“Glory to God in the Highest”

Back to: Handel’s Messiah, Prophecy and Birth of the Messiah

#1. Background

Many Jews of Jesus’ day expected a messiah who would wield political power as an earthly king. In this session we will explore the ways in which Jesus’ messiahship met-and did not meet-their expectations. Handel’s Messiah uses Luke 2’s description of the angelic announcement to the shepherds to capture some of the ways in which power is made perfect in weakness. It also features passages from Isaiah 40 and Matthew 11 to further describe Jesus as Good Shepherd.

When the authors of the Old Testament spoke of a “messiah,” what precisely did they have in mind? The literal translation of the Hebrew word mashiah is “anointed one.” It was applied to anyone who had been anointed cere­monially with oil-whether as a priest (Leviticus 4:3, 5), a prophet (1 Kings 19:16), or a king (1 Samuel 10:1; 24:6, 10 ). Certainly one of the most frequent uses of the term, how­ever, was with reference to kings, particularly those in the royal line of David (Psalm 18:50). In Session Three it was noted that in passages like Isaiah 9 you can detect a certain heightening of expectations with regard to a coming ideal king. The great king Hezekiah may have ful­filled some of these, yet there is reason to believe his reign may not have been as ideal as it might have been (see 2 Kings 20:12-19). As the great expectations of the people were repeatedly disappointed, the prophets continued to direct their gaze toward the future and an anointed one yet to come.

This sense of expectation became more intense as the political situation deteriorated. The fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, the Babylonian exile, the disappointments of the restoration, and (in some later cases) overt persecution, all contributed to a growing sense of disillusionment. At the same time a tendency toward nostalgia helped to gloss over the less attractive aspects of David, the ideal king of the past. Sometimes the contrast between what people remembered and what they were experiencing led them to shift their focus toward a future beyond history. In passages like Isaiah 24-27, Zechariah 12-14, and Daniel 7-12 we can see examples of this sort of otherworldliness. There, the people’s hopes are pinned on God’s initiating a new age in which the evil powers of the present will be permanently defeated.

Not all of the biblical literature from this period reflects such a radical orientation, how­ever. In some instances, the remembered glories of King David merely served as a pattern for people’s hopes. They began to look for an equally illustrious “anointed one” whose jobdescription, while glorious, was not “out of this world.” They hoped for a flesh and blood king whose resume would read a lot like Isaiah 9.

If one looks at the words to “For Unto Us a Child Is Born”, one can see that Handel and Jennens have used the words of Isaiah 9:6 as a kind of messianic birth announcement. With its majestic music arranged for full chorus, it is indeed a proclamation fit for a king. And so, we modern listeners have been set up to expect something very similar to what many first-century believers expected: a majestic messiah. As the climactic chords of this chorus fade away, we are primed for pomp and circumstance. But we do not get it.

Handel follows the prophetic announcement, not with trumpets, but with strings. And in those opening bars of the “Pastoral Symphony” we find ourselves, not in the palace, but on the hillside. It is our first clue that we are going to have to revise our expectations to accom­modate a different kind of greatness. Instead of a throne, we will find a manger; instead of a king, a suffering servant; instead of a crown, a cross. 

There is a certain culture shock that we ought to feel-need to feel-in order to appreciate the full theological force of the contrasts depicted by these passages. From the opening strains of the Pastoral Symphony to the closing allusions to flocks, lambs, and yokes, the images are overwhelmingly rural. If we are not careful, we may romanticize the meaning right out of them. Set over against the glorious majesty of the heavenly hosts and the grandiose expectations of the waiting world, Jesus is born in a barn. The first “noel” is not to the powerful elite, but “to certain poor shepherds” who are out abiding in the field. That means they are living there … with their sheep. No glitz. No glamour. No roof. Just sheep, and probably a good bit of stiffness and cold and boredom as well.

Pastoral Symphony

#2 Power Made Perfect in Weakness

It may seem strange in a study of the biblical texts from Handel’s Messiah to spend any time at all on the Pastoral Symphony. After all, it has no text, biblical or otherwise. Yet this “song without words” performs a very biblical function. In its simplicity and serenity, it sets the scene for the Messiah’s birth and for the announcement to the shepherds, who receive the good news on behalf of the waiting world. The goal of both of the following activities is to enable participants to experience the culture shock which is so important for appreciating Luke’s account of the Christmas story.

