Handel's Messiah 2.0

(A musical play written by Allacin Morimizu)

Estimated Length of This New Presentation of the Old Classic: About 2 hours long, consisting of 9 choral songs, 2 tenor solos, 2 soprano solos, 11 fairly brief narrator speeches, and a generous intermission. Enthusiasm, along with musical and acting abilities, are the main requirements for the chorus. The soloists need to be superlative. 

Intended Performance Setting: A theater, church, or auditorium with a raised area large enough to accommodate at least a dozen mostly young (or young-at-heart) choral singers in Handel Messiah 2.0 t-shirts (black with white letters and then later white with black letters), and with backstage areas for retrieving and returning simple props, and one t-shirt change. The roving singers will need to be wired for sound, but the music will mainly come from the sound technicians. A projection screen will be needed for relevant images and all the Scripture verses that are sung to enhance the audience’s understanding.

 

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Narrator, Speech 1: Welcome to Handel’s Messiah 2.0. George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, or Handel’s Messiah 1.0, made its debut over 280 years ago, in 1742, but NOT for Christmas: it was an Easter presentation. Handel was nervous it might not be well received because, unlike his previous musical works, it does NOT have a strong plot anchored by dramatic confrontations between leading characters. With help from a friend with a skilled pastor as a secretary, Handel began work with a series of biblical texts arranged in 3 parts:

FIRST, the prophesied birth of Jesus the Messiah or Christ—Messiah is a Hebrew word and Christ is its Greek equivalent.

SECOND, the Messiah’s sacrifice for mankind, and

THIRD, the Messiah’s glorious resurrection and ultimate triumph. Handel virtually locked himself in a room with a slot for food, working from morning to night in a white fever of inspiration for 3 to 4 weeks straight. His intense work became an immediate success when it was performed, and soon became a Christmas favorite because of the Messiah’s opening emphasis on Christ’s birth. Handel’s genius has been praised by musical greats like Mozart and Beethoven, but what makes Handel’s Messiah of eternal value is that it is genius skillfully applied to SACRED SCRIPTURE—the Messiah’s ONLY lyrics. Listen to those holy words now in summary form with a fresh New Millennium presentation. We start with one of the Messiah’s most recognized choruses, “For Unto Us a Child Is Born,” from the prophetic Book of Isaiah, chapter 9

 

1.      “For Unto Us a Child Is Born” Chorus (3 minutes, 56 seconds—3’ 56”

on 1966 Philips CD by London Symphony; #10/52 total Messiah song units) 

Scripture Text: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His Name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

#1 Opening Symphony (4’08”) and #11 Pastoral Symphony (3’02”) will serve well as background music to establish the mood before the Handel’s Messiah 2.0 performance begins.

 

Narrator (the same person or another), Speech 2: It’s funny how a comma can change things. Going backwards, the exalted titles The Prince of Peace, The Everlasting Father, The Mighty God, are logically followed by Wonderful Counselor, but who can imagine the song we just sang being sung “Wonderful Counselor”? (Use a funny voice singing it out.) Oh well, at least our big Christmas tree gets it right: notice the large Names of God ornaments on that tree. Call out what you see—don’t be shy! Yes, that’s right: Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Wonderful Counselor WITHOUT a comma! Now, of course, Handel had the artistic license to play with commas a bit—and I think we all can be very glad he did!—but let’s move forward hundreds of years from the prophet Isaiah’s writings to the Gospel of Matthew for another chorus from Handel.

 

2.      “His Yoke Is Easy” Chorus (2’ 08”; #19)

Scripture Text: “His yoke is easy and His burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-29)

Narrator, Speech 3: Yes, Christ truly makes burdens light, but only because He Himself bore a heavy weight, which John the Baptist vividly proclaims, as quoted in the Gospel of John, chapter 1: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

3.      “Behold the Lamb of God” Chorus (3’ 07”; #20)

Scripture Text: “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world!”

