“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

Tonight I ask you to bear with me as I indulge in a bit of nostalgia while I tell for you a story of Isaiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Charles Jennens and George Friedrich Handel. I believe the way this story falls together has something say to us as Christians in the 21^st Century.

I have to confess that for many years I could not have told you that the scripture I just read were part of the Isaiah’s prophetic legacy. I first came to know these words and their implication for the Christian faith by a different route. I suspect many of you came to know them in the same way. Let me back up a bit.

When I was growing up at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Boulder, Colorado, two selections from Handel’s Messiah were a staple of the Midnight Mass at Christmas. Naturally one of them was the Hallelujah Chorus. The other was the section of the Oratorio that takes Isaiah 9:6 as text.

Through my exposure to these, perhaps the most famous, parts of Handel’s masterwork, I became interested in hearing the entire oratorio. When I listened to the entire work, I heard the verse I quoted at the outset as a part of a systematic telling of the Christian story of redemption in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. Musically, I was not sophisticated enough to appreciate the mastery of Handel’s composition, but upon reading the words I became aware, for the first time, that the narrative of the Bible had mainly to do with God’s love and care for humanity and indeed for all of creation.

The fact of the matter that is at that time I was far more interested in the music of bands like Boston and The Eagles.

It wasn’t until just this week that my curiosity took me to another level. Admittedly this is in part because preaching the Lucan infancy narrative year after year presents a bit of a challenge. That was only part of it. Really it had more to do with how strongly the memories of my adolescent exposure to Handel’s Messiah and specifically of this Isaiah text rang in my heart and soul as I read through it.

I have made it a habit of sorts to preach on a hymn or piece of music at Christmas. Sometimes the stories of how others have sought to tell the story in art of music can be inspiring to us as we seek ways to tell the age old story in new ways to those who may have never heard the tale or forgotten its power.

As I read more and more about how Handel came to compose this masterpiece, I was struck about how much we, as contemporary Christians and disciples might learn from his experience in composing Messiah.

This comes from a book called 131 Christians Everyone Should Know by Galli and Olsen.

“By 1741 George Frideric Handel was a failure. Bankrupted, in great physical pain, and the victim of plots to sabotage his career, the once-great opera composer scheduled a “farewell” appearance in London in April. To the London elite, it looked like this “German nincompoop,” as he was once called, was through. That summer, however, he composed Messiah, which not only brought him back into the spotlight, but is still deemed by some to be “an epitome of Christian faith.”^[2]”

Until 1737 Handel’s primary field of composition was opera. In that year, his opera company went bankrupt and his spiral into depression began to accelerate. It was about this time that he became intrigued in a new form of composition, namely the Oratorio. His fellow countryman and contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach was taking this form, setting scripture to music with out costume or staging, to unimagined heights on the continent. Handel, who boasted of knowing Scripture “as well as any bishop” was intrigued. His first effort, a treatment of the story of Esther from the Old Testament was a flop. He was pilloried in the press for allowing ‘common mummers’ to utter scripture was outrageous. To make matters worse, as far as the critics were concerned, he dared to have the stories of God told in the theater and not even in a Church. I’m not sure the critics knew or understood the Great Commission of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel:

¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”^[3] (Matthew 28:19-20)

But back to the tale at hand.

Into the midst of Handel’s bankruptcy, public ridicule came a wealthy Anglican (Handel himself was Lutheran) named Charles Jennens. Jennens asked Handel if he would consider writing music for a libretto that he had composed, entirely from Scripture, that was intended to be an argument against the Deists in England at the time. The Deists believed in God, but denied the Divinity of Christ.

For the Deists, God was Creator who formed the world and all that was in it and then let nature, human and otherwise, take its course. Jennens not only believed that Jesus was fully divine but that Jesus was still very much at work in the redemption of all of Creation in the world through the Church. For Handel and Jennens, this was a matter of vital importance. Handel agreed. He estimated the time for completion at one year.

Soon after he was approached by a group of Dublin charities to compose a work for a benefit performance that would raise money to help release men from debtor’s prison. For this work Handel would receive a generous commission. He had a living, he had a text and he what seemed like a new lease on life.

Handel resumed composing with renewed enthusiasm on August 22, 1741. Within six days Part One was completed. In nine more, Part Two. Six more and Part Three was done. In only two more days he finished the orchestration. In 24 days he had composed 260 pages. When he finished what would become known as the Hallelujah Chorus he said, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself.”

The first performance of Messiah, on April 13, 1742, before and overflow crowd of 700 at the Fishamble Musick Hall, raised enough money, 400 pounds, to release 142 men from the debtor’s prison.

Though it took more than a year for the production to be invited to London and despite ongoing controversy over the style and presentation of the work, Messiah cemented Handel’s place in the pantheon of composers, especially for sacred Oratorio in the English language.

I suspect that you’re asking, in your most polite inside yourself voices, “What does that have to do with Christmas and the coming of God into the world? What does this have to do with us?”

These are good questions. I believe there are several important lessons that we can take from Jennens and Handel’s collaboration on the most famous piece of Sacred Music in the English language.

First, we do our best work in God’s name when we cooperate. Handel and Jennens were each bearers of a piece of the message. God’s call and gifts were made manifest in them in very complimentary ways. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3:5-9 that some plant, some water, but it is God who gives the increase. In the case of Messiah, God’s increase came only after the idea had been sown in Handel by Jennens’ commitment to the Gospel and watered by their mutual faith. God’s increase came in the form of the unexpected Irish commission for the piece. And O how did Messiah grow under God’s inspiration. In fact, it realized one of the recurring themes in Isaiah’s prophecies, indeed in all of Scripture and particularly in Jesus’ life and ministry, that true faith is judged by how we treat the widow, the orphan, the poor and the prisoner by making possible the release of those 142 men from debtor’s prison.

Secondly, God often comes most powerfully when we are most vulnerable. Instead of a farewell concert in April of 1741, Handel debuted his masterwork in April 1742 which has exposed countless folks, including a 16 year old know it all in Boulder, Colorado, to the power of Scripture and Music to communicate the Gospel.

Finally, I think this story, as does countless others, should inspire us to expression. What we have to do is follow Handel’s lead as we seek to be ministers of the Gospel, the Good News which we celebrate here tonight. We are all called to use our gifts in the proclamation of the Gospel. Namely that God came into the world in the form of the ‘Baby Jesus’ as helpless as we did and grew in wisdom, age and grace to be an example for us all of how we are to live selfless lives “proclaiming good news to the oppressed, liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and to declare the year of the Lord’s favor” as told in Isaiah 61. We will likely not have as enduring a legacy has Handel’s inspiration did in Messiah, but the doesn’t make our call any less important. This anonymous quotation applies I believe, “Therefore, you may be the only bible some people will ever read so be careful how you live.”

Handel lived by faith and was inspired to produce this from the Isaiah 6:9 and through his considerable God-given talent. I hope it fills you with light and hope as we celebrate Jesus’ birth and then lay claim the promise that he will come again.

^[1] The Holy Bible: King James Version. 2009 (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version.) (Is 9:5–6). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

^[2] Galli, M., & Olsen, T. (2000). 131 Christians everyone should know (112). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

^[3] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Mt 28:19–20). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.