The serene strains of the “Pastoral Symphony” are the perfect introduction to the paradox that is at the heart of the incarnation. The adjective “pastoral” is often used to describe a rural scene peopled by shepherds. It often implies a contrast between the apparent innocence and tranquility of such a setting and the intrigue and corruption of a royal court. Whether shepherds are always innocent and court officials necessarily corrupt is certainly open to question. Yet, the choice of a pastoral setting for this all-important announcement does underscore its inclusivity. Jesus may indeed be the “anointed one,” but the tidings of his birth are good news of great joy for all people, rich and poor alike. In fact, if the words of Mary’s prayer in Luke 1:46-55 are any indication, the poor may actually have the advan­tage!

Here is the announcement as Luke conveys in Luke 2:1-20:

Luke 2:1-20

The pastoral setting is not the only thing that catches us by surprise in this passage. Equally unexpected is the contrast between the messenger and the message. The angel who is the first on the scene is clearly a front person. (The Greek word for angel literally means “messenger” or “one who is sent.”) Ultimately, it is God whose presence is felt, not just in the message, but in the manner of its delivery. Surrounded by “the glory of the Lord,” the unsuspecting shepherds suddenly find themselves thrust into the middle of what the Old Testament prophets are afraid even to describe. Ezekiel probably comes closest in his vision of God’s glorious presence (see Ezekiel 1: 1-28). Yet, even Ezekiel takes care to doubly distance his description by calling it “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (verse 28; italics mine). His reaction to the vision is also telling. In the same verse he writes matter-of-factly: “When I saw it, I fell on my face …” Small wonder that Luke’s shepherds are “terrified,” or as the King James Version puts it, “sore afraid”!

Yet, the angelic messenger and the divine glory are just the beginning. Immediately after the announcement of Jesus’ birth, Luke describes how the angel was suddenly joined by a “multitude of the heavenly host” (2:13). The word for “host” here is literally “army.” This use of the English word “host” is identical to its meaning in the phrase “Lord of hosts” or “Yahweh Sabaoth,” both of which mean, “Yahweh of armies.” In other words, God has not just shown up in this passage, but has come arrayed for battle. The irony is that when the heavenly army begins to sing, the lyrics speak, not of war, but of peace (verse 14). It is a juxtaposition we have encountered before (see Isaiah 9:6), but here it is made explicit: the Lord of Armies has arrived to announce the Prince of Peace.

That the Prince of Peace could have this sort of power at his command is a theme we find elsewhere in the Gospels. In Matthew’s description of Jesus’ arrest, Jesus stays the hand of ne who would have risen to his defense by saying, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (26:53). In view of the resurrection, the taunts at the foot of the cross about Jesus’ inability to save himself take on new meaning as well.³ In retrospect we realize that it was not because Jesus was unable to save himself, but that he chose not to. His choice is the ultimate example of what Paul would later call power “made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Such power is anticipated in an important way in Luke 2:1-14, but not just by the paradox of military messengers bearing tidings of peace. Even more striking is the image of the Christ-child “wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (2:12). Anyone who is acquainted with the habits of newborns can attest to the authenticity of the detail about the “swaddling clothes” (KJV; a detail apparently too mundane for the libretto of Messiah). Perhaps because infants are thrust so suddenly from the comforting confines of the womb, they seem to feel most secure when they are wrapped tightly. So too, evidently, the “little Lord Jesus.” But, we ought not to get so caught up in the familiar that we miss that which is wholly, shockingly other. It is, after all, the Lord of Hosts wrapped up in that receiving blanket, lying in a feed box. We could never have anticipated it; we cannot hope to under­stand it. We can only fall on our faces before the manger, praising God for the paradox of power made perfect in weakness.

Messiah

There were shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. (Luke 2:8-9; modified)

And the angel said unto them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people: for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11)

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying : Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, good will towards men. (Luke 2:13)

Messiah

->(Air for Soprano)

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is the righteous Saviour and he shall speak peace unto the heathen.(Zechariah 9:9-10)

This exultant song looks backward and harks forward; it remembers and anticipates.

The prophet tells of the coming of the messianic King. He calls on Zion, Jerusalem, to break out into singing (in the Hebrew figure of speech, the “daughter” probably is Jerusalem or Zion), because her king is on the way. We recall the opening sections of the oratorio, with the prophet bidding the people of Jerusalem to prepare for the Lord’s coming; we recall the alto’s aria summoning Zion to shout the good tidings to all the land that God, their light and glory, is on the verge of appearing. Now the Holy City is called to song celebrating his birth.

Righteousness in the Bible carries the idea of vindication, of having been declared — by God — to be in the right; for the source of all righteousness, even Messiah’s, is God. As the psalmist sings, “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice” (Psalm 72:1-2).

