Fr Matthew Reese

Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. —Isaiah 35:3-6

Dear Friends,

I thought of all sorts of things I might write today on the Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord. But then I thought that really, the most Anglican thing to do would be to actually keep the Office. Because, as you receive this in your inboxes it isn’t the Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord. It’s just six in the morning on the Tuesday after Advent IV.

But luckily, the Lectionary has thrown us some incomparable texts. And my favorite of all of them is the passage from Isaiah 35.

For those of us who have come up in the choir stalls, I suspect we all have a few texts that make us choke up—I have never once been able to get the word “tremble” out in “Were you there when they crucified my Lord.” But we also all have those texts and anthems that make us grin from ear to ear.

For me, that is William Henry Harris’s setting of “Strengthen ye the weak hands” (sung here by Westminster Abbey under James O’Donnell). It’s such a vibrant, fun, and athletic setting, and it captures the beauty of the text.

Who among us has not felt—does not still feel—that we have weak hands and feeble knees? Who among us is not often of a fearful heart?

I often feel that I am.

But take heed. Take heart. “He will come and save you.” Christ, coming into the world.

Amen.

—Fr Matthew