A Devotion from Philip Yancey

Hallelujah!

Just before Christmas of 1988 my wife and I visited London. As the plane banked sharply over

the city’s center, we saw rowing crews on the Thames, and also Parliament, Whitehall Palace,

and other landmark buildings lit in sepia by the slanting rays of morning sun. A fingernail moon

hung low in the sky, and the morning star still shone. This was one of London’s rare, perfect

winter days.

Later that day, half-drunk on coffee, we were dragging along city streets, trying to wrench

our biological clocks forward seven time zones by staying awake until dusk. Just before turning

in, we lined up in a queue to order some theater tickets. That’s when I saw the poster: “One

Night Only. Handel’s Messiah performed by the National Westminster Choir and National

Chamber Orchestra at the Barbican Centre.” The ticket seller assured me that of all Messiah

performances in London, this was clearly the best. There were only two problems: the concert

would begin in one hour, and it was sold out.

Twenty minutes later, following some spirited intramarital negotiations, we were in our

hotel room squeezing out yet another round of Visine and dressing for a sold-out concert. This

moment of serendipity we could not let pass. “Our presence is divinely ordained,” I assured my

wife. “We are in Handel’s home town, where he wrote the piece.” Surely a trifling matter like a

sellout would not deter us from finding a way inside where we would enjoy an unsurpassed

musical experience. Janet’s arched eyebrow conveyed unmistakably what she thought of my

circumstantial theology, but she indulged me.

After a pell-mell taxi ride to the concert hall, we stumbled across a civic-minded English

chap who offered us his extra tickets at half price. My theology was looking better all the time. I

started to relax, anticipating a soothing evening of baroque music. Seated on the back row of

the main floor, we were ideally positioned for a catnap should the need arise.

I hardly anticipated what I got that evening. I had, of course, heard Handel’s Messiah often.

But something about this time—my sleep-starved, caffeine-buzzed state, the London setting,

the performance itself—transported me back closer, much closer, to Handel’s day. The event

became not just a performance but a kind of epiphany, a striking revelation of Christian

theology. I felt able to see beyond the music to the soul of the piece.

As I leaned back in the Barbican Centre’s padded seat and listened to the familiar beginning of

Messiah, it was easy to understand how the oratorio came to be associated with the Advent

season. Handel begins with a collection of lilting prophecies from Isaiah about a coming king

who will bring peace and comfort to a disturbed and violent world. The music builds, swelling

from a solo tenor (“Comfort ye my people …”) to a full chorus joyously celebrating the day

when “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.”

I had spent the morning viewing England’s remnants of glory, and it occurred to me that

just such images of wealth and power must have filled the minds of Isaiah’s contemporaries

who first heard that promise. I had seen the crown jewels, a solid-gold ruler’s mace, and the

gilded carriage of the Lord Mayor of London. When the Hebrews heard Isaiah’s words,

undoubtedly those dispossessed and landless refugees thought back with sharp nostalgia to the

glory days of Solomon, when the palace and temple gleamed bright.

Yet rulers who bring a nation glory and prestige often do so by oppressing their subjects and

leaching away their wealth. How many poor laborers paid taxes to gild the Lord Mayor’s

carriage, or King Solomon’s residence? Because strong rulers thrive in a climate of fear, even

the long-awaited Messiah inspired fear in the prophets. After its boisterous opening, I was

surprised to hear Handel’s Messiah shift so quickly to a somber, even foreboding tone, as if in

recognition of this darker side of rulership. The bass warns of a Lord of Hosts who will shake the

heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.

Israelites were raised with a fear of God so profound that they would not speak or write his

name, and from the Messiah they feared not the tyranny of injustice, but rather the prospect of

holy justice. “But who may abide the day of his coming?” the contralto cries out in alarm, “For

he is like a refiner’s fire.” If the Lord of Hosts paid a personal visit to corrupted Earth, would any

of its inhabitants survive? Would Earth itself survive? The good news of hope hangs in limbo for

a moment.

Then out of the tension in Handel’s music there soon emerge gentle, familiar words that

strikingly resolve the contradiction of a powerful, but comforting ruler: “Behold, a virgin shall

conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, ‘God with us.’ ” The God who

comes to Earth comes not in a raging whirlwind, nor in a devouring fire. He comes instead in

the tiniest form imaginable: as an ovum, and then fetus, growing cell by cell inside a humble

teenage virgin. In Jesus, God found at last a mode of approach that human beings need not

fear: a helpless baby suckling at his mother’s breast.