King Messiah, in the revelation of his glory, will proclaim peace — the fullest blessings of divine shalom — to the nations of the world

“Heathen” is not a good choice of words. The Hebrew word refers to non-Jewish peoples and does not have here the derogatory meanings associated with our word “heathen.” The word originally referred to people inhabiting the heaths — wild, uncultivated land, just as the word “pagan” originally referred in Latin to dwellers in the remote countryside. Both words came to be used in English to refer to peoples who were neither Jewish, Christian, nor Muslim — that is, those who did not worship the one God. But as England expanded its imperial reach into the “pagan” world and the English became aware of “pagan” customs, the peoples came to be branded with the opprobrium of Christian revulsion against much in these alien cultures, and both words, “heathen” and “pagan,” took on such negative connotative freight that they can no longer be used in a technical sense. It is to all the world, at any rate, that Messiah speaks peace.

#3 The Good Shepherd

->Duet (Recitative Alto)

Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing (Isaiah 35:5-6)

Up to this point we have heard of the coming of the Messiah.But in the entire scope of the Messiah, only the three sections above speak of the Lord’s earthly ministry, of his work and words. And that is done by indirection. We are told of no incident, and he himself does not speak

The alto opens with a passage from Isaiah The two verses of the recitative, Isaiah 35:5-6, follow logically on the soprano’s aria of the Saviors com

The entirety of chapter 35 has been appropriately compared to a symphonic movement in sonata form. Verses 1-2 are a joyous celebration of a renewed world of nature breaking forth into song. The central section, 3-6a, is quieter, urging strength and courage and promising new hope. The finale, 6b-io, recapitulates the joy, returning us to the image of the highway through the desert for God’s people to travel:

It is in this context that the words of our text are uttered. Here is the glad announcement of a new thing. At the time of Isaiahs call experience, God had told him, “Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not .look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds” (Isaiah 6:10). The later Isaiah had asked, “Who is blind but my servant, or deaf like my messenger whom I send?” (Isaiah 42:19). But now there will be a reversal. Redemption is being proclaimed: sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. Israel receives a new call to her mission as the people of God.

As the aria begins, we are reminded that “we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:3). The alto’s words return us, at this point near the end of Part I, to the same passage from Isaiah with which the oratorio began. It is a continuation of “Comfort ye my people,” and of “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.” This first part of the work will end on the note of comfort, the same theme it struck at the opening.

These words are used in the oratorio to tell of the ministry of Jesus, of his beneficent works, how he gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, and made the lame walk. We do not see the afflicted people, we do not hear the Lord’s healing words to them, nor is there any description of the resulting joy. It is all the culmination of prophecy. The God who has come down the long highway from exile, whose glory has risen upon us, who has entered his city in royal humility, has come to heal us of our afflictions. He has come as the righteous Savior.

The Greek verb “save” is used in the New Testament far more frequently than the noun form “Savior.” It can refer to rescue from physical danger. Usually it refers to salvation in the full theological sense, but it sometimes refers to the healing of disease. In Matthew 9:22 Jesus heals the woman with the hemorrhage; in Mark 10:52 and Luke 18:42 he heals blind men; in Luke 17:19 he heals a leper. In each case he says: “Your faith has saved you — healed you — made you whole.”Heal,” however, signifies “to make whole.” Appropriately, we speak of wounds healing. Jesus’ ministry. . He makes people whole. His healing activity becomes a fitting picture, an earnest, of the ministry of salvation

The angelic legions have sung their doxologies and disappeared. The silence on the hill­side is punctuated only by the muffled sounds of sleeping sheep. We can imagine the shep­herds standing with open mouths, looking wonderingly into the night sky.

In his Gospel, Luke moves directly to the shepherds’ plans for a trip to Bethlehem to “see this thing that has taken place” (2:15). Handel and Jennens, however, take advantage of the momentary stillness to pause and reflect on the significance of what has occurred. After a soprano air and an alto recitative drawn from Zechariah 9 and Isaiah 35, respectively, they return to the chapter with which this movement of Messiah began: Isaiah 40. It is an appro­priate place for a reflection on verse 11 of that chapter, since that verse speaks of God as a shepherd, feeding his flock, cradling the lambs in his bosom, and gently leading those with young. It is a subject that is every bit as pastoral as the scene on the hillside, yet it turns our attention from human shepherds to the Divine Shepherd.

Re-read Isaiah 40:1-11.

Isaiah 40:1-11

Notice how beautifully matched that passage is with Luke 2. The subject, as you will recall, is the exiles’ journey home from Babylon. While verse 10 empha­sizes that God is indeed powerful enough to bring this about, verse 11 reminds us that God can be gentle as well as powerful. Once again, power has been made perfect in weakness as the imagery shifts from God as mighty warrior to God as Good Shepherd.

