(photo nicked from www)

Henry Burton's hymn "There's a light upon the mountains" is one of my favourite in the Advent section of BPW, where at No 149 it is the last entry (apart from a few prayers/liturgies).

"There's a light upon the moutains, and the day is at the spring" that first hint of dawn when the dark mountains gently emerge from the darkness as the sky lightens with the new day...

The first verse expresses so eloquently the weariness of waiting, but finally, it declares, the day we waited for is arriving.

But it is the first half second verse that I especially love:

There's a hush of expectation,

And a quiet in the air;

And the breath of God is moving

In the fervent breath of prayer

That palpable silence, heavy with anticipation... what used to be refered to back in the day as a 'pregnant pause' I guess.  The stillness and quiet that carries within it something momumental.

And the breath of God, the Spirit of God that brings dry bones to life, is active in the determined, continued breath of prayer...

Even when it's hard to keep going

Even when our hearts are weary with waiting

Even when the darkness seems interminable

Even when...

The verse continues:

For the suffering, dying Jesus

Is the Christ upon the throne,

And the travail of our spirits

Is the travail of his own.

or, to put it another way, Emmanuel, God is with Us.

So that's it for the BPW Advent hymns section; tomorrow begins the first of those identified in the "Index of Sectional Cross-References" giving us another ten, before I go back to pick up the liturgical offerings that are BPW 150-154 inclusive (with I think takes us up to Christmas Eve!)