Handel's
Messiah, Part I, no. 3
Air for
tenor.
Andante.
Ev'ry valley shall be exalted, and ev'ry mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain.
Isaiah 40:4
In this demanding
aria, the tenor soloist develops the theme of the
advent of
God introduced in
Comfort ye My people. This message, associated by
Christians with
John the Baptist's preaching in the wilderness, is also regarded as being a promise of the eventual
Parousia and
the coming of a new earth.
Meditation: It is not for us that the mountains will be made low. Teach us, Lord, to accept the ruggedness and unevenness in your creation, and to see your hand in the awkward and the random as well as the smooth and the ordered.
Tiefling's meditations on Messiah