yonder, where the unimaginable Valley of Good appears,
Verdant green after so many frightening shadows.
When all the twists and turns, blue ice and brown dams, sealed darkness and
Dappled light is like a dream gone by; we stream down the mountain happily
As kicking calves let loose from their grey-boarded stalls.
Quiet. Dancing. Safe.
The promise of the banquet before us stills the hunger,
Even as the bare mountainside, vulnerable to predators,
Reveals the threat of famine upon us.
And so it is with Advent: Christ comes today.
Thus, we read Isaiah’s proclamation, the Psalmist’s hymn, and Saint Paul’s confession:
“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6).
“My soul waits for the Lord, and in his word I hope;
My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning,
More than watchmen for the morning” (Psalm 130:5–6).
“For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (Romans 8:24-25).
Not only as a child born in Bethlehem.
Not only as the King who will return.
But here, now, in the solitude of frozen streams,
In the quivering questions of heavy hearts, barely moving, but moving still.
Christ is in the stream, and Christ is in the Valley.
He is in the shadows, the light, the floating leaf of the old ironwood tree,
The sparkling ice and the slippery stones.
Your path to the Valley is as sure as His promises and presence.
Surely, then, He is in the Bread and the Cup,
So that, consuming Him by faith,
We may anticipate Him by sight.
Advent.
Christ has come. Christ will come. Christ is here.
BlinkLists can be shared with others to describe the content and invite them to experience the posting for themselves.
The little tributary moves,
Its currents unyielding, coursing like the infinitesimal forms of life—
Working obediently, willingly, intuitively, intricately—
Toward an unstoppable destiny. —Michael A. Milton, “The Little Advent Stream” (2024)
Music: La Nativité Ouverture
©℗ 2024 by Michael Anthony Milton (Bethesda Music, BMI)
This instrumental selection, La Nativité Ouverture (The Nativity Overture),
Draws from the central theme of the album Christmastime Again.1
Its composition seeks to evoke the emotive power of the quiet stream—
Unknown yet not unknowable—a reflection of the Advent story itself.
Find a still place to meet the Lord.
Let this music accompany your waiting,
Cultivating a joy that springs from anticipation,
The thrill of expectation for the coming of Christ—
Not only in Bethlehem, but into your life today.
However anonymous, however veiled by the white winter blankets
Of seasons-come and seasons-gone, the streams of life and time ripple on
Toward their inevitable destiny.
That is the story of Advent.
And that, dear listener, is the story of us all.
Listen on YouTube
Stream or Download:
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Apple
Listen on Soundcloud
Deep appreciation to Steve Babb and Fred Schendel for orchestration and bass.