The Traditional Concert: the Jesus of Handel S Messiah

“THE TRADITIONAL CONCERT: THE JESUS OF HANDEL’S MESSIAH” A Traditional Christmas December 28, 2014 Cornerstone Community Church

It is undoubtedly one of the most famous pieces of music ever written, and it has become a Christmas tradition. It’s simply called “Messiah,” composed by George Frideric Handel in 1741. Even if you’ve never had the privilege of attending a full performance of “Messiah,” you’ve surely heard the “Hallelujah Chorus” at some time in your life, which is the best-known section of the oratorio. And even if you’ve never heard “Messiah,” if you’re a Bible reader then you know the words to the piece since the words are the words of the Bible.

This morning, as we bring our Christmas series called “A Traditional Christmas” to a close, I want to use “Messiah” primarily to help us to fall in love all the more with our Lord Jesus. Just as Jesus is the reason for this season, Jesus is the star of “Messiah.” But I also want to give you some of the background to the writing of the piece, and share how it is that it came to be associated with Christmas. If you like inspirational biographies, you’re going to love this story.

Handel was born in Germany in 1685. It was clear from an early age that Handel was a gifted musician and extremely smart, but despite his intellectual gifts he managed to fairly quickly flunk out of college. He left home at the age of 18 to move to Hamburg, where he managed to get a job conducting an orchestra at a local opera house, and at the age of 21 he began writing operas himself. But his first pieces didn’t get much love in Germany, so he decided to move to Italy, and it’s in Italy that he discovered a musical genre that would in time make him a famous man. It’s called the oratorio. An oratorio is basically a dramatic presentation that paraphrases stories from the Bible, which some have called a “musical morality play.” Created to provide moral lessons for the audience, oratorios closely resemble opera, minus the costumes and staging. They’re inexpensive to produce, easy to understand, and became quite popular with both the common folks as well as with the culturally elite. And Handel discovered that he had a flair for composing the oratorio. By the age of 25, Handel was a well-known composer, famous through much of Europe.

At 26 Handel moved to England, and his fame grew even more. And for years life could not have been better for him. He was successful at his craft, he was famous, and he was relatively rich. And for roughly 20 or so years, things went quite swimmingly for him.

But then things took a turn for the worse. He developed cataracts. He tried eye surgery, which was a rather crude procedure in those days, and rather than making things better his vision just got worse. He had a series of strokes, which left him partially

1 paralyzed. His health problems drained his finances and it sapped his creative abilities. By the age of 56, Handel was a thoroughly broken man. He was financially bankrupt. He was considered a “has been” in the music world. He was physically miserable. He was alone. And he was, as you might imagine, quite depressed. In his journals he confesses that he often prayed to die. He had a debilitating fear that at any time he would hear a knock on the door from the police coming to haul him off to debtor’s prison, where he would simply be left to rot away. He had trouble concentrating; he was quite sure there was no way he could ever write another piece of music. It was, he thought, a miserable and sad way to end his life.

Have you ever had a moment like that? Mine came two years ago on a Sunday morning just before church was scheduled to start. I was still recovering from a series of hip surgeries that had not gone so well, and as well as being physically in bad shape I was not very healthy emotionally. Every day was a real struggle for me. This particular Sunday I was up in my office trying to get myself ready to give a sermon, and it all sort of caved in on me. I started to cry, which frankly I did a lot in that particular season of my life, but the problem was I couldn’t stop. My wife came up to try to comfort me, and then a friend came up to check on me, and for some reason when he asked how I was doing I just started crying all the harder. And what stands out to me about that moment was how confused and hopeless I felt. I remember looking around at my office at all my books – hundreds of books – and telling my friend, “I used to be able to read. I read all these books. And now I can hardly think straight.” I remember thinking to myself, “How could anyone ever read all the way through any of those books – they all look so long!” Now that I’m back to health I love to read again, but at that time the thought of reading a paragraph felt overwhelming.

So when I read about Handel, at about the same age I was when I had my melt down, grieving because he couldn’t concentrate, miserable, feeling like his life was over, afraid of what was next, there’s a part of me that feels very deeply for him. And while I had my wife and my family and my church family to prop me up, Handel was alone.

It’s August of 1741; Handel is curled up by himself in his apartment. The mail comes. Handel hates the mail. It’s always bills and notices from his creditors. But on this particular day Handel gets two pieces of mail that offer him a reason to hope. The first is an offer to perform at a fundraiser. An old friend, the Duke of Devonshire, invited Handel to come to Ireland to produce a benefit concert for prisoners and for a children’s hospital. No one had asked Handel to perform for any reason for quite a long time, so this was good news. And the second piece of mail was from a person Handel, and most other people, considered to be sort of an odd duck. His name was Charles Jennens. Jennens had a knack for messing things up, and was known for coming up with one crazy idea after another.