“Behold your God!” the chorus joins in, as if astonished. I wondered how many of the

Londoners celebrating Christmas caught the sense of scandal. Stores outside displayed

Dickensian scenes of Christmas mirth, and mangers dotted the town squares. But how many

grasped the awesome implications of “Immensity cloister’d in thy dear womb”? As G. K.

Chesterton once marveled, “The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to

reach the huge heads of the cattle.”

Messiah lapses into an orchestral interlude, as if to let listeners ponder the two-pronged

mission of a Messiah sent from Almighty God. And then it leaps ahead in time, from the

prophets’ promises to the stirring birth announcement in a pasture bordering Bethlehem.

There, angels proclaimed to quaking shepherds that the reign of fear had ended. Fear not! That

very night, God was doing an entirely new thing on Earth: he was becoming one of us. “Glory to

God in the highest!” Handel’s chorus sings.

Thus Part 1 of Messiah circles back to an old word, glory, but in the process bestows on it a

new meaning. The Messiah is a king, but not one who relishes gold chariots and crown jewels.

Soloists describe instead a king who opens the eyes of the blind and loosens the tongues of the

mute, of a king who “shall feed his flock like a shepherd” and “shall gather the lambs with his

arm.”

For this reason Part 1 can end with a tender, almost paradoxical invitation: “Come unto him,

all ye … that are heavy laden, and he will give you rest.… His yoke is easy, and his burden is

light.” The Messiah rules, surely, but he rules with a rod of love. Who may abide the day of his

coming? Anyone may abide it; all who come unto him will be welcomed.

During intermission we mingled with other concertgoers, and downed yet another cup of

coffee. The drama of Part 1 was working its effect on me, however, even as I traded

pleasantries in the lobby. Suddenly it seemed very odd to be sitting so politely as we listened to

this earth-shattering story. We should be jumping or clapping hands, like charismatics.

Everyone else seemed quite calm and unperturbed, though, and we found our seats again

and prepared for Messiah, Part 2. Any listener, no matter how musically naïve, can sense an

ominous change in the opening sounds. Handel telegraphs the darkening mood with dense

orchestral chords in a minor key, then has the chorus announce it with his ever-significant

introductory word, “Behold the Lamb of God!” Part 2 describes the world’s response to that

Messiah born of a virgin, and the story is tragic beyond all telling.

Handel relies mostly on the words of Isaiah 52–53, that remarkably vivid account written

centuries before Jesus’ birth. All sound ceases for a moment, and after this dramatic pause the

contralto, with no accompaniment, gives the disturbing news: “He was de-spis-ed … re-ject-ed.”

She pronounces each syllable with great effort, as if the facts of history are too painful to recite.

Violins hauntingly reiterate each phrase.

At Calvary, history hung suspended. The bright hopes that had swirled around the long-

awaited deliverer of Israel collapsed in darkness that fateful night. Dangling like a scarecrow

between two thieves, the Messiah provoked at worst derision, at best pity. “All they that see

him laugh him to scorn,” says the tenor, who then adds, in the most poignant moment of

Handel’s oratorio, “Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow.”

Yet all is not lost! A few measures later the same tenor introduces the first glimmer of hope:

“But thou didst not leave his soul in hell.” Almost immediately the whole chorus takes up the

shout of joy: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates.” For the defeat at Calvary was only an apparent

defeat. The scarecrow corpse did not remain a corpse. He was the King of Glory after all!

Handel uses the rest of Part 2 to celebrate the triumph wrested from seeming defeat.

Nations may rage together, conspiring against peace and justice, but “He that dwelleth in

heaven shall laugh them to scorn.” The word-play is intentional: he that was laughed to scorn

will have the last laugh.

“Hallelujah!” the chorus cries out at last, and from there the music soars into what is

unarguably the most famous portion of Handel’s Messiah, and one of the most jubilant

passages of music ever composed. Handel himself said that when he wrote the “Hallelujah!”

chorus, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the Great God himself.”

Part 1 ends with a scriptural invitation (“Come unto him”) based on a paradox; Part 2

explains the paradox of how his yoke can indeed be easy, and his burden light. It is because of a

transfer of suffering. At the cross, the pain and sorrow of humanity became the pain and

sorrow of God. The chorus early on states it well: “Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried

our sorrows … and with his stripes we are healed.”

Furthermore, in that act death itself died. What happened next, on the day of resurrection,

was a miracle deserving of all praise, deserving of the “Hallelujah!” chorus.

At the London première of Messiah, King George I stood for the singing of the “Hallelujah!”

chorus. Some skeptics suggest that the king stood to his feet less out of respect for

“Hallelujah!” than out of the mistaken assumption that Messiah had reached its conclusion.

Even today novices in the audience make the same mistake. Who can blame them? After two

hours of performance, the music seems to culminate in the rousing chorus. What more is

needed?

