Advent - We Have Found The KingSýnishorn

I’m addicted to Christmas music, both sacred and secular. I’m so addicted that I force myself to adhere to strict rule of not listening until after lunch on Thanksgiving Day.

I, however, make one exception. I’ll flood my playlist with Christmas tunes while writing advent devotionals. “Tunes” doesn’t fit this year. Because this, and the devotionals that follow, are inspired by Handel’s Messiah, I’ve listened often to it. Passages, compiled from the King James Bible Charles Jennens supply the content of Messiah. These help us anticipate and celebrate the coming of the Long-Expected One.

Messiah begins with God's promises as spoken by the prophets and ending with Christ's glorification in heaven. The oratorio is written in three parts that follow the liturgical year. Part I corresponds with Advent, Christmas, and the life of Jesus. Part II treats Lent, Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost. Part III draws the church year to a close—dealing with the end of time.

Part I opens with a Sinfony, written in a minor key which creates a sense of hopelessness in the reader (Sinfony). The first words, “comfort ye,” offer hope. It has been suggested that the rising and dropping phrases suggest the extent of the rough places that would be crossed (Comfort Ye).

God was promising the Israelites that He would restore them to Jerusalem. A lone tenor voice proclaims the first prophecy from Isaiah, that Jerusalem has paid the penalty and God promises comfort.

In Isaiah’s time, disconsolate Israelite exiles toiled in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar’s army had leveled Jerusalem’s walls, plundered the temple therein, and marched Israel’s leaders to Babylon.

We may need the words of Messiah as much as the first audience did 275 years ago. The United States is processing a recent presidential election. Bitter and acrimonious campaigns have left a nation anxious about its future. A student commented to me this semester that he/she hoped Jesus would return before November. He didn’t. Our world remains darkened by sin and separation. Some remained enslaved to hopelessness. Are we so separated from God that hope has been lost?

Listen. A lone voice cries out that God is comforting God’s people. God is promising to set things right. An upside down world will be replaced by ground leveled by God. He’s not here yet. We remain in the darkness. But be comforted: Our redemption is drawing near.

Dr. David Morgan, Adjunct Instructor, College of Christian Studies