Music from the Ruins

In the autumn of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. His operas had fallen from public favor. Creditors circled. His health was failing — a stroke had partially paralyzed his right side just four years earlier. At fifty-six, the composer who had once dazzled the courts of Europe seemed finished.

Then a libretto arrived from Charles Jennens — scripture passages arranged to tell the story of Christ from prophecy through resurrection. Something ignited in Handel. He began composing with a fervor that bordered on the otherworldly, barely eating or sleeping, scrawling notes across page after page. In roughly twenty-four days, he completed the entire Messiah — 259 pages of music, including the thundering "Hallelujah Chorus" that would move audiences to their feet for centuries to come.

When his servant brought him food during the composition, he reportedly found Handel weeping. "I did think I did see all Heaven before me," Handel said, "and the great God Himself."

Here was grace in action: not a reward for faithfulness, but a gift poured into the hands of a desperate man. The Almighty didn't wait for Handel to get his life together. He met him in the ruins and gave him a melody that would carry the gospel across three centuries.

That is how grace works. It doesn't arrive when we've earned it. It shows up when we've run out of everything else — and hands us a song we never could have written on our own.