The Lamb and the Sheep: Handel’s “Messiah” and Me

BACKGROUND

Since January 2013 I’ve sung high soprano in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and with them I’ve been able to both record and perform the full “Messiah” oratorio a handful of times over the years.

Prior to joining the Choir, I had heard “Messiah” only once in its entirety, with a few little sporadic exposures throughout my childhood to some of the more well-known choruses and arias. Back in high school, I think I once was assigned to sing He Shall Feed His Flock/Come Unto Him as a duet with an alto student whose identity I do not remember, but if my memory’s not completely failing me, I think we didn’t do too pathetic of a job.

The Choir worked hardcore for months to learn the twenty choruses by heart, starting in the fall of 2013 and stretching into the following spring, when we and the Orchestra would perform the whole thing at Easter as well as record it onto what would be a two-and-a-half-hour-long album intended for release two calendar years later. But it took so much more than a typical two-and-a-half-hour Thursday-night rehearsal to prep for it all. After everything was said and done by mid-2014, I carefully reviewed what our “Messiah” rehearsal/performance/recording schedule had been to-date, summed up all the time we had spent, and the grand total of on-Temple-Square hours was well above 100. A hundred. That’s nearly equivalent to someone sitting through the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s “Messiah” concert FORTY consecutive times with no breaks, it was almost that exhausting. That was a trying yet terrific season, and it planted a seed inside the soils of my soul.

PRESENT DAY

Welcome to Eastertime 2018. The Choir and I have just finished yet another “Messiah” season, whose crowning jewels were back-to-back evenings of giving the glorious concert that featured four incredible guest soloists (as well as our brand-new Tabernacle organist seated at the granddaddy instrument’s beastly console). Thanks to how cool technology sometimes is, the concert was able to get streamed across the globe, to God’s children all around the world. I pray that those who were watching and listening were somehow changed for the better, as I certainly was.

I had given my two tickets for Thursday’s show to two friends with whom I attend church on Sundays. In the hours leading up to showtime, the three of us kept a group text going with each other. At one point I had expressed my sincere hopes that they’d enjoy the performance. And to that, one of them replied, “Handel’s ‘Messiah’ is extremely spiritual and combined with the greatest choir on earth (he is SO kind!) will no doubt deepen conversion.” He hit the nail on the head when he said it would “deepen conversion,” because I’m pretty sure it deepened mine.

HOW I’VE CHANGED

I asked a couple of different Choir friends what their favorite parts of “Messiah” were, and they said it seems to change each time we revisit the piece. Same here. That’s me, too. For me personally, I was surprised by which choruses became my new favorites this time around. I didn’t see it coming.

It was the first half of Part II (of three Parts). The heavy part. The somber and sometimes angry-sounding songs that were laced in anguish; yet at the same time, laced in wonder. Beginning with Behold the Lamb of God, approximately until the tenor soloist beautifully presents an excerpt from the Lamentations in the Old Testament: “Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto [His] sorrow…”

The living, breathing spirit that existed in the music transported my mind’s eye right to where Christ was those 2,000 years ago, to behold what was happening to Him. The scene in my imagination was vivid. While I was among a crowd of onlookers, it still felt like I was the only person there, watching Him go through all those tremendously hard things He had to go through. He was aware of my presence. He knew how I felt about Him, knew that I loved Him. I knew He loved me. There was an intimate, one-on-one ambience to it all.

It hurt to witness the cruel lashes, the malicious mocking, the spiteful spitting, the long road He trod in His weakened state while having to tow His own burdensome cross... But I understood that this was the Father’s will, and it was humbling and amazing to know that my perfect and perfectly-loving Brother, Jesus Christ, would have endured anything and everything—up to and including death—if the mission were to save me and me alone. He would do that for any single one of us.

“Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God…” (Doctrine & Covenants 18:10)

I tremble to know that for me

He was crucified

That for me, a sinner, He suffered,

He bled and died

WORD PAINTING OF THE INDIVIDUAL SONGS

Behold the Lamb of God — You’re standing on the ground, looking up at Him. He has just been nailed to the cross. The night is dark. Emotions are as thick as the clouds that are converging low in the sky. It’s about to rain.

