TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2024 - MESSIAH THOUGHTS - PART I

 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2024 - MESSIAH VERSES - PART I

From the Internet:

In 2015, I visited Handel’s home in London to see the rooms where he composed. While I was there, I spoke with Dr. Ruth Smith, a Cambridge scholar on Handel. She explained that the lyrics (the libretto) were not written by Handel himself but are simply Scripture texts arranged by Handel’s friend, Charles Jennens.

In an age of rising secularism and humanism in England, Jennens was a member of the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel” and a passionate evangelical believer. He believed that putting the gospel to music would communicate its truth not just intellectually but at a deep heart level.

This libretto combines Old and New Testament texts to present the entire Christian message in a single piece. When it was finished, he took it to his friend, the great composer George Handel.

For 18 months, the libretto sat on Handel’s shelf gathering dust until he took it down, dusted it off, and in three intense weeks, shut up in his flat on Brook Street, composed the oratorio that made the words come alive. He barely ate or slept; he was completely engulfed in the creation of this music—and he wasn’t alone. When he got to the Hallelujah chorus, his assistant found him in tears, saying, “I think I did see heaven open, and the very face of God.”

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Isaiah 40:1-3

“Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Isaiah was written (according to scholars) about 700 years before Jesus was born.  It contains texts relating to the coming “Messiah” (savior) that will save the Hebrew people.  Parts of the book of Isaiah may have been written in Exile (when some Hebrews were taken to Babylon.) 

I think God is building an Interstate Highway (or an Autobahn) - “make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”  

This verse also discusses God’s mercy and forgiveness. Your “iniquity is pardoned” and “her warfare is accomplished.”  

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Now, let’s think about that. About 700 years before Jesus was born, Isaiah (or somebody) was writing this. In our age, that would be like somebody predicting cars, planes, the internet, artificial intelligence, and even electricity and indoor plumbing in the year 1324!!  

“Make straight in the desert a highway …”  I am picturing the process of building a road in 700 BC.  Men (probably not women), with shovels, pick axes, wagons, and horses, digging out a hill (or mountain) to make a highway.  There wasn’t concrete, maybe tar or only stone (or gravel) to make this highway.  

The roads were not straight.  They curved around hills and rocky places.  People (and horses, mules) walked on the roads - a straight road?  HA!!

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And “comfort ye, comfort ye, my people.”  God says, “Hey, trust in me - you’ve had too long trusting in warfare, swords, chariots, horses, bows, and arrows.  Throw your weapons down.  Your warfare is accomplished.”

I imagine that in 700 BC, people might have thought Isaiah was crazy. (I can also make predictions for 700 years in the future—“Things will be different”!!!

And, I still think that some might think Isaiah was crazy in 2024!!

LOVE WINS

LOVE TRANSFORMS

Karen Anne White, December 17, 2024