This Mortal Must Put On Immortality

Last night i went to hear Handel's Messiah for the very fourth time in my life. And i've been saying that it gets better each time that i go. i think that it may have possibly reached its peak this year. See, the first year i went, it dragged on and on. and on. and on. and on. and.... yeah.... you get the point. The second year i went, i was more interested in talking to the people that i went with than the the performance. my apologies to the people who were sitting around us. The third year- i actually don't remember much about it. which probably means that i was not very moved by it. but this year.... i anticipated it for weeks. i even listened to it on CD as i cut out snowmen with Joy. i went into it wanting- desperately needing to hear something. Anything. I didn't know what exactly i was looking for, or expecting to hear. all i knew was that i couldn't stand to come away from the performance without experiencing some kind of revelation. i was prepared to sit in that auditorium alone all night if i had to. but what i heard this year went above and beyond my highest expectations, and for the first time in my life, i was sad when the performance was over. and all the clapping that i did at the end... well, it was genuine. and slightly painful.

Things that God pointed out to me as i listened to Handel's Messiah:

• The very first thing that caught my attention was... well, the very first solo. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God". Seriously, this Handel guy knew what he was doing. he begins his work of art by recognizing that we, as humans, need comfort! Bad things happen to us... things that make our hearts ache and our eyes sting with tears. Things that we think we will never get over. And God saw this. He saw that we feel pain and that we need consolation. In fact, he created us that way. And He sent his son, the Comforter, to console us. To hold us up when we feel like we have screwed up so badly that nothing will ever be okay again. To lift us up when we fall. To remind us that we're not alone, and that we are not unforgivable.
• "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain." So this was exactly what i needed to hear. because to put it bluntly, i feel very crooked right now. and i'm not just talking about being slightly bent out of shape. i feel completely crooked. like i have sharp, pointy edges that protrude in all direction. i feel so crooked that if i got any more crooked, i would be straight. which may or may not make sense. But God can straighten the crooked! and he can smooth out the rough places. Is there anything more comforting than remembering that you haven't wandered too far to find your way back to where you belong?
• "Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing." i guess that i don't have a whole lot to say about this one... because it says everything!!! it shows how Jesus can completely renew something (or someone) that seemed to be beyond help.
• And there were so many lines in Part II that stood out to me. I guess that i've never really paid attention to Part II before, because i always kind of zoned out after the intermission. But the second part is so amazing! even more amazing than the first. especially the parts that talked about Jesus' death and how man rejected him. There were times that i was sitting there, and i would feel tears coming to my eyes and then i would furiously blink them away, because seriously... what seventeen year old cries at the Messiah? Yes, this is me being affected by what other people would think of me for crying at the Messiah. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way". So that sounds familiar enough. but have you ever really thought about what comes after those words? (At this point, not only were my eyes tearing up, but my lip was quivering. i thought i was a goner...) "And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all". And the way it's phrased makes it sound like this is logical... we've all sinned and followed our desires and ignored God, so God chose to send us a Redeemer. But it's not logical!!!! not at all!!! We've sinned. We've chosen to ignore God. We've given ourselves, our desires priority over God. GOD SHOULD NOT HAVE LAID ALL OF OUR SINS ON JESUS!!!!!!! in no way could this be construed as logical. or fair. i think it was just the simple way that Handel puts it that got to me. And then there was these lines: "Thy rebuke hath broken His heart; He is full of heaviness. He looked for some to have pity on Him, but there was no man, neither found he any to comfort Him. Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow. He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of Thy people was He stricken." So does it strike anyone else as incredibly sad that Jesus, the ultimate Comforter, the one who came to console us (like the first solo said), desperately needed someone to comfort Him, but couldn't find anyone???? and the fact the sorrow He felt was greater than any sorrow that has ever been felt? i know that there's times when I know that i've done something wrong, and disappointed God, or someone that i look up to, and i can hardly stand myself because of what i've done. And this is what Jesus was feeling. Except that His heart was full of the sorrow, the regret, the pain that every single person had ever felt, ever will feel, or is presently feeling. "He is full of heaviness". Yeah... understatement much?
• And then there is this amazing moment, when we stop focusing on the pain that Jesus endured, and our thoughts are directed to the fact that His story doesn't end with pain and death. In fact, He was completely triumphant!! "Thou art gone up on high; thou hast led captivity captive". How in the world did i miss that amazing amazing line the past three years??? How could such an amazing line not pop out at me?? think about it... Jesus has led captivity captive. Sin and fear held us captive. But then God captured captivity.... and all of a sudden, we are free!! God has bound sin and fear, and with God's power, they are incapable of controlling us. Is this not amazing??? And did Handel not choose an amazing way to express such an amazing concept??
• "Behold, i tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." So i thought that the bass did a particularly good job with this part. when he sang the first line, "behold i tell you a mystery", his expression was so hopeful, that you knew that the "mystery" was one of those things that you don't understand (hence the use of the word "mystery". have i mentioned that I have a whole new respect for Handel?), but is wonderful anyways. Too wonderful for our tiny brains to comprehend. and i love the promise that "we shall be changed". Right now, we're not ready to meet God. But when the time comes.... we will be changed. and we will be ready to stand before God.
• "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." again... "we shall be changed". and i love how it states the change that will take place in us... "this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality".
• "If God be for us, who can be against us? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who makes intercession for us." Christ is not known as the one who died. He is the one that is risen again!! Handel draws our attention to the triumph of Jesus' entire story.
• "Amen" The program ends with this one word. four letters. and as the choir was singing it over and over again, i realized that i did not even know exactly what "amen" means. the definition that was floating through my head was "so be it", but i wasn't sure whether i had made that up or if it was right. but i verified with a friend and with a dictionary, and that is what it means. "so be it." what a perfect way to end. by reminding us that all the things that we just heard are so true. they are the truest things that anyone could possibly hear. And they're not difficult to understand. It's just that sometimes i forget. i forget how amazing Jesus' story is, and i forget what He did for me. But the word "amen", the last word in the last chorus, is repeated over and over again, calling us to never forget what has been done for us.

so that is it. my evaluation of Handel's Messiah. it is truly brilliant.