INTRO: Since tomorrow is Christmas, and this is Sunday, I had planned to continue our series on the seven churches of Asia and do a Christmas message tomorrow. But last weekend we went to Edmonton’s Winspear Center to listen to a performance of Handle’s Messiah. George Fredrick Handle composed the Messiah in the 1740’s. It is still being performed the world over. It has some 40 songs and so they are too many to do in one performance. It is all Scripture. I was amazed that people pay money and listen to two hours of Scripture being sung and that they are moved that at the end the clapping as a show of appreciation goes on for a long time when it is over. And as I sat there and listened, I pondered these words over and over, “Comfort, yea, Comfort ye My people.”
Turn to Isaiah 40. One of my favorite songs in Handle’s Messiah is the very first one in Handle’s order, “Comfort, yea, comfort ye My people.” Whenever I listen to this song I hear the Lord call out, after 39 chapters in Isaiah, saying, “Comfort, yea comfort My people!” We begin in verse 1: |