I had never really considered the question until that night at the Barbican Centre. But as I

glanced at the few paragraphs of libretto remaining, I realized what was missing from Parts 1

and 2. They supply the narrative of Jesus’ life, but not the underlying meaning. Part 3 steps out

from the story and, gathering quotations from Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation, provides

that essential layer of interpretation.

When we flew to England earlier that day, the route took us over the polar ice cap. I knew

that beneath the ice cap, nuclear attack submarines prowled, each one capable of killing a

hundred million human beings. We landed in London to the news that a train had crashed,

killing 51 commuters. Within the week, a terrorist bombed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie,

Scotland, killing 270. Is this the world God had in mind at Creation? The world Jesus had in mind

at Incarnation?

For reasons such as these, Handel’s Messiah could not rightly end with the “Hallelujah!”

chorus. The Messiah has come in “glory” (Part 1); the Messiah has died and been resurrected

(Part 2). Why, then, does the world remain in such a sorry state? Part 3 attempts an answer.

Beyond the images from Bethlehem and Calvary, one more messianic image is needed: the

Messiah as Sovereign Lord. The Incarnation did not usher in the end of history—only the

beginning of the end. Much work remains before creation is restored to God’s original intent.

In a brilliant stroke, Part 3 of Messiah opens with a quotation from Job, that tragic figure

who clung stubbornly to faith amid circumstances that called for bleak despair. “I know that my

Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,” the soprano sings

out. Overwhelmed by tragedy, with scant evidence of a sovereign God, Job still managed to

believe; and, Handel implies, so should we.

From that defiant opening, Part 3 shifts to the apostle Paul’s theological explanation of

Christ’s death (“Since by man came death …”) and then moves quickly to his lofty words about a

final resurrection (“The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised”).

Just as the tragedy of Good Friday was transformed into the triumph of Easter Sunday, one

day all war, all violence, all injustice, all sadness will likewise be transformed. Then and only

then we will be able to say, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” The

soprano carries that thought forward to its logical conclusion, quoting from Romans 8: “If God

be for us, who can be against us?” If we believe, truly believe, that the last enemy has been

destroyed, then we indeed have nothing to fear. At long last, death is swallowed up in victory.

Handel’s masterwork ends with a single scene frozen in time. To make his point about the

Christ of eternity, librettist Jennens could have settled on the scene from Revelation 2, where

Jesus appears with a face like the shining sun and eyes like blazing fire. Instead, his text

concludes with the scene from Revelation 4–5, perhaps the most vivid image in a book of vivid

imagery.

Twenty-four impressive rulers are gathered together, along with four living creatures who

represent strength and wisdom and majesty—the best in all creation. These creatures and

rulers kneel respectfully before a throne luminous with lightning and encircled by a rainbow. An

angel asks who is worthy to break a seal that will open up the scroll of history. Neither the

creatures nor the 24 rulers are worthy. The author realizes well the significance of that

moment, “I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or

look inside.”

Besides these creatures, impotent for the grand task, one more creature stands before the

throne. Though appearance offers little to recommend him, he is nevertheless history’s sole

remaining hope. “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain.” A lamb! A helpless, baa-

baa lamb, and a slaughtered one at that! Yet John in Revelation, and Handel in Messiah, sum up

all history in this one mysterious image. The great God who became a baby, who became a

lamb, who became a sacrifice—this God, who bore our stripes and died our death, this one

alone is worthy. That is where Handel leaves us, with the chorus “Worthy Is the Lamb,”

followed by exultant amens.

We were sitting in a modern brick-and-oak auditorium in the late twentieth century in a

materialistic culture light years removed from the imagery of slaughtered lambs. But Handel

understood that history and civilization are not what they appear. Auditoriums, dynasties,

civilizations—all rise and fall. History has proven beyond doubt that nothing fashioned by the

hand of humanity will last. We need something greater than history, something outside history.

We need a Lamb slain before the foundations of the world.

I confess that belief in an invisible world, a world beyond this one, does not come easily for

me. Like many moderns, I sometimes wonder if reality ends with the material world around us,

if life ends at death, if history ends with annihilation or solar exhaustion. But that evening I had

no such doubts. Jet lag and fatigue had produced in me something akin to an out-of-body state,

and for that moment the grand tapestry woven by Handel’s music seemed more real by far

than my everyday world. I felt I had a glimpse of the grand sweep of history. And all of it

centered in the Messiah who came on a rescue mission, who died on that mission, and who

wrought from that death the salvation of the world. I went away with renewed belief that he

(and we) shall indeed reign forever and ever.

It was a good decision after all, attending this serendipitous concert.