Missing This Christmas

This Christmas was different. We were away from Jamaica, where we spent the last two festive seasons. This year, we were present with our three adult children and their families in South Florida. Our family reunions are like a kaleidoscope of ethnicities, cultures and noises.

Despite the memorable reunion, one of the things I missed this Christmas was hearing a live rendition of Handel’s Messiah. We long for a repeat of Christmas 2012, when we were among the 4,000 patrons to hear a rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah. Following the presentation I had to agree with one British newspaper, “It’s one of the greatest, uplifting life-changing pieces of music ever written.”

I understand that every hour, during the month of December, there is a performance of Handel’s Messiah somewhere in the world. Since the musical was premiered on April 13, 1742, the response around the world has been phenomenal. The only thing more phenomenal might be the story behind the music. 

On April 8, 1741, Handel gave what he considered his farewell concert. Miserably discouraged, he felt forced to retire from public activities at the age of fifty-six. Then, two unforeseen events converged to change his life. A wealthy friend, Charles Jensen, gave Handel a script based on the life of Christ, taken entirely from the Bible. Handel also received a commission from a Dublin charity to compose a work for a benefit performance.

With those opportunities in hand, Handel set to work composing on August 22, 1741, in his little house on Brook Street in London. He grew so absorbed in the work that he rarely left his room, hardly stopping to eat. Within six days part one was complete. In nine more days, he had finished part two, and in another six, part three. The orchestration was completed in another two days. In all, 260 pages of manuscript were filled in the remarkably short time of 24 days.

While writing Messiah, Handel was visited by a friend. The man found the composer sobbing as he was setting music to the words, “He was despised and rejected of men.”

The story is told of Handel’s servant/helper being frustrated because Handel hardly touched the food brought to him during the weeks of writing. The servant once again went into the room to bring food that he assumed would not be eaten when he was suddenly taken aback. “The startled composer, tears streaming down his face, turns to his servant and cries out, ‘I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself.’ George Frédéric Handel had just finished writing a movement which would take its place in history as the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’”.

Messiah premiered on April 13, 1742 as a charitable benefit, raising 400 pounds and freeing 142 men from debtor’s prison. A year later, Handel staged it in London - the King of England attended the performance. As the first notes of the triumphant Hallelujah Chorus rang out, the king rose. Following the royal protocol, the entire audience stood too, initiating a tradition that has lasted two hundred and seventy-seven years.

It is believed that King George I was so moved by the sentiments expressed in the Hallelujah Chorus, and by the facts that if Christ is to reign, then all earthly monarchs are necessarily subordinate, that he rose to his feet, and the audience rose with him. Like King George I, many stood with us as the Chorus was sung in Nashville seven years ago.

Handel personally conducted more than thirty performances of Messiah. Many of these concerts were benefits for the Foundling Hospital, of which Handel was a major benefactor. The thousands of pounds that Handel’s performances of Messiah raised for charity led one biographer to note, "Messiah has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, fostered the orphan . . . more than any other single musical production in this or any country." Another wrote, "Perhaps the works of no other composer have so largely contributed to the relief of human suffering."

Messiah is more than a display of Handel’s musical ability. Actually, before Messiah, Handel’s occasional commercial success soon met with financial disaster. He drove himself relentlessly to recover from one failure after another, and finally his health began to fail. By 1741 he was swimming in debt. It seemed certain he would land in debtor’s prison.

Then things changed - I believe the subject of Handel’s focus on the Messiah had a remarkable impression on him. A few days before he died, he expressed his desire to die on Good Friday, "in the hopes of meeting his good God, his sweet Lord and Savior, on the day of his Resurrection." He lived until the morning of Good Saturday, April 14, 1759. His death came only eight days after his final performance, at which he had conducted his masterpiece, Messiah.

Do you know Handel’s Messiah? I don’t mean the musical, I mean Jesus Christ, the focus of Handel’s music. Just as the music, Jesus makes such a big difference in so many lives.

Mary, Did You Know?

Twenty-five years ago, Rev. Jerry Falwell invited Mark Lowry to write a Christmas program. As he wrote the “speaking parts”, he began to think about Mary, the mother of Jesus.  

In a recent interview, Lowry recalled, “as my mind went back to the manger scene, I began to think about the power, authority and majesty Mary cradled in her arms. I began writing a list of questions I would like to ask Mary if I could sit down with her - questions such as, ‘Mary, do you know who is in your arms? Did you know that your baby boy will walk on water, give sight to a blind man and calm a storm at sea with his hand?’”

Lowry carried his lyrics with him for the next seven years. In 1991, he asked his good friend, Buddy Greene, to write suitable music for his poem. According to Green, “Mark handed me his lyrics, and I held on to them for about two weeks.

One day I pulled them out and looked at them. They seemed to suggest a minor key approach to writing an accompaniment. I completed the musical setting in about 30 minutes. I called Mark at his home in Georgia and on the phone played and sang the song to him. He was ecstatic! He said, ‘That’s it!’

Two weeks later. Greene met in Mark’s hotel room in Nashville where they recorded the song on a small portable machine. It was then taken to Michael English who was preparing to make an album. He was the first person to record “Mary, Did You Know?”

Since Michael English, many other artistes have rendered “Mary, Did You Know”. I like Mark Lowry’s rendition very much. Then I heard the Pentatonix a cappella rendition.

In 2014, this Grammy Award-winning a cappella group with their resplendent displays of vocal harmony, took Lowry’s classic to another level. The musical group used the diversity of their collective vocal ranges to emphasize that a small gathering is in awe of Mary and her role. Each of the five vocalists asked her their questions. The unusual approach magnified the sense of wonder in the song, particularly as contrasted to a single querying narrator.

