MESSIAH TIME

This time of year is Messiah time. The night before last I enjoyed singing the "Messiah" with the Casa Grande community chorus, again doing the opening tenor solo, "Comfort Ye." As I did, I thought about the circumstances under which George Friedrich Handel wrote his master work, because I'd read about them that afternoon.

Historians tell us Handel been for a long walk on a Sunday afternoon in late August, 1741, and the great maestro was really depressed. Although he'd had a successful career writing operas, things were not going well. At age 41 he'd had a serious stroke and though he had recovered, people stopped buying his compositions.

That afternoon as he returned home from his walk he found a manuscript on his doorstep, left by a friend, Charles Jennens. It was offered as a possible libretto (musical story) about Jesus Christ, His birth, ministry, cruficixion and resurrection, and all started with wonderful prophetic passages from Isaiah. When Handel read Isaiah 40: 1-2, “Comfort ye my people,” he later said the clouds of gloom began to lift and he began that day to compose an Oratorio on the entire life of Christ. Incredibly, in just over three weeks, it was finished. The entire "Messiah" - 250 pages of original musical composition - was written in just three weeks! Truly amazing! It's his gift to the ages.

These days are not just time for Handel's musical “Messiah," but especially for Jesus the living Messiah. Without Him, there is no true winter festival. Hannukah is about the rededication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and Kwanzaa was invented in the mid-1960's by an activist to honor African American heritage. Only Christmas gives us joy in the gift of God's Son. Only Christmas is about forgiveness, comfort and peace on earth.

We modern people need God's comfort for unsettling days. We need God's peace to lift us from the doldrums of winter storms, human weakness and bad news. We need God's power to change for the better. We need Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, who gave His earthly life that we might have eternal life. In other words, we really do need the Messiah.

George Friedrich Handel, like most of the great musicians during the golden age of music, were dedicated Christians. Martin Luther once said that next to the Gospel, music is God's greatest gift to humanity. On a plaque I saw once were these words: "BACH gave us God's Word, MOZART gave us God's laughter, BEETHOVEN gave us God's fire, GOD gave us music that we could pray without words." I guess I'd add, "HANDEL gave us God's Hope."

May each of us have God's hope and joy this Christmas!