He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief — The winds are calm and everything is still. The rain gently commences. The tears similarly fall delicately upon the cheeks of those who love Him, you included. You struggle to understand how anyone in the world could not have loved Him. You’re overwhelmed by how strange and surreal it is that this gloomy event is even occurring. How can it be?

Surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows... The chastisement of our peace was upon Him — The weight of the event is sinking in. The thunder and lightning are starting to roar and rage above, while feelings are starting to become more unsettled. People are arriving at the realization of what Christ’s sacrifice actually meant — what it meant for you, what it meant for everyone.

“Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.” (Matthew 27:54) (I just really like that verse. Somehow this chorus reminds me of that scripture.)

And with His stripes we are healed — (Back to the here-and-now.) These seven words literally get an entire chorus all to themselves. Just the same seven words over and over again. But I was stunned by how interesting this song suddenly became to me this year. I speak only for the soprano line here, but the first four words—“and with His stripes”—are, for the most part, sung in an abrupt, jolting manner, metaphorically mimicking the movements of a whip. The last three words—“we are healed”—in contrast, are sung more soothingly.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all — As if the last chorus wasn’t fascinating enough, this one resonated MAJORLY with me. Again, totally unexpected. This chorus, all throughout the past, seemed to merely be a song that just happened to sound like happy little sheep prancing about the countryside, and then in a flash the sheep are all gone as the music shifts in tone. My perception of it used to not have much depth. A very minimal level of emotional attachment…you know…aside from the joyful chuckles my family and I get anytime we joke that it sounds like “oh, we like cheese,” which…you know…we do. But in earnest, my view of All We Like Sheep has permanently been altered.

It now contends for the title of Most Thought-Provoking of all “Messiah” songs, in my book. The lyrics are uttered from the perspective of the sheep—the people—that are conscious of the fact that they’re deviating from the course that they know they’re supposed to be on. (Of course there may be other ways to interpret; this is just what’s been swirling around inside my head lately.) The harpsichord’s steady pulsating chord progressions paint a rebellious flock that recognizes who the shepherd is, but disregards his care for them and runs away in pursuit of another life that they assert must be better.

“Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10)

Then you’re jerked into a harsh reality check. The atmosphere morphs into something drearier. The sheep zap out of the picture for a moment. Instead, you find yourself gazing upon the Redeemer, who’s taking all the heat for every last wrong that every last one of the sheep has ever committed.

THE LAMB AND THE SHEEP

I couldn’t help but notice that a couple of “Messiah” choruses refer to “the Lamb,” while another one refers to another type of lamb: the lamb that each of us is in THE Lamb’s flock. He shall feed His flock like a shepherd…

The dozens of times it says in the scriptures that “there shall be one fold and one shepherd” contributes to causing me to wonder if He and we are more of the same kind of lamb than we may have supposed. This is where I get a little nervous in sharing my thoughts because the last thing in the world I want to do is come across as blasphemous. I don’t count this as concrete doctrine—I’m strictly talking in Alisonisms right now—but what if there’s a correlation between the biblical sacrificial lambs and the lambs that we are?

Under the Sacrifices entry in the Bible Dictionary (KJV), it states that “the death of Jesus Christ…ended the shedding of blood as a gospel ordinance.” When came the ultimate atoning sacrifice of the Savior, the law including the offering of the firstlings of flocks was discontinued. Could this, in any small sense, remotely represent the way in which we—the lambs of His fold—need never be alone as we go through any of the grief, any of the sorrow, or really just any of the challenges we encounter along our mortal path? Because He, who is also a lamb (THE Lamb), underwent all of it for us. He descended below it all. His empathy, in all cases, is flawless. We need never suffer, in any instance, in hopelessness. Had the Savior not saved us, then we’d have a lot to worry about. But He DID save us! We need not droop! His mighty arm and His infinite Atonement are what we can rely on. He is what we must rely on. The Messiah. Emmanuel: “God with us.”