Opera was waning in popularity, and a depressed Handel thought to move from his London home on Brook Street back to Germany. Then in 1741 he was given a manuscript of prophetic passages taken from the Bible about Jesus, the Messiah, by Charles Jennens.
Consumed with putting the Scriptures to music, Handel locked himself away for twenty-four days. A visiting friend found him weeping uncontrollably as he spoke of seeing heavens open and the glory of God.
With all ticket sales benefiting the poor, Handel chose popular secular artists performing in theaters, not churches, for the masses to hear, not of a distant, disinterested, deistic view of God common in that day, “for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Today, whether performed by mass choirs in the Sydney Opera House or flash mobs in the Mall of America, Handel’s Messiah, every Christmas still stirs like no other music ever penned.
Be stirred again: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE
Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God. He created everything there is—nothing exists that he didn’t make. Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all mankind. His life is the light that shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it…
And Christ became a human being and lived here on earth among us and was full of loving forgiveness and truth. And some of us have seen his glory — the glory of the only Son of the heavenly Father! (John 1 Living Bible)
Opera was waning in popularity, and a depressed Handel thought to move from his London home on Brook Street back to Germany. Then in 1741 he was given a manuscript of prophetic passages taken from the Bible about Jesus, the Messiah, by Charles Jennens.
Consumed with putting the Scriptures to music, Handel locked himself away for twenty-four days. A visiting friend found him weeping uncontrollably as he spoke of seeing heavens open and the glory of God.
With all ticket sales benefiting the poor, Handel chose popular, secular artists performing in theaters, not churches, for the masses to hear, not of a distant and disinterested deistic view of God common in that day, “for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Today, whether performed by choirs in the Sydney Opera House or flash mobs in the Mall of America, Handel’s Messiah, every Christmas still stirs like no other music ever penned.
“Richard, guess who it is?” mum yelled upstairs.
Braking halfway down the rickety stairs,
there he was leaning in our doorway. “If ever I meet my dad, however big he is,
however small I am,” screamed a kid silently,
“I‟m going to run up and hit him as hard as I can!”
And now I‟m no longer a boy.
Dark London night, darker thoughts.
Anyone hurt you?
Christmas can be the darkest time of the year.
Frozen to the stairs, I flashed back two years to a pew and a blind man who opened my eyes to outstretched arms, and to the forgiveness I found there.
Spirit to seed Cathedral to cave Throne to trough Starbursts to sawdust Angels to animals Robe to diaper Everything to nothing God to us He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.
Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!
The tense quiet was broken with the sound of:
“Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht, Alles schläft; einsam wacht.”
Huddled in frozen trenches a stone‟s throw apart, Scottish,
French and Germans strained to make sense of “Silent Night”
that Christmas Eve, 1914.
Clasping a Christmas tree, the man, much more at home in
the Berlin opera house, clamored up onto the field decorated
with the fallen he might soon be joining. Then one by one, leaving their weapons, enemies joined
the choir. French wine, Scottish beer and German chocolate
were swapped, sweetheart photos shared, prayers made
and war’s brutalities forgotten.
One wintry London night, I walked into a little church.
Two hours later I walked out hand in hand with God. “Tonight you took my hand,” God whispered,
“I will never let you go,
I will never let you down,
I will never walk off and leave you.” Why these whispers from God?
Was it because the day I was born my dad walked out
of the rest of my life?
Someone walked out of your life?
A father, a husband, a friend, a business partner? Let you down? Let you go?
