Hallelujah: a Journey Through Advent with Handel’s Messiah

96 Pages·2017·0.04 MB·English

by  Cindy Rollins

Hallelujah

A Journey through
Advent with
Handel's Messiah

Edited by Cindy Rollins
First published in the USA
by the CiRCE Institute
© CiRCE Institute 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9991466-1-3
All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, without the prior written permission of the CiRCE Institute.
For information
CiRCE Institute
81 McCachern Blvd
Concord, NC 28025
www.circeinstitute.com
Cover art by Graeme Pitman.
Printed in the United States of America.
Contents

What is Advent?
Why Handel’s Messiah?
How to Use This Guide
What is the Church Calendar?, by Dr. Brian Phillips
Week One
Weekly Resources
What to Listen for in Week One, by Greg Wilbur
Daily Resources
How Our Family Celebrates, by Kerry Williamson
Week Two
Weekly Resources
What to Listen for in Week Two, by Greg Wilbur
Daily Resources
How Our Family Celebrates, by Karen Kern
Week Three
Weekly Resources
What to Listen for in Week Three, by Greg Wilbur
Daily Resources
How Our Family Celebrates, by David Kern
Week Four
Weekly Resources
What to Listen for in Week Four, by Greg Wilbur
Daily Resources
How Our Family Celebrates, by Lynn Bruce
Christmas Fulfilled
Resources
Christmas Books
Christmas Recipes
What Is Advent?
by Cindy Rollins
It was inevitable: I was born on St. Nicholas’s Day which falls just when
everyone is itching to celebrate, before the fatigue has set into the season. My
mother loved the holiday season and celebrated it with vigor in our home. She
especially loved giving presents. Unfortunately, she is not a patient person.
The minute she bought a present she wanted us to open it. I spent my
childhood begging my mom to hide my presents and wait until Christmas. I
have always loved the wait. It came as quite a surprise to me when I grew up
and found out that what I had called the Christmas season was really a season
of celebrating “the wait,” the expectation of the coming of Christ: Advent. A
whole season of waiting, followed by the joy of the consummation of
Christmas.
The idea of Advent was my first introduction to the idea of a church calendar and it has
taken me years and years to begin to appreciate the meaning of it all. Advent is the first
event in the liturgical year. It begins four Sundays before Christmas and typically ends
on Christmas Eve.

While Advent is historically a time of fasting in preparation for the Christmas Eve
festivities and the Twelve Days of Christmas, in our family it took on a more American
twist.

We always started our holiday celebrations the day after Thanksgiving by bringing out
all the Christmas music and all the Christmas books. We set aside our usual Morning
Time routine to read Christmas books and sing Christmas carols. I often interchanged
the words Advent and Christmas, which makes sense since Americans begin celebrating
Christmas sometime in the middle of Halloween night. Therefore, our family’s Advent
was always part contemplation and expectation, and part wild celebration.

Truthfully, in the end, we limped into New Year’s Eve. The Twelve Days of Christmas
that began with Christmas Day were for the most part unknown and uncelebrated as we
longed, after a month of feasting and fun, to return to normalcy. I say all that because
this little book reflects our family’s somewhat synchronistic practices. Other families,
especially in recent years, as Christians have sought out historical forms, have
successfully moved their traditions into alignment with the church calendar. I think that
is a wonderful thing. Hopefully, the ideas in this little volume will be helpful to both
strict Advent observers (we won’t call them Adventists!) and those who muddy the
waters with Christmas celebrations. So let the wild ruckus begin!
Why Handel’s Messiah?
by Cindy Rollins
IN THAT FAR-OFF TIME before computers or the internet, the Rollins family loved
Christmas music. We loved it more than most other families I knew. We had a huge
collection of Christmas tapes which we eventually converted to Christmas CDs. We had
LPs from my childhood, like Christmas with Gisele — including the classic “Too Fat
for the Chimney” and a series of contemporary Christian Christmas offerings, some of
which have actually stood the test of time. Eventually, we even re-purchased our
favorites on iTunes; our family iTunes Holiday playlist is over 24 hours long.
At the center of all that wonderful music is Handel’s Messiah. There was hardly time to
listen to it. I didn’t want it to get lost in the shuffle of great Christmas music. One day
while reading through the sheet music, I realized that the libretto aligned closely with
many of the Advent devotionals I used during the month of December. Most of my
Advent resources concentrated on Old Testament prophecies anticipating Christ, which
is exactly what Messiah does. Only Messiah goes even further; it continues through the
birth of Christ — “Hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth” — to the final, more
sobering triumph of “Worthy is the Lamb.”
After noticing this I decided to structure our December Morning Time around Handel’s
Messiah. I divided up the libretto and tracks into days. For our Advent devotions we
read the scriptures referenced in the music, discussed the tracks we would listen to, and
then closed our eyes and listened. It was truly perfection: an Advent family devotion
that was not too long, and that we could easily catch up on when we missed days. No
more trying to read pages and pages of missed readings.
Messiah breaks down easily into daily sections. Most sections include, first, a recitation,
followed by an air or solo, followed by a chorus. The lengths vary, from Day 1 which is
11 minutes to Day 17 which is only a 1 minute tenor aria.
Our family has done this year after year so that Messiah is a part of our hearts and
minds. In addition to this simple method, I sometimes have the whole Messiah playing
in the background just as a remembrance.
How to Use This Guide
by Cindy Rollins

