Handels Messiah Week 2
Stacy Ikard

Handels Messiah Week 2

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Handels Messiah Week 2 - the Text

Behold the Lamb of God

Messiah References

Behold the Lamb of God – Chorus

He was Despised – Air for Alto

Surely he hath born our griefs – And with his stripes – All we like sheep - Chorus

Jennen’s Hope in Using Isaiah 20 times…

Jennens gave Handel the lyrics to the Messiah, verses primarily from Isaiah, Psalms, Paul’s letters, and Revelation. Messiah tells the story of the advent of Christ, His victory over sin and death, His defeat of His enemies, victorious return, establishment of His kingdom on the earth, and the believer’s victory over death through His resurrection.

A devout Christian, Jennens trusted the authority of the Scriptures and rejected Deist claims that God did not intervene in human history. The verses Jennens selected for Handel’s Messiah reveal God’s interest and involvement in man’s affairs. Jennens wrote a friend concerning Handel:

“I hope he will lay out his whole Genius and Skill upon it, that the Composition may excell all his former Compositions, as the Subject excells every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah.”

Sacrifice and Lambs

•       Genesis 22:7-8

 Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together.

The Passover – Exodus 12

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4 If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10 You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn with fire. 11 This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord. 12 I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 14 “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance. 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day you shall hold a solemn assembly and on the seventh day a solemn assembly; no work shall be done on those days; only what everyone must eat, that alone may be prepared by you

17 You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt: you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a perpetual ordinance. 18 In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day, you shall eat unleavened bread. 19 For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is leavened shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether an alien or a native of the land. 20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your settlements you shall eat unleavened bread.” 21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go, select lambs for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in the basin. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down. 24 You shall observe this as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. 25 When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this observance mean to you?’ 27 you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed down and worshiped.

Levitical Law

Leviticus 1:3-43 “If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, you shall offer a male without blemish; you shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, for acceptance on your behalf before the Lord. 4 You shall lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be acceptable on your behalf as atonement for you.

Leviticus 16:1020 “ When he has finished atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. 21 Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the Israelites, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task.[a] 22 The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region, and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.

John 1:29-34

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.”[j]

What questions does this image of Jesus on the cross bring up for you?

•       Harsh view of God – who needs a sacrifice?

•       What is sin?  Our condition?

•       Suffering as necessary?

•       Catholic spirituality and reformed theology

Suffering Servant Songs – Isaiah 42, 49, 50, 53

Who has believed what we have heard?
    And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant
    and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others;
    a man of suffering[a] and acquainted with infirmity,
and as one from whom others hide their faces[b]
    he was despised, and we held him of no account.

4 Surely he has borne our infirmities
    and carried our diseases,
yet we accounted him stricken,
    struck down by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
    crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
    and by his bruises we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,  so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
    Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked
    and his tomb[c] with the rich,[d]
although he had done no violence,
    and there was no deceit in his mouth.10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with affliction. When you make his life an offering for sin,[e]he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
    The righteous one,[f] my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out himself to death
    and was numbered with the transgressors,
yet he bore the sin of many
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

Suffering Servant

•       Nation of Israel?

•       Righteous Remnant of Israel?

•       Prophecy of Messiah – Jesus?

•       Historical Context – Babylon – 578 B.C.E.

•       Why do we suffer?

•       Theological Advancement – from sacrificial atonement to redemptive suffering

Surely He Hath Born our Griefs

And with his Stripes

Thoughts about the emphasis on these verses?

He was Despised

What message does the Libretto have here?

All We Like Sheep