Narrator, Speech 4: Now that we’re talking about the Lamb, we will sing about sheep—lost sheep like all of us, for we human beings are prone to wander from God and get into lots of trouble. You’ll see us singers wandering around in the audience as a reminder of that truth from Isaiah 53. Handel’s music starts off lightheartedly, perhaps to remind us that our wanderings often seem deceptively innocent at first, but things soon get very serious.

While the narrator is talking, the singers put on sheep’s ears or tails, which they were discretely clutching all along. The viewing screen displays a pastoral scene.

4.      “All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray” Chorus (4’ 00”; #24) 

Scripture Text: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

All singers return to the stage for the final dramatic phrase of that verse with their sheep ears or tail off and back in hand.

Narrator, Speech 5: Look at that cross (pointing to the cross on the viewing screen), really look at it and imagine Jesus the Messiah upon it, paying for the iniquity of us all before our holy God and almighty Creator. Now listen to these verses from Lamentations and Isaiah 53.

The chorus stays still and focuses on the cross, then on the tenor.

The tenor moves about onstage and gestures as he sees fit, perhaps moving down into the audience to the first row, and then going up again.

 

5.      “Behold and See” Tenor Solo (1’ 22”; #28)

Scripture Text: “Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto [His] sorrow!” (Lamentations 1:12)

This song progresses seamlessly to the next:

6.      “He Was Cut Off” and “But Thou Didst Not Leave” Tenor Solo  

(2’ 50”; #29-30)

Scripture Text: “He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of Thy people was He stricken. But Thou didst not leave His soul in hell, nor didst Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption.” (Isaiah 53:8)

Narrator, Speech 6: What you just heard was a prophecy written 700 years before Jesus was born. It promises that God would raise the Messiah from the dead after dying a sacrificial death for all the sins of all His people—past, present, and future. This is the good news of the Gospel: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried, and He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” and was seen by over 500 eyewitnesses, to quote the apostle Paul from 1 Corinthians 15. Paul tells us in Romans 10 that the people who faithfully share this Good News have beautiful feet, as the colorful socks and shoes on our singers’ feet represent as they make a circuit around this room with a Bible in hand to represent the spread of the Gospel around the world.

The soprano, dressed in white, remains onstage while the singers make their quiet circuit with smiles on their faces, and Bibles in their hands, which they take from a pile waiting for them just out of the audience’s view on the far left end of the stage—leaving in the same place their sheep ears or tails. While all this is happening, the screen displays images of different kinds of people around the world spreading the Gospel and others listening to it and putting it into practice with deeds of kindness.

 

7.      “How Beautiful Are the Feet” Soprano Solo (2’ 28”; #36)

Scripture Text: “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings—glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:15; Isaiah 52:7)

This is to be timed so the silent chorus is back onstage by the time the soprano finishes, waving to the audience as the curtain closes for the Intermission.

 

Intermission

During the Intermission, be sure to have free Bibles and Gospel tracts available with kind, godly people to talk to, along with good food available for sale and Christian books that reach a wide variety of people, such as C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and J. Warner Wallace and Josh McDowell titles.

 

Narrator, Speech 7: Before the Intermission, we heard of the Beautiful Feet preaching the Gospel of Peace. Sadly, many people will hate this Good News because they prefer their own ways to God’s. That is what these black balloons represent.

In back of the Narrator is the chorus with black hats on and standing in a menacing arc, each holding a big black balloon with a label that is hidden from the audience’s view. The Narrator stands next to the first person on the left and points. One by one each chorus member holds up his or her balloon, and shouts it out: Pride, Anger, Selfishness, Disobedience, Disrespect, Tyranny, Terrorism, Lust, Worldliness, Stubbornness, Blasphemy (with #*!! symbols on it as well to represent cursing and swearing), and other vices to match the number of the chorus. Each can act out a little, as appropriate—Selfishness, for example, can take a cell-phone selfie picture and pretend to post it on social media. The narrator concludes:

Psalm 2 begins, “Why do the nations so furiously rage together? Why do the people imagine a vain thing?” Listen now to how boastful rebellious people rage against God and His Messiah.

