A Messiah for Everyone

Last night, I went to my 16-year-old son’s school chorus concert. He is blessed to attend one of Georgia’s most supportive high schools for musical arts. In fact, the district chorus program is so robust that the winter concert has to be held in a local church for enough stage and seating space. We gathered in the sanctuary decorated with Christmas trees, candles, wreathes, and flowers. The students wore tuxedos and evening gowns; everyone and everything looked and sounded perfect.

And then came the finale. Brookwood High School Chorus has a tradition that’s been in place for many years: the Christmas concert always ends with all the choirs singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah together. This powerful piece of music—even considered sacred for many Christians—finishes off an impressive evening of some of the most musically talented teenagers anywhere(yes, I do realize that I’m biased :).

But Brookwood Chorus has another tradition that seems—at first glance—in conflict with the perfection of the otherwise extraordinary program conclusion: all the alumni from Brookwood High School are invited to join the current choirs onstage to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus.” The choir director, Carter Still, brings extra music sheets for them, so they are not merely allowed to sing but invited.

And so, various people begin emerging from the audience. There are recently graduated students, home from college for the winter break. There are parents who graduated decades ago. People come up in their t-shirts, work clothes, scrubs, and winter gear and join the gowned and tuxedoed students on stage. The picture on stage no longer looks “perfect.” The outfit colors are no longer coordinated, the arrangement of singers no longer organized by height or voice type. A soprano may be standing by the baritones as she squeezes into a space on stage. And all the singers come from a variety of faith traditions, not exclusively Christian.

And yet, as they sing the famous climax of Messiah, it becomes clear that this motley crew of singers is indeed, quite fitting. One of the lines proclaims: “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord!” “Of this world” means the whole world, all of it, all of us.

In Luke’s birth narrative of Jesus (which Handel particularly draws on to craft this chorus), the angels announce to the shepherds that Jesus’s birth is good news and great joy “for all the people.” They go on to announce that Jesus is the Messiah—meaning: “specially chosen”—for everyone (Luke 2:10-11). This idea of a Messiah for everyone goes back to the Old Testament (particularly the end of Isaiah), as the prophets envisioned Messianic time as a time not only of peace but togetherness of all the world’s people. Everyone would look different, speak differently, think differently, worship and eat and sing differently. Yet, these differences would not impede unity and friendship. In other words, God’s kingdom would be complete only when everyone entered it even though it would not match, and it would not look uniform.

In the New Testament, the word “complete” is telos. It is the fullness of growth or the final and ultimate expression of something. And it has another meaning: perfection. On the stage last night at a local Baptist church, I watched the choir reach its fullness as it was completed by both t-shirted and tuxedoed singers, teenagers and retirees. Some had practiced for months while some may not have sung in years.

This choir didn’t just sing a centuries old song about a Messiah for everyone. They were the song…and it was perfect.

‍