2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
A friend of mine pointed out to me how very late Easter is coming this year. It was a bit of a shock, which demonstrated that my messages about the Easter portion of the “Messiah” are that much ahead of time. So, I hope you will forgive that and chalk it up to a writer who is famous for being preoccupied with less practical considerations than dates. Now, let’s look at the Scriptures which God inspired Handel to use as the basis for the Easter portion of his great musical work.
Anyone who has read the book of Job knows this is the story of a noble man of faith who becomes the object of a challenge between God and Satan. Satan asserts that he can destroy the faith that Job, a prosperous man with a life-long record of faithfulness to God. God allows Satan to do anything he wants to Job short of taking Job’s life. Job goes through a series of horrendous losses and illnesses. He gets together with his friends in a series of conversations with them. Job’s friends reason in the traditional ways of Judaism that Job must be a sinner who is being punished by God to explain this series of unhappy events in their friend’s life. Job is more sophisticated in his faith than that. He knows that he has not sinned, so he challenges God to answer the question of why this is happening. God doesn’t answer Job’s question, but overwhelms him with a poetic picture of His divine power. Job’s response to this is humility and repentance for the words of anger he used. At the very end, Job’s prosperity is restored, a conclusion that foreshadows the ultimate victory God, through Christ, will enjoy over Satan. If you haven’t read this book or it’s been a long time, I hope you will read it to enjoy the full measure of this demonstration of faith and its consequences.
Handel selected Job 19: 25-26 as part of the basis for the first selection of the Easter portion of the “Messiah.” [Job speaking to his friends] “But I know there is Someone in heaven Who will come at last to my defense. Even after my skin is eaten by disease, while still in this body I will see God.” Because of the hindsight of those like us who have been given the NT, we can look upon this as a most remarkable statement coming from someone who had no hint of the Son’s existence. When you put this in the context of HE 8: 1-2, what I mean can be seen. “The whole point of what we are saying is that we have such a High Priest, Who sits at the right of the throne of the Divine Majesty in heaven. He serves as a High Priest in the heavenly Holy of Holies, that is a real tent which is put up by the Lord, not by man.” HE 4: 15-16 helps us to make the connection about why Christ is qualified to be an Intercessor for us, our Advocate Who can take our petitions to the Father. “Our High Priest is not One Who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest Who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. Let us be brave, then, and approach God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it. “ Faith is the willingness to know and trust God well enough that a person is willing to take Him at His word, even if it takes the person into the unknown and/or the uncomfortable condition. Job had none of the knowledge we have from the two citations given here from Hebrews. Yet, he took a leap of faith in his attitude anyway.
1 COR 15: 20 is the other Scripture upon which this first selection in the “Messiah” is based. To really understand it, let me cite both verses 19 and 20. “If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all the world. But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.” The bottom line in verse 19 is that Paul was thinking of all the sorrows, suffering, and afflictions to which believing mankind is exposed. To undergo all of these for a false cause would be sad indeed. Verse 20 shows us this sadness isn’t necessary. That is because of Paul’s triumphant announcement of Christ’s resurrection and the blessed consequences that follow. There is a big difference between resurrection of the dead and resurrection from the dead. Paul argues that the dead do indeed rise. Every resurrection is a resurrection of the dead. But only those who died in faith will come alive again through the pathway opened to all who believe by Christ’s blood shed on the cross. That is resurrection from the dead. This could not have been possible without our “First among many brothers” establishing the pathway for it by having gone down to the world of the dead during the three days between His physical death on the cross and His resurrection. Christ was then resurrected from the dead. This means that when He rose, not all the dead rose at that time. More light on this can be shed from RO 6: 5, “For since we have become one with Him in dying, as He did, in the same way we shall be one with Him by being raised to life as He was.”
It is with this in mind that the soprano soloist sings the air, #45 “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.” Here are the words sung: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. For now is Christ risen from the dead, the First Fruits of them that sleep.”
PRAYER: O Lord, in sacrificing Your Son on the cross, you have blessed us in many ways. You have given us an Advocate, and Intercessor, Who is qualified by having been tempted as we are to relate to our suffering and to take our prayers directly to You. By His death, You have also enabled Him to establish a pathway for our resurrection from the dead. For these reasons and many more, we can know that Christ lives and that through our faith in Him, we can one day enjoy eternal life in fellowship with You. We humbly approach You in an attitude of worship, praise, adoration, and obedience. You deserve nothing less than for us to offer our lives to Your glory. In Christ’s name, amen.
The Lord brings us special gifts, of which Handel’s “Messiah” is one, to help us to be encouraged in our faith and to reveal Himself to us. Those are the acts of a loving Abba, Who wants nothing more that for us to be able to dwell in peace and close fellowship with Him for eternity. When we are faithful and obey Him, He provides us with challenges which are really opportunities to become more perfected in preparation for this great reward. By knowing this, I hope we will recognize that not a day goes by in our lives that God’s love isn’t showered upon us. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn