Sitting on a padded chair in a box seat at Carnegie Hall waiting for the opening chords of the Overture to Handel’s The Messiah, I was as excited as a little kid waiting in front of a pile of wrapped gifts. I could hardly believe I was actually there. I glanced over at my oldest granddaughter seated next to me, and she looked as delighted as I was. Her and her husband’s 2025 Christmas gift to me couldn’t have been any more special than this.
I thought back over the past 75 years and how my experiences of listening to this majestic and worshipful music had changed. From listening to it with child-like wonder when I was 5 years old to the dramatic revelation I had while listening when I was 73, the arias, recitatives, choruses, and instrumental accompaniments have drawn me into worship and adoration of my Lord and Savior.
My love of George F. Handel’s oratorio The Messiah started when I was just a kindergartner. I lived with my parents and two older brothers in a small town in western Michigan. Every year, in early December, my mom would take the 45-minute bus ride from Cutlerville to the Civic Auditorium in downtown Grand Rapids to hear Calvin College’s annual production of that famous oratorio. For over 30 years, it was her annual pilgrimage to start her celebration of Christmas, and in 1950, she invited me along. Years have passed, but I remember those yearly cold bus rides, holding her hand while we walked from the bus stop to the auditorium, and then sitting with her in the first balcony with me peering through the metal railings to see the stage. When I was 12, all I wanted for Christmas was the music book the singers used so I could follow along during the performance. I still have the copy my brother gave me in 1957.
After I married my husband John, he soon found out how I needed to hear the entire The Messiah every Christmas time, even if it was on a record or multiple cassette tapes. Occasionally, we would find a place to go hear the performance or parts of the oratorio live. Once we went to a sing-along-Messiah in a large church. But most years, I was content to play it on a record player, then a CD player, a DVD player, and finally on YouTube. I got to the point when I heard the first few notes of a song, I knew exactly what song it was. I had my favorite parts, of course – The Overture, the Pastoral Symphony, the aria “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, the chorus “Glory to God in the Highest,” the aria “The trumpet shall sound,” the chorus “Surely He hath borne our griefs,” and the magnificent “Hallelujah” chorus.
Over the years, I bought two advent books based on The Messiah so I could spend moments every day for the first 25 days of December preparing my heart for celebrating Advent, the coming of Immanuel, God with us. Decorating the house for Christmas was always done with songs from The Messiah playing throughout our home.
Then came 2018, the year that my husband took his last breath on earth, and his spirit was immediately in the presence of his Lord and Savior. I didn’t know how I was going to do life without him, this man who loved his God, his wife, his family, and who had been part of me for over 53 years. As Christmas approached and I felt weighed down by deep sorrow, a widow friend told me that every year at Christmas, she would wonder what her husband would have gotten her for Christmas, and then she would get it for herself. That resonated with me.
As I pondered what John would have given me that year, I thought about him getting me a ticket to hear my beloved Handel’s The Messiah. I researched online and discovered that the Chicago Symphony was performing it on Friday, December 21 at 1:30. Before I could change my mind, I quickly bought a single ticket in the 2nd balcony. I bought a sparkling red sweater, planned my train ride into the city, and figured out how to walk from the station to the Symphony Center.
On that very cold day, I ventured out, the first time by myself into the big city! After finding a restaurant near the Center where I ate my first meal out alone, I walked to the concert hall, and found my seat. As I heard the opening notes from the orchestra, followed by the soloists and chorus singing the familiar songs, I experienced the awe and wonder of listening again to the story of Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. And then it happened, an experience that changed my grief journey and changed my Christmases forever. The chorus began their last song with the words from Revelations 5:12-13. The sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses blended their voices in an antiphony of praise “Blessing and honour, glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.” Their voices echoed off of each other, as they interwove the melody. Tears began streaming down my face. When the singers began cresendoing the 49 “Amens” that were building towards a powerful musical conclusion, I thought “If man here on earth can put black notes on paper, and musicians can use their voices and instruments to sing and play music that makes me feel I’m in another ‘realm’, what is it like for John to be in the Throne Room of God, singing those words in the presence of Jesus His Savior!” That revelation changed my grief journey to focus not on my loss but on his gain.
These memories of the past flowed in and out of my mind as I sat a few weeks ago in that box seat at Carnegie Hall, marveling again at the magnificence of the music and its impact on me for decades.
“Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. And He shall reign forever and ever. King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Hallelujah!”
Travels with Irene 
Leave a comment