Day Nine — Thursday 2 January 2020

The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. O come, let us worship. Alleluia

Readings: 1 John 2.22-28 | Psalm 98.1-7 | John 1.19-28 |

Highway '"Make straight the way of the Lord", as the prophet Isaiah said.' (John 1.23, cf. Isaiah 40.30.)
Eyre Highway.

David Willcocks. Psalm 98: O Sing Unto the Lord a New Song, Choir of King’s College Cambridge, cond. Willcocks.

Prayer

Almighty and everlasting God, you have stooped to raise fallen humanity by the child-bearing of blessed Mary; grant that we who have seen your glory revealed in our human nature, and your love made perfect in our weakness, may daily be renewed in your image, and conformed to the pattern of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
—David Silk

Alexander Pope, "Messiah," from Poems: 1708–12.

Ye Nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heav’nly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus, and th’ Aonian maids,
Delight no more—O Thou my voice inspire
Who touch’d Isaiah’s hallow’d lips with fire!
Rapt into future times, the bard begun:
A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a son!
From Jesse’s root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies;
Th’ ethereal spirit o’er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic dove.
Ye Heav’ns! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,
From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail,
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;
Peace o’er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-robed Innocence from Heav’n descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise th’ expected morn!
O spring to light, auspicious babe! be born.
See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring:
See lofty Lebanon his head advance,
See nodding forests on the mountains dance:
See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,
And Carmel’s flow’ry top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears!
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply;
The Rocks proclaim th’ approaching Deity.
Lo, Earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye Mountains, and, ye valleys, rise;
With heads declin’d, ye Cedars, homage pay;
Be smooth, ye Rocks; ye rapid floods, give way;
The Saviour comes, by ancient bards foretold!
Hear him, ye deaf, and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eyeball pour the day:
’T is he th’ obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm th’ unfolding ear:
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear,
From every face he wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound,
And Hell’s grim tyrant feel th’ eternal wound.
As the good Shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture and the purest air,
Explores the lost, the wand’ring sheep directs,
By day o’ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms;
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promis’d Father of the future age.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover’d o’er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sow’d shall reap the field:
The swain in barren deserts with surprise
See lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And start, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear
New falls of water murm’ring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon’s late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods;
Waste sandy valleys, once perplex’d with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn;
To leafless shrubs the flow’ring palms succeed,
And od’rous myrtle to the noisome weed.
The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,
And boys in flow’ry bands the tiger lead;
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim’s feet;
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleas’d, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
Rise, crown’d with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy tow’ry head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons and daughters, yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barb’rous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See thy bright altars throng’d with prostrate kings,
And heap’d with products of Sabaean springs;
For thee Idume’s spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir’s mountains glow;
See Heav’n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor ev’ning Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolv’d in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O’erflow thy courts: the light himself shall shine
Reveal’d, and God’s eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix’d his word, his saving power remains;—
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

May the Lord, who has called out of darkness into his marvellous light, bless us and fill us with peace. Amen.

St Philip's Anglican Church,
cnr Moorhouse and Macpherson Streets, O'Connor, ACT 2602.