We would be due in a month.
February 1st, our anniversary. This Christmas would have included the celebration of a life to come; instead it is a remembrance of two lives lost. One day I'm driving through the snow with “Sleigh Bells” playing in the background, pointing at Christmas lights with my living children; the next, tears stream down my face as I look at the roaring fire in my living room and wish I didn't feel the way I do.
And it's not just me: those around me suffer too. Break-ups. Divorces. Deaths. Dysfunction. There is pain, pain, pain; so much sorrow.
I filled our Advent season with good things. I went overboard, maybe—with no regrets. I brought out the Santa mugs and the evergreens, candles and the Jesse tree. I bought peppermint hot chocolate and threw Christmas blankets on every chair. We read aloud The Christmas Carol and watched The Grinch and Elf and Rudolph. The calendar is full of Santa parades and live nativities, the Nutcracker and our downtown open house. In the middle of the joyful, twinkling chaos, I scheduled one night for me and Josh alone: a night at Handel's Messiah.
Almost 3oo years old, Messiah
was originally written as an Easter performance. Handel was first known for his composition of operas but eventually turned to writing sacred oratorios: “Other Handel oratorios had strong plots anchored by dramatic confrontations between leading characters. But Messiah
offered the loosest of narratives: the first part prophesied the birth of Jesus Christ; the second exalted his sacrifice for humankind; and the final section heralded his Resurrection” (read more here). This famous piece was not just the product of Handel's genius; it was the product of Handel's genius and the inspiration of his friend, Charles Jennens, who in a “dark night of the soul” began jotting down parts of Scripture to help him deal with chronic depression (more here). Handel set these collected excerpts to music in a masterpiece people of all religions have gathered to hear for centuries.
Why is Handel's Messiah so compelling, especially to the non-religious? As the CBS interview above speculates, Messiah seems to grant hope in hopeless times. In the 1700s, when Messiah was written, war, death, crime, and poverty were an ever-present reality. This music, with its swelling, strengthening, vibrant call to hope, gave people something beautiful in an otherwise ugly time.
Pain, pain, pain; so much sorrow.
Perhaps this is why the tears well and our hearts throb when the tenor sings: “Comfort Ye My People.” Perhaps this is why, when the “Pastoral Symphony” plays, I sense the nearness of the Good Shepherd.
For some in the audience, it's just a Christmas tradition. It's just music handed down through generations. But for those of us who believe in the unchanging love of the only Good this world has ever known, it is more than music. It is truth sung to breaking hearts.
Messiah
is written in three parts. Part two begins with a chorus: “Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs,” based on Isaiah 53:4–5. I picture Charles Jennens writing down this verse in his personal war against despair, holding onto it, meditating on it, begging God for it to be true for him. And I think: we are not so different, three hundred years apart.
I sit with my eyes closed, holding a battery-operated candle, no different than Jennens or Handel or the thousand-thousand Christians spanning the centuries since, asking God: Can you carry my sorrow? Can you bear my grief? Can you handle my loneliness? Will you see me? Will you hear me? Is my broken heart too heavy for you to bear?
Here's the truth of Messiah and the truth of the Scripture it sings:
He has already borne your griefs.
He has already taken your sorrows.
His wounds covered your transgressions.
By His stripes you are healed.
Healing isn't always physical. Sometimes it is spiritual; an inner freedom from bitterness, wrath, resentment, and comparison no one can describe to you until you experience it. It's peace. The very thing Christmas promises and so often cannot provide, the Messiah Himself provides for us. When you let Christ bear your griefs, you don't need to put your griefs—blame, shame, resentment—on those around you. They can't carry all your grief and their own, and it's unrealistic to expect them to.
Human saviors simply don't save. It's not that they are selfish or mean-spirited; they're simply human. When we expect friends and family to have the omnipotence to bear all our grief in addition to their own, we've lost sight of the true Savior, and we've burdened those closest to us with a responsibility beyond their capability. Humans cannot bear all the grief. But Jesus can. Christ offers to carry our griefs, to fulfill the longing of our hearts, and to comfort His people. Where human beings fail to see your longings and your loss, where they remain consumed with their own lives while yours is falling apart, Jesus enters in.
The healing comes. It comes dropping slow; little flakes of hope in the darkness. You'll see it in the uplifted faces of your children, in the laugh of your closest friend, in the flickering candle at the Christmas Eve service. You'll hear it in Handel's Messiah.
Scripture speaks truth to breaking hearts. It has power to heal the most wounded places; power to redeem the darkest night of the soul. In the pain of Christmas, remember this: Christ carried our sorrow to the Cross and pinned it there with his outstretched hands.
Surely, He hath borne our griefs.
