Comfort Ye
First Congregational Church of Evanston
December 16, 2007
(Third Sunday of Advent Sunday)
Isaiah 40:1-5
Rev. Dr. James E. Roghair, Interim Pastor
How wonderfully blessed we are to worship with the music of Handel’s Messiah this morning. We can take it for granted. But there are so many things that stand behind our experience. The obvious things like the talent and practice of the musicians, and the physical arrangements including the making of the instruments. Everybody is in place here today, with the music in front of them and ready to do it!
But there are many other things that stand behind these musicians that give support to our experience down through the ages. George Frideric Handel was a German musician – of course his parents wanted him to study law. But he always sneaked off to play the harpsichord. Eventually this German became a prolific composer of Italian operas, and got a job in England, working first for Queen Ann and later for King George, doing what? Largely writing Italian operas – at first.
But the London crowd was tiring of Italian operas, and Handel decided to try writing operas in English using biblical stories. When his first one, based on the book of Esther, was about ready to go to the stage, the Bishop of London pronounced it “sinful to represent biblical characters in a theater.” There had to be a compromise, and the Oratorio form was born: Good instrumental and vocal music, but no acting, costumes or set. The Bishop probably did more for the new oratorio form than he could have imagined. Oratorios were much cheaper to do than operas , and they were very successful in London.
Handel was often short of money – as musicians are – and he wrote the Messiah in 24 days! But Handel was not just writing for money. There is a story that a servant came upon Handel as he had finished the Hallelujah Chorus, with tears streaming down his face, proclaiming, “I did think I did see all heaven before me, and the great God Himself!”
But not everyone was pleased. After hearing the Messiah performed, Charles Jennens, a country gentleman who had done the libretto for the Messiah wrote: “His Messiah has disappointed me, being set in such great hast[e], tho’ he said he would be a year about it, and make it the best of all his Compositions. I shall put no more Sacred Works into his hands, to be thus abus’d...” How wrong a colleague could be! Is there any musical work in English more remembered and revered than this one?
So the streams that feed into our experience this morning include the 18th century musicians – vying with one another – trying to make a life for themselves – awed at the wonder of God. But Handel and Jennens did not work in a vacuum. The material that they used is exclusively biblical – mostly from the King James Version with a few passages from an earlier English translation – the Great Bible. But those biblical texts speak of experiences much earlier. Without turning this into a huge lecture, I point you to the predominance of the book of Isaiah in the biblical quotations.
The use of Isaiah was not just Jennens’s idea. Rather Isaiah is one of the most important books of the Hebrew Bible that framed Christian theology in the 1st century. Refer to your to the salmon colored libretto insert, if you like, and you will see the quotations from Isaiah. Part I of the Messiah has quotes from three distinct parts of the book of Isaiah – drawn from three distinct times in Israel’s history – and gathered together as sacred writing by the Jews.
“Comfort ye” and the two pieces that follow it are the text that was read a few moments ago. It comes from what biblical scholars call Second Isaiah and the exile time in Judah. There was no answer to the Jews’ sorrow. But the prophet spoke words of hope to the hopeless people. Of course, when it was written, and when it was compiled into the book we know, it did not refer to Jesus. It referred to the restoration of Jerusalem and to the exile’s going home – over that long desert expanse from Babylon to Jerusalem.
But for Christians the words remind us of the coming of the Christ and of John the Baptist. It is the Spirit of God that uses the ancient words to bring us hope as they did the ancient Hebrews.
Coming from an earlier time, a time of political uncertainty and fear in Jerusalem before the exile, was First Isaiah. The prophet was trying to get the King of Judah to put his trust in God, and not put his trust in one of the neighboring nations – politically foolish in the prophet’s view. In the process he points out a young woman, perhaps already pregnant, and he says in Hebrew, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14.)” God’s signs always require wait and trust – it was not to be an immediate sign that God was telling the truth. (The name Immanuel means ‘God with us’ – and God’s presence is always a good sign. And the Hebrew word for ‘young woman’ did not become ‘virgin’ until it was translated into Greek many years later.) But, sign or no sign, the foolish king did not listen nor accept God’s sign, and things went from bad to worse.
Finally a new king was anointed, so if you turn your libretto over you will see two more references to First Isaiah . “The people that walked in darkness...” and then “For unto us a child is born...”
Again, it is a wonder and a miracle of God’s Spirit how these ancient Hebrew texts came to have such deep meaning for the Christians.
I will only mention the references from the 60th chapter of Isaiah from Third Isaiah, “Arise, shine, for thy light has come...” and the Lord shall arise upon thee; and his glory shall be seen upon thee... (Isaiah 60:1-3) These are words of assurance to the exiles who had returned to Jerusalem, but who had found that things were a lot harder than they had imagined.
And again, we can wonder at the Spirit’s use of these ancient words to assure and comfort Christians down through the years – even us.
With all of these ancient streams feeding into our experience, I hope that we can all say, “Thanks be to God” – thankful that we can know Immanuel – God present with in us – that we can trust God, even when God’s signs seem to be slow. God’s love is everlasting and steadfast. Thanks be to God. Amen.
(Note: a primary source for this sermon is Hallelujah: the Bible and Handel’s Messiah, by Carol M Bechtel. Kerygma, Pittsburgh, 2002 Revised ed.)
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