There's A Voice in the Wilderness Crying

One of my favorite Advent hymns is “There’s A Voice in the Wilderness Crying.”  The song is based on Isaiah 40:9 and was written by a Methodist pastor, James Lewis Milligan, in the early twentieth century.  The hymn describes the Advent journey— a time of promise, a time of preparation and new beginnings, a time of expectancy, happenings, annunciations, and dreams, a time of waiting, transition, newness, and vulnerability.  A season of “new things” and receptivity and openness, a time of searching and finding, a time for new dreams, new songs, new dances, a time to follow your star.  A time of new birth.

There’s a voice in the wilderness crying,

A call from the ways untrod:

Prepare in the desert a highway,

A highway for our God!

The valleys shall be exalted,

The lofty hills brought low; 

Make straight all the crooked palces,

Where the Lord our God may go!

O Zion, that brings good tidings,

Get thee up to the heights and sing!

Proclaim to a desolate people

The coming of their King.

Like the flowers of the field they perish,

The works of men decay, 

The power and pomp of nations 

Shall pass like a dream away.

But the word of our God endureth,

The arm of the Lord is strong;

He stands in the midst of nations,

And He shall right the wrong.

He shall feed His flock like a shepherd,

And fold the lambs to His breast;

In pastures of peace He’ll lead them,

And give to the weary rest.

There’s a voice in the wilderness crying, 

A call from the ways untrod:

Prepare in the desert a highway,

A highways for our God!

Prepare a highway...