Here we are, twenty-five years later and still in love with “Mary, Did You Know”. Some are captivated by the music and return to it again and again. Interestingly, many who do not share Mark Lowry’s faith, which fueled his authorship, sing the song with passion.

Some who share Lowry’s faith have problems with the song. They believe the song contends that Mary needed a Savior. “But how could Mary need a Savior,” they ask, “if she were born of immaculate conception?” Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic teaching which asserts that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was preserved free from the effects of original sin from her conception.

Mary had been solemnly declared to be the mother of God at the Church’s Council of Ephesus in 431. Most Catholic theologians doubted that one who had been so close to God could have actually experienced sinful acts. I have not read the findings of the Council of Ephesus, but I have read the Magnificat, the lyrics of Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55.

The Latin translation of Mary’s response begins with the word Magnificat, which simply means “magnify” (or “exalt,” “glorify,” etc.). The Magnificat is a poem of praise to God, praising Him for His blessing to Mary and His faithfulness to Israel. The Magnificat also highlights a series of reversals in which the proud are humbled and the humble are exalted—not the least being a poor young girl who will be the mother of the Messiah.

Commentators have pointed out that the Magnificat is full of quotations of and allusions to passages in the Old Testament. Many of the truths Mary expresses find a counterpart in Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 2:1–10.

Dr John Piper shared an interesting commentary on Mary’s reference to God’s holiness. Piper contends that Mary stressed that God's holiness has expressed itself and will express itself by exalting the lowly and abasing the haughty.

“What fills Mary's heart with joy is that God loves to undertake for the underdog who calls on his mercy. This is how his holiness expresses itself. Does this not commend itself as true, that the great and holy God should magnify his greatness by blessing the lowly who admire his greatness and by abasing the haughty who resent his greatness?”

Honestly, Mary would not have been able to answer the questions in Mark Lowry’s song – she just did not know the answers. However, what she knew, was what God could do through the surrender of a simple teenage girl. This Christmas, remember, God still works through simple people who surrender their lives to Him.

Archaeology and Christmas

Archaeology is a branch of history. Whereas history deals with documents, archaeology deals with artifacts. Artifacts are tangible objects that often verify what appear in documents. The term artifact can also be used to refer to the remains of an object, such as a shard of broken pottery or glassware.

For instance, Luke reports that the birth of Jesus happened when “Quirinius was governor of Syria.” For years, some scholars questioned the accuracy of the statement. However, we now have evidence that Quirinius was governor of Syria around 7 B.C. This assumption is based on an inscription found in Antioch ascribing to Quirinius this post. As a result of this finding, it is now supposed that he was governor twice -- once in 7 B.C. and in 6 AD. This historical detail helps to confirm the accuracy of Luke’s report on the timing of the birth of Jesus.

Both Matthew and Luke refer to Nazareth as the place from which Joseph and Mary left for Bethlehem. For many years the existence of Nazareth was questioned. Doubters contended that there was no archaeological evidence to support its existence in the first century. With that skepticism, the reliability of the biblical text was questioned. More specifically, stories of the birth and upbringing of Jesus.

René Salm was a case in point. In his book The Myth of Nazareth, The Invented Town of Jesus, he argued that Nazareth didn’t begin to exist until the second century AD, after Jesus was born. To be fair, for years the archaeological evidence for a first-century Nazareth was scant.

As is often the case, however, archaeological finds in recent years have vindicated the biblical record, with numerous first-century discoveries. Tombs with fragments of ossuaries (bone boxes) have now been excavated in Nazareth, indicating a Jewish presence there in the first century. Storage pits and cisterns from the time of Jesus have been discovered. Archaeologists contend that about 350 persons may have lived in Nazareth with Jesus. Today, more than 50,000 persons live there. Again, Archaeology corroborated the biblical text.

In May 2012, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery of a bulla (a tiny clay seal) which mentions Bethlehem, the city of David and the birthplace of Jesus. The report said: ‘The first ancient artifact constituting tangible evidence of the existence of the city of Bethlehem was recently discovered in Jerusalem. The three lines of ancient Hebrew script stamped on the bulla read: ‘From the town of Bethlehem to the King’.

However, I would be the first to agree that Archaeology does not prove that the Bible is true. Archaeology is extremely useful in that it supplies cultural, epigraphic and artifactual materials that provide the background for accurately interpreting the Bible. Because of Archaeological discoveries, many liberal and conservative scholars contend that Luke is “erudite, eloquent and that his use of Greek approaches classical quality.”

Archaeology then, has illuminated and corroborated the Bible in numerous ways. The interpreter finds in archaeology a good friend for understanding and substantiating Scripture. One’s confidence can be enhanced where the truths of Scripture impinge on historical events.

In his book, What Mean These Stones, Yale Professor of Archaeology, Millar Burrows, makes the point, that “archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the Scriptural record. More than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by the experience of excavation in Palestine.”

My faith is strengthened whenever I read the reports of Jesus’ birth, as told by Matthew and Luke. Other than the theological matters of Jesus’ messiahship, I believe that the events actually happened. Nazareth, Jerusalem and Bethlehem actually existed in the first century. Quirinius, Herod and Caesar Augustus were actual political leaders. Historical details like these undermine notions of myth, fiction and legend. Instead, historical details deal with reality and state what actually happened.

I strongly recommend that you read the first two chapters in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke this Christmas. You will see where the writers tell their stories to convince their audiences that the birth of Jesus and the events around the birth actually happened. However, just as the writers were convinced that they were reporting on what actually happened, they were equally convinced that someone from outside of our human experience, played a big role in the birth of Jesus.

Paul contended, the person who played that bigger role was God. This is how he described it, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son (Jesus), born of a woman…” (Galatians 4:4). This is a good season to remember that the science of Archaeology corroborated the story of the birth of God’s son.