An important point both for the way we think about God and the way we think about our­selves is that strength and compassion are not incompatible. In fact, the image of the shep­herd conveys this in a powerful way. Perhaps this is why it is such a popular way of describing God (see Psalm 23). The strong yet compassionate shepherd leads the sheep in such a way as to make the journey possible for even the most vulnerable of the flock-the Lambs who are too young to keep up and the ewes who are either weak from giving birth or still carrying their lambs. It is a very reassuring picture, especially for those women who would have to undertake the journey under just such circumstances.

Messiah reflects this theological connection in the way the alto air “He shall feed his flock” and the soprano air “Come unto him” have been melded together musically. The alto selec­tion is, of course, based on Isaiah 40:11.

->Duet (Air for Alto)

He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: and he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young (Isaiah 40:11; modified)

->Duet (Air for Soprano)

Yet, after only a two-measure interlude, the music segues into the soprano air based on Matthew 11:28-29. Subtly, but stunningly, Handel has made a bold statement of faith here. Like the early Christians, he has identified the gentle shepherd of Isaiah 40 with the Good Shepherd of the gospel (see John 10:1-18).

Come unto him all ye that labor, that are heavy laden, and he will give you rest. Take his yoke upon you, and learn of him, for he is meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. (Matthew 11:28-29; modified)

Matthew 11:28-29

John 10:1-18

The one who gathers the lambs in his arms and gently leads those that are with young is none other than the one who comes to the manger and goes to the cross-so that all of us who labor and are heavy laden may at last find rest.

This continuity between the testaments is underscored musically by the fact that the melody stays the same in both airs. In the second it is merely transposed into a higher key. It is as if, in these two back-to-back pieces, Handel is able to affirm that it is the same melody of salvation in both testaments. It is only that it is brought to completion in Jesus Christ.

To picture God as a shepherd, a fairly familiar figure in the Old Testament, is to picture us his people as sheep. This is not a romantic image; it is drawn from the realism of livestock culture. It is not a picture of cuddly innocence. We are small. We are helpless against predators. We fall into rushing streams and are washed away. We wander away from the safety of the flock and the shepherd. We do silly things. But God is our shepherd, as the psalmist sings in Psalm 23. He feeds us until we have our fill; sheep do not lie down in green pastures unless they are satisfied. When he leads us to water it is not to the dangerous freshets cascading down steep rocky hillsides, but to quiet pools, where we refresh ourselves in safety. Even when we walk along the perilous cliffs, we have nothing to fear. Our shepherd is with us, keeping us from falling, warding off the predators with his rod and staff.. “Your rod and your staff — they comfort me” (Psalm 23:1-4). Without such a guide and guard, we are lost, “like sheep without a shepherd,” as Jesus thinks of the crowds who come from all over to hear the good news and be healed of their diseases (Matthew 35-36).

The exilic Isaiah spoke these words of the exiles returning home. Just as Micah had foretold: “I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob, I will gather the survivors of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture” (Micah 2:12). Just as Jeremiah had foreseen: “He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd a flock” (Jeremiah 31:10).

It was Israel the prophet was speaking of, shepherded by their God. But in the context of the oratorio, the words look ahead to Jesus, who calls himself the Good Shepherd

Jesus’ words, “Come unto me,” in the third passage are echoing the words of Heavenly Wisdom. In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom is personified as a female figure who was with God in the beginning of creation (Proverbs 8:22-31), and who calls everyone to herself. “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live” (8:4). “Come, eat of my bread . . .” (9:5). In the book of Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus), another book from Israel’s wisdom tradition, the authors closing chapter calls on humanity to come to wisdom. Wisdom speaks: “Come to me, you who desire me, and eat your fill of my fruits …” (Sirach 24:19). “Draw near to me, you who are uneducated, and lodge in the house of instruction…. Put your neck under her yoke, and let your souls receive instruction; it is to be found close by” (Sirach 51:23, 26).

As Part I of Messiah draws to a close, the Good Shepherd is calling us to rest and comfort. It is the same comfort which was announced at the beginning of the work through the words of the prophet Isaiah. Now, however, we understand that this comfort has a name: Jesus Christ. And we have begun to suspect that his messiahship is not what anyone expected it to be. In the Easter portion of the Messiah, Parts II and III, those suspicions will be confirmed. There we will come to know-through Handel’s art-that the Good Shepherd is also the slain and risen Lamb.