Handel's 24 days. "Messiah's" generations...

Growing up in a musical family had its pluses and minuses.  Getting up at 4:30AM to practice the piano was definitely a minus.  Exposure to fabulous music was definitely a plus...though I didn't appreciate it until I was about 35 years old...okay...30.

Each Christmas meant a Messiah performance...or two.  It was the longest hour of my life...every year.  You can't imagine my excitement the time we got to sit through a performance of the ENTIRE Messiah.  Oh, you didn't know?  The songs performed at Christmas are only a PORTION of the whole work...Part 1 of 3 Parts.  Yep.  There's more.  Like 2 hours worth more...don't forget to pack a lunch!

The amazing thing about this oratorio (musical term for this type of large, typically sacred, composition) is that Handel composed the entire work in 24 days.  Vocal parts, instrumental parts, everything...24 DAYS!!  It is said that Handel neither ate or drank much at all in those 24 days.  He just wrote...and wrote...and wrote...and Messiah was conceived, born and delivered...and generation after generation has been blessed by its musical beauty and encouraged by the text which is entirely drawn from Scripture.

I've often wondered what the experience of writing Messiah must have been like for Handel.  For him to have written the whole work in 24 days, the music had to literally pour out of him.  I wonder if he longed to be able to write faster.  Oh, yes.  One little detail I failed to mention.  Handel wrote Messiah during the summer of 1741.  That means Handel wrote every note, every dynamic marking, every word by hand...with a quill and ink.  No keyboard hooked up to a computer with software that automatically scores everything played on the keyboard.  By hand...24 days...every note...every voice part and instrument...if that doesn't define "inspired", I don't know what does!

Anyway...back to Handel in a room with little food or drink furiously writing sixteenth notes as fast as he can, or lovingly and sensitively writing the soaring melody for the text, "I know that my Redeemer liveth..."  What were those 24 days like for Handel?  I have wept while listening...have desired to shout for joy while listening...have felt virtually transported to the third heaven while listening.  I cannot imagine what Handel must have felt to have this glorious music pouring from his heart onto paper.  There is a story that is told about the Hallelujah chorus that Handel's assistant walked in to the room after shouting to him for several minutes with no response.  The assistant reportedly found Handel in tears, and when the assistant asked Handel what was wrong, Handel held up the score and said, "I thought I saw the face of God."

This past Sunday my sweet husband, our youngest son and I traveled to Texas to hear Messiah performed by my parents' church choir along with some additional community singers who joined them.  My mother played the organ, my father sang the tenor solos, and my brother was the conductor.  It was fabulous!  ...and I sat in the audience amazed, once again, by the magnitude of the work...but, even more so by the magnificence of the One about whom it was written.  His name is Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

An added treat was that my Aunt Val came to the performance, as well.  She is a woman for whom I have utmost admiration and respect.  She is a living definition of "Biblical womanhood".  Her husband, my Uncle Buddy, died several years ago...and while Aunt Val has had many opportunities to be tempted to bitterness, anger and resentment, she has placed her trust and hope in God and believed in His goodness and His steadfast love towards Uncle Buddy and herself.

As I sat by Aunt Val on Sunday listening to the choir singing Messiah, I thought of Uncle Buddy who I'm 100% sure is enthusiastically singing in the heavenly choir.  I wondered what it must be like to be offering perfect praise to Jesus...to desire nothing else but to glorify and worship Him...and to know that eternity will not be long enough to mine the depths or scale the heights of His glory.  Perhaps Handel was given a glimpse...

Thank you, Lindale United Methodist Church, for sharing your beautiful rendition of Messiah.  Thank you, Handel for persevering those 24 days.  Thank you, God, for creating within us the longing to worship You; and for sending Your Son, Jesus, the Messiah through whom You saved me, redeemed me and raised me to eternal life. "Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!  Amen!"  (Revelation 7:12)

My super talented father singing the tenor solos in Sunday's Messiah performance.

What a blessing to hear him sing!

My brother, Trey, conducting the choir.  My mom is playing the organ.

It's at times like this that the distance between Tennessee and Texas makes me a little heartsick...

but, oh so thankful to have been in the audience!!