For most of us Christmas began with magic, the magic of Santa Claus. We cannot remember when we began believing in Santa, at least I cannot. I knew that Santa was treasured and reinforced by everybody I trusted. So I was devastated when celebrating my sixth Christmas to discover that Santa Claus was not Santa, he was in fact my Uncle Jim. I cried!
So I moved from Christmas as magic to Christmas as getting-getting gifts-counting, opening, playing with them. This time of getting lasted for about 20 years. I do not remember giving a gift to anybody during that time. Yet when I got married the period of getting was over just as quickly as the magic period had ended. Now giving to others, especially children and grandchildren, began and continues unto this day.
But Christmas began to transform me when in the middle of life my Mother asked me to do one thing for her every Christmas; take her to a performance of Handel’s Messiah. Handel wrote the Oratorio, The Messiah, in 1741. Every line in an Oratorio is sung. In this Oratorio every line is scripture. What is sung is the story of the prophecy of, the birth, the life, death, resurrection and Ascension of Jesus of Nazareth-Israel’s Messiah, Savior and Lord of the world.
One of the first lines in the Messiah says, “O you that tell good tidings to Zion say unto the cities of Judah behold your God.” The beholds were talking to me. They were saying, “Look-look-do you see? I slowly began snapping out of a long season of spiritual inattentiveness.
The first time we heard the Messiah together the singers and musicians were wonderful, but the music and the message were so big-so powerful-bigger and more powerful than any message in this world, that I wanted to hear a larger chorus and symphony do the Messiah. One year we heard a two hundred member choir from Southwest Baptist Seminary and the hundred member Fort Worth Symphony join forces to perform the Messiah in the Bass Hall. The chorus and symphony thunder, “ For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. “ The Bass Hall shook with the joyful sound of each thundering exclamation.
The end of the first act of the Oratorio declares, “His yoke is easy and his burden is light.” My mother’s burdens never seemed easy or light to me, but in that moment Christ shouldered her impossible burdens. I was convicted and overjoyed when the music declared to me, “All we like sheep have gone astray, turned to our own way and then goes on to say, ”Yet the Lord has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. “
The Messiah builds to a rapturous celebration of the eternal reign of Christ, concluding with the “Hallelujah chorus” which declares for ten minutes “He shall reign forever and ever, King of King and Lord of Lords.”
I realized this was the story that made my mothers heart beat- this had comforted her and given her hope in the multiple dark nights of her soul. I also realized Mother was transmitting the faith to me. She was saying. “Son, this is what we believe. This is the story our family lives in. Never, ever turn loose of this. This was and is the treasure within our broken family. Nothing else comes close.”
It is expected that the entire audience attending the Messiah will stand during the Hallelujah chorus. There is a lifting, a “raising up” that happens as we stand. It is not an invisible Mary Poppins wire elevating us into fantasy land, but there is a “raising up” that lifts our mortal bodies into the heavenlies-the heavenly music is playing us!
So this was why my God longing Mother said, “All I want for Christmas every year is to hear Handel’s Messiah. ” The treasure rediscovered was far better than the magic.