2 This time Jennens was writing about an idea he had for an oratorio. In a way there was nothing remarkable about Jennens’ idea. He had simply taken 73 verses from the Bible – 42 from the Old Testament and 31 from the New Testament – and organized them so they were ready to be put to music. He had gone through his Bible and picked out the verses he thought best told the story of the Messiah and written them down and then sent them off to Handel. And Handel is intrigued.

On August 22, 1741, Handel locks himself in his study and goes to work. For the next 24 days Handel has hardly a thing to eat, in part because he was focused on his work and in part because he was broke. And in that 24 days, Handel composed what you and I know as Handel’s “Messiah,” the most famous and best-loved oratorio of all time. “Messiah,” as some of you know, is broken down into three sections. The first section, now known as the “Christmas” section, is based on the Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah, and is largely taken from the book of Isaiah. That took Handel only seven days to compose. The second section, referred to as “the Redemption Story,” covers the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. That took Handel nine days to compose. The third section, referred to as “The Resurrection and Future Reign of Christ on Heaven and Earth,” is largely based on the book of Revelation; that took Handel another week to compose.

Most of us, if we’ve heard any of “Messiah” have heard the “Hallelujah Chorus,” which is the conclusion of the second section of the oratorio. There’s a famous story about Handel’s work on that section that was related by his assistant. The assistant tells us that when he came to check on Handel just as Handel concluded composing the “Hallelujah Chorus,” Handel looked up at him with tears in his eyes and said, “I did think I saw heaven open, and saw the very face of God!”

Handel continued to polish “Messiah” for the next few months, and then took it with him to Ireland to reveal at the fundraisers his friend the Duke had invited him to. “Messiah” was performed before an audience for the first time on April 13, 1742 in Ireland. By that time Handel was almost completely blind, so he was unable to see the reaction of the audience as the performance went on. But the applause confirmed what he hoped – the audience loved it.

A few months later Handel took his newest work to the London stage. And this is where one of the best known traditions of “Messiah” was born. On the second night King George II was so moved by the performance that when the “Hallelujah Chorus” began, he stood to his feet. Of course when the King stands, everyone else stands. And to this day, it is traditional for the audience to stand for the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

So how did this become a Christmas tradition? Originally “Messiah” was an Easter event. For years Handel conducted “Messiah” during Easter weekend, and always as a fundraiser for charity. In fact, Handel conducted “Messiah” for charity ever year

3 until his death in 1759. Handel’s favorite charity was London’s Foundling Hospital, a hospital with a very specific purpose. In those days, as is the case in our time in places like South Africa, parents of unwanted children simply abandoned them in the streets. In those days every morning horse carts would collect the bodies of street children who had frozen or died of disease or malnutrition. So a hospital was formed where parents could drop off their unwanted children anonymously – hence the name a “Foundling Hospital.” And in addition to conducting fundraisers for the hospital every Easter, Handel willed the hospital an original copy of the “Messiah” score. Handel, despite the poverty he lived through, was as generous as generous could be.

For many years “Messiah” was not only an inspirational piece of music; it was fundraising gold, and in the very best way. But Easter season is a short season; Christmas, on the other hand, has developed into a fairly long season. So performances of “Messiah” in time were added to the Christmas season to enable charities more opportunities to raise funds, and today “Messiah” is a Christmas tradition, even though it no longer is strictly performed as a fundraiser.

Handel, by the way, who before “Messiah” was on the verge of bankruptcy, was seriously ill and deeply depressed, who prayed every day to die, lived another 17 years after he composed “Messiah” and was buried with great honor in Westminster Abbey. “Messiah” has been called by many the greatest piece of Christian music ever written. But Handel’s journals make this point – he didn’t write “Messiah” for music historians or classical music experts. He wrote it to tell the story of Jesus to ordinary people, and to tell it through music, the language of the heart.

And before we focus for our last few minutes on the Jesus of Handel’s “Messiah,” let me point out something you’ve probably already noticed. When Handel was at his lowest, what was it that brought him back to life? What was it that lifted him from his depression? It was the words of the Bible. Seventy three verses – 42 from the Old Testament and 31 from the New Testament – changed Handel’s life. Do you remember any of the words of Psalm 19, David’s song about the power of God’s written law?

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. (Psalm 19:7-8)

God’s Word can revive the downcast soul. It can give joy to the heavy heart. George Frideric Handel is Exhibit A of the power of God’s Word to do just that.

And, of course, it wasn’t just any 73 verses. They were 73 carefully chosen verses that tell the story of the Messiah, of Jesus the Christ, our Redeemer and Savior. So let’s

4 take a look at what those verses, which make up Handel’s “Messiah,” tell us about the Babe of Bethlehem who became the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The oratorio begins with words of comfort from Isaiah 40: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for.” (Isaiah 40:1-2) And you can see how these very first words would have spoken to Handel’s heart at a time when he was feeling hopeless and forgotten. His God comes to him, Isaiah assures him, first of all to comfort him.