 

8.      “Let Us Break Their Bonds Asunder” Chorus (1’ 39”; #39)

Scripture Text: “Let us break Their bonds asunder, and cast away Their yokes from us!” (Psalm 2:3)

The screen displays a series of carefully chosen sad images of rebellion, and the singers move out and spread themselves evenly in the side and center aisles. When done they all stand still, holding their balloons out to the best height and position for the people near them to read what the balloons say. The tenor emerges suddenly from backstage, dressed in white (including a white Handel’s Messiah 2.0 t-shirt with black letters) and holding a visible sharp object above his head like a sword (perhaps something like a giant thumbtack so it doesn’t look too scary for any members of the audience).

 

9.      “He That Dwelleth in Heaven” and “Thou Shalt Break Them” Tenor Solo

(2’ 23”; #40-41)

Scripture Text: “He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn; the Lord shall have them in derision….Thou shalt break them—Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” (Psalm 2:4, 7)

 

As the tenor sings dramatically and pops the balloons one by one, each chorus member flees as if in terror to the backstage areas for men and women to change into matching white Handel’s Messiah t-shirts for the remaining songs. By the time the tenor finishes, he is at center stage and speaks authoritatively to the chorus (all hidden by now backstage), “Angels and the Redeemed of the Lord, come out!” They file out, some with halos over their heads. Beautiful celestial scenes appear on the screen.

 

Narrator, Speech 8: It is said that England’s King George II, father of George III from American Revolutionary War times, was so moved during the London premiere of Handel’s Messiah that he spontaneously stood out of reverence when he heard the Hallelujah Chorus. Everyone else in the theater followed the king’s lead and stood with him. Since then, it has been a good tradition to stand if you are able during the Hallelujah Chorus and sing along. That is what we will sing now, so please rise if you can. The words will be displayed on the screen.

10.   “Hallelujah” Chorus (3’ 51”; #42)

Scripture Text: “Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. The kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. King of kings and Lord of lords, and He shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah!” (Revelation 19:6; 11:15)

Narrator, Speech 9: It may seem hard to top that, but Handel does! His music and Bible themes grow increasingly heavenly until the final Amen. The next song tackles death triumphantly with great faith.

11. “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” Soprano Solo (6’16”; #43)

Scripture Text: “I know that my Redeemer liveth and that He shall stand at the Latter Day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” (Job 19:25-26)

The soprano comes out, still dressed in white, but with tasteful gold accents to her wardrobe in belt, jewelry, and headband that suggest this heavenward trajectory. Each member of the chorus, similarly dressed, brings out his or her own white chair and sits in an arc behind the soprano during this long song, listening in rapture as a picture of the elders on their thrones in the Book of Revelation. Such scenes and resurrection and transformation images, such as a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, take their turns on the viewing screen. The chorus rises to their feet when the soprano finishes, bows with hand on heart to the audience, and exits. The Narrator enters.

Narrator, Speech 10: Where does this confidence for life after death come from? From Scripture. This is the trajectory of human history, which had a good beginning, a disastrous Fall leading to death, and a glorious Redeemer bringing spiritual life that leads to life everlasting. The Narrator exits. The lighting onstage varies from dark to light, reflecting the music, as do the images on the viewer.

12. “Since by Man Came Death” Chorus (2’08”)

Scripture Text: “Since by man came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”             (1 Corinthians 15:21-22)

Narrator, Speech 11: Jesus the Messiah promised to return to this earth. Perhaps He will be coming back soon. It is wise to be ready for His return. Think about that as you listen to these last two choruses from Handel’s Messiah. 

The tenor and soprano join the chorus at either end to sing these final songs. Display triumphant images of Christ’s return and heaven on the view screen, in addition to the Scripture text below.

13.   “Worthy Is the Lamb” Chorus (3'42'+; #52-52)

Scripture Text: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by His blood, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing! Blessing, and honor, glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. Amen.”

(Revelation 5:12-13)

 

Cut the Amen part short, not going the full length of Handel’s music. End with a brief pastoral message encouraging the audience to embrace the Gospel for the Good News it truly is, obeying all that Jesus the Messiah taught to live worthy lives before God who is worthy.