I HAVE TRIED to keep this book very simple.
Let me tell you a secret. You can use this book any old way you please.
You can follow all my suggestions and ideas or you can simply follow the outline of
Messiah each day. I highly recommend that you do not complicate it too much. Did you
have a great St. Nicholas Day Feast last year but feel overwhelmed and tired this year?
Guess what: It is okay to skip it or to celebrate it with take-out Chinese. Some years you
might make the best molded cookies and some years the cookies crumble to pieces. I
have found that crumbled cookies still taste good. Advent is a time of anticipation and
joy. What I love most about using Messiah as an outline for the season is its simplicity.
Remember, media applications like Spotify and YouTube are your friends. The entire
Messiah is available on both, as well as on CD, DVD, and other formats (new and old).
As you will see in this guide, tracks for daily listening are named according to the
scripture passages(s) they include.
I have chosen to use the libretto from the first London performance of Messiah in 1743.
This was not the first performance of Messiah; that happened in Dublin in 1742. My
own favorite recording is the performance with Sir Neville Marriner conducting the
Academy and Chorus of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. On my recent trip to London, one of
the surprises was getting to hear a concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. I must say it was
thrilling, except the modern updates to the church were a bit disturbing. So terribly,
terribly modern. I had always imagined a place more, well, medieval, and sitting in a
field, perhaps. Nevertheless, it was still quite emotional for me to be in a place so
central to my own mothering memories through that much-loved recording of Messiah.
I have divided this booklet into weeks. Each week contains ideas for things to cook,
memorize, or enjoy. Feast days are noted. It is probably ambitious to think you can
memorize the Bible passages and poems in one week. Let us return to the imagery of
the long haul and save some for next year. No need to stress everyone out by trying to
memorize it all at once.
You can use the weekly selection for your Advent wreath activities. On Sunday light the
candle (or candles) for the week. You can also re-light the weekly candles while you are
listening to the Messiah selections each day. Just buy extra candles in case they burn
down. Candles are for burning and they are inexpensive. They are the perfect
embodiment of the season, so burn, baby, burn.
What is the Church Calendar?
by Dr. Brian Phillips
IN HIS INTRODUCTION to The Story of Christianity, David Bentley Hart writes,
“Most Christians . . . are conscious of only a small portion of Christian tradition, belief
and practice, and rarely have cause to investigate the many forms of their faith with
which they are not immediately familiar.”
We tend to live with a perpetual case of tunnel vision, our time and attention largely
devoted to what is immediately before us, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes
because of misplaced priorities. In The Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren
hints at this tension: “I need rituals that encourage me to embrace what is repetitive,
ancient, and quiet. But what I crave is novelty and stimulation.”
We could all use some help patterning our lives after what we need rather than what we
crave, after what is “repetitive, ancient, and quiet” rather than what keeps us insulated
from greater “Christian tradition, belief and practice.” Learning to order our lives
according to the church calendar provides a significant help for correcting these
tendencies.
Our lives are inevitably governed by some calendar, or a multitude of calendars —
work deadlines, sports practices, music lessons, and any number of other “extras” that
often have us scrambling this way and that. We do our best just to keep up with the
demands through smartphone schedulers, reminders, and notifications.
Although following the church calendar does not eliminate those immediate, pressing
obligations, it can help set the rhythm of our lives to something greater — the life and
work of Jesus Christ.
Just as God gave His people feasts and fasts to keep in the Old Testament, so the
Church has established days and seasons that give rhythm and identity to Christians.
And, while it is true that different Christian traditions follow different calendars, they
all include the pattern of fasting and feasting.
For example, the Western Church (Roman Catholic, Anglican, and historic Protestant)
calendar begins with Advent, a time of prayer and fasting in preparation for the
celebration of Christ’s birth. The Christmas feast then lasts for 12 days, from December
25th to January 5th, ending with the Epiphany feast on January 6th. These are
immovable feasts, taking place on the same day every year.
The calendar then shifts to Lent, another 40-day period of fasting and prayer in
preparation for the Easter feast, which lasts for 40 days, culminating in the Feasts of
Ascension and Pentecost (10 days after Ascension). These are called movable feasts
because their dates depend upon the observance of Easter, the date of which changes
annually.
Of course, there are many other days that are observed by both East and West, but it is
sufficient here to note the alternation of “fasting and feasting” established by the church
calendar. This sequence mirrors the whole story of the Church — a story of blessing
and hardship, growth and persecution. The church calendar prepares us for the valleys
and mountains life contains for all of us.
More importantly, by focusing the major seasons of the year on the life of Christ, the
church calendar teaches us that, whether we are metaphorically in times of “feasting” or
“fasting,” the center of life is Jesus. By allowing the church calendar to establish the
rhythm of our lives, we are better equipped to obey the Lord’s most oft-repeated
commandment to the children of Israel: remember. Remember the Lord in good times
and bad. Remember the Lord in every season of life.
Week One
Remembering Prophecy