Even though the whole world listens to Handel's Messiah at Christmas time, it was actually written for Easter. I've known that little factoid for a long time, but it took a friend's Facebook status this week to remind me that NOW is the time listen to that brilliant piece. I downloaded it last night from itunes. The whole thing. All 23 songs. And tonight, instead of going to the Maundy Thursday service, I stayed home and listened to it from start to finish.
It's such a beautiful, nourishing, encouraging work. I thank God for it. The Messiah also has lots of personal stuff packed into it for me. Both of my parents requested that the Hallelujah chorus be played at their memorial service. (That song is actually #17 of 23 songs - not the very last one as we usually configure it at Christmas time). And I grew up hearing our little country church's choir sing songs from the Messiah every Christmas. I know most of the popular Messiah songs by heart, and enjoy the secret *ping* of recognition every time I hear or read any of the Scripture verses that the songs are lifted from. And more than anything else, the songs are dear to me because I can hear my mom singing them. And I will seek out opportunities to hear my mom's sweet voice that clearly in my ears.
My mom had a perfectly smooth, rolling alto, but whenever she sang one of the Messiah solos in church, the waver of her nerves gave her voice a silky vibrato. The first voice I had ever heard sing "Then Shall the Eyes of the Blind", or "He Shall Feed His Flock", or "Behold, a Virgin Shall Conceive" was my mom's, and no matter how many Philharmonics or Tabernacle Choirs or Christian pop stars have sung it for me since, I thank God that her voice is the only one I hear when I hear those songs.
So anyway, I didn't go to church tonight. I've been tired this week. Weary, I think, would be apt. Not because anything really remarkable has happened or not happened, I'm just tired. I'm tired of winter and cold. I'm tired of wrestling with longings I know to be selfish-ish and yet natural (a house, a job for Hubs, a sense of the Lord's direction about a job/future/purpose). I'm weary for missing my parents, which I do keenly at Easter. I miss my dad's staunch insistence that we NOT get Easter baskets as kids because "Candy and toys and plastic eggs have nothing to do with Christ's death or resurrection". Which I deeply resented every Easter Sunday at church when all the other kids were sporting socks with little fluffy chicks on them, or a new purse, or rabbit-shaped toys. And now I am totally on board with his perspective. Of course mom always did muster up some very subtle bags of Easter candy and an occasional plastic egg with Dad-approved lamb stickers or Bible verse cards tucked inside. When we were older, mom went all-out with the Easter candy. Hershey eggs, ridiculously sweet jelly beans, peeps, peanut butter eggs, Cadbury eggs. I miss coming home from college for Easter and leaving with a gallon zip-lock bag of goodies.
And as I thought about mom and dad tonight as the Messiah washed over me, I pulled out the stack of letters I have written my dad every year on the anniversary of his death - July 29 - and re-read them. 10 years this July. Unbelievable. I re-read the highlights reel of each of the past 10 years that I have written out for my dad to get him up to speed with everything that happened to me that year. Those letters turn out to be an incredible gift of a record of all the ways that the Lord has been faithful to me and to our family. A testament to my parents' faith and to the ways their deep convictions have shaped me and continue to shape me. I read about my descriptions of each of my (NINE!) moves since he died. I read about romantic relationships kindled and crushed. I read about grief and persistence. About my travels and triumphs. About all the things I wished I could tell him, show him, share with him. I read about ridiculous grace, forgiveness, faithfulness, patience poured out for me. I cried. A lot.
At Easter time, it feels easy for me to slide seamlessly into all kinds of reflection on death, suffering, grief, and loss. I didn't adhere to any specific Lenten practices this year like I intended to. Even without a disciplined approach to Lent, I always long for Easter Sunday. Redemption. Hope. It's the singing, really, that I long for. I Know that My Redeemer Lives. Christ the Lord Is Risen Today. Or the hymn we had printed on the front of mom's memorial service program - The Strife is O'er, the Battle Won.
Sometimes the Death part is a little too familiar for me to sit with. The Living part, the Alleluias, can't get here soon enough.
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