Something I’ve discovered as I have been leading worship over the years is that God has a way of mixing the new with the old. What I mean by that is God often uses a song which is older or one we haven’t sung for a while and uses it in a new way. Often the newer songs which are part of our worship set can help to shape the older songs in a way which we’ve not seen or used them before. This is a really exciting aspect of putting together a set of songs for a time of worship.
Over the past few days I found a couple of Christmas CDs in the basement which we’d bought last year and stored with all the lights and ornaments,etc. One of the CDs was highlights from Handel’s Messiah which we listened to on Christmas Eve. I’ve heard the Messiah performed before but it’s been quite a few years and so much of it felt new to me. As I listened to the performance I was drawn into experiencing the wonder of Christmas and how Handel managed to capture so much of the splendor and greatness of the season.
This morning I did a quick spot of research on the all-knowing Wikipedia and discovered some interesting Messiah facts:
- It was first performed during Lent not Advent and is still used at Easter as well as around Christmas.
- The work is in 3 parts and only part 1 deals with the birth of Christ. Part 2 deals with the Passion and part 3 is drawn from the events of Revelation.
- The famous Hallelujah chorus is actually found in parts 2 & 3 and not in part 1 which deals with Christ’s birth, though we associate it with Christmas.
- There is an fascinating apocryphal story cited of Handel in tears declaring that he thought he “saw the face of God” while looking at the score for the Hallelujah chorus.
The full article is worth reading at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handel%27s_messiah .
Have a great Christmas season!