And here’s the promise of Isaiah for the future: “And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:5) That’s the promise, that the coming of the Messiah will be glorious. Later in this so-called “Christmas” section of “Messiah” Handel circles back to this theme by taking us to the angel’s announcement of Jesus’ birth as recorded in Luke’s Gospel. Do you remember that? “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.’” (Luke 2:13-14) Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah’s coming would be with glory, and on that first Christmas the angels proclaimed that Jesus’ birth was a moment of glory. The prophecies were coming true.

Handel then takes us to the Old Testament book of Haggai, which has a most interesting and illuminating phrase: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty.” (Haggai 2:6-7) Did you catch the phrase? “The desired of all nations will come.” That’s a prophecy of the coming Messiah. He is the “desired of all nations.” He is not just the one Israel is waiting for; all nations are waiting for the Messiah to come to redeem our broken world.

In 1987 the music group U2 wrote a song by this title: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” The song still gets played today, 27 years later. Many people relate to the song; they know what it’s like to be looking for something to satisfy their souls, but not quite be sure what it is. And it turns out that it’s Jesus. Whether they know it or not, Jesus is the one their soul desires; Jesus is the desired of all nations and all peoples. Jesus said this of himself: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35) And I can just picture Handel reading the words of Haggai at what was the lowest point in his life and realizing that in fact Jesus is the one he was looking for, that Jesus is the bread of life, that Jesus is the desired of all nations.

5 The oratorio then takes us back to Isaiah, to one of the great Messianic prophecies: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and you will call him Immanuel.’” (Isaiah 7:14) Matthew’s Gospel takes us back to this verse in telling the story of Jesus’ birth, explaining that the birth of Jesus to the virgin Mary was a fulfillment of this prophecy of the coming Messiah. And Matthew adds a word of explanation to his readers; he tells us the meaning of the name “Immanuel” – “God with us.” Yes, the Messiah would not only be a great leader, a great man sent by God to rescue his downtrodden people. The Messiah would in fact be God himself.

Every verse in the “Christmas” section of “Messiah” is worth our time to read and to meditate on, but I want to take us to what is probably the best known lines of this section musically, which is based on Isaiah 9. Isaiah 9 begins with the promise that the day is coming when there will be no more gloom for the people of Israel. Isaiah writes, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.” (Isaiah 9:2) We’ve talked about that verse before in this series when we’ve explained why lights are such a part of our Christmas celebrations, to signify that Jesus is in fact the light of the world. And then we get to verse 6, where Isaiah gives us this great promise: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)

But I can’t just read that to you. We’ve got to hear it; we’ve got to experience it the way Handel’s first audience did. Let’s listen to this clip, as Handel helps the truth of these dramatic verses come alive:

Play YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f7jhk-IjDo

It may not be your style of music. You may prefer listening to Taylor Swift or Blake Shelton or Adam Levine or Carrie Underwood. But in terms of truth and in terms of impact, there’s nothing like it. When the Messiah comes, said Isaiah, he will be born as a child. But he will be more than a child. He will be a Wonderful Counselor, a Mighty God, an Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And that, “Messiah” goes on to explain to its listeners, is exactly who Jesus is. He is more than a little baby born in a manger – he is God himself. He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

Christmas is over now, and for some of us it might feel like a bit of a letdown. Or maybe the Christmas season was a bit of a letdown for you. Maybe your family wasn’t able to be together, or maybe you’ve lost someone this last year, or maybe this Christmas just didn’t feel the way it used to feel. Or maybe the thought of paying all the bills you

6 racked up over the holidays is making you feel a bit overwhelmed. Or maybe life is just hard for you because of some physical challenges.

Handel would know how you feel. He was broke. He was going blind. He was partially paralyzed. He was alone. His best days, it seemed, were long behind him. The creditors were calling; the bills were piling up.

And then he got some mail. A friend had picked out 73 verses from the Bible for him to read, verses that reminded him that he was not alone in this world and that he was not without hope. With the birth of Jesus, a light had dawned. Hope was born. The Promised One had come to replace his anxiety and his sadness with peace and with gladness.

And remember this part of Handel’s personal story. What lifted him out of his personal despair wasn’t that he wrote a successful oratorio. It was encountering his God while putting the words of God to music. It was in the middle of the process of meditating on those 73 verses that Handel said, “I did think I saw heaven opened, and saw the very face of God!” “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul,” the Psalmist wrote. It worked for George Frideric Handel; it can certainly work for you and me.

So if reading your Bible isn’t a habit for you already, let me challenge you to make it one. We’re just a few days away from starting a new year. Start it out right; start it out by choosing a plan to read your Bible – even just a few verses – some every day. And may you and I find ourselves saying at some time this next year that in those words we saw the very face of God.