The Broken Composer Who Heard Heaven

In the spring of 1741, George Frideric Handel was a ruined man. London's musical establishment had turned against him. Creditors circled. His operas played to empty houses, and a stroke had left his right arm temporarily paralyzed. At fifty-six, the once-celebrated composer was dismissed as yesterday's genius — a stone the builders of London's cultural world had thoroughly rejected.

Then a libretto arrived from Charles Jennens, assembled entirely from Scripture. Something stirred in the broken musician. Handel locked himself in his small house on Brook Street and began to compose. For twenty-four days he barely ate or slept. His servant would find him weeping over the manuscript, the music pouring out faster than his hand could write it. When he finished the "Hallelujah Chorus," Handel reportedly said through tears, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself."

Messiah premiered in Dublin in April 1742 to a stunned audience. The work Handel composed from the depths of personal ruin has been performed every year since — for nearly three centuries — lifting countless souls toward the Almighty.

Psalm 118 knows this pattern by heart: "I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." The Lord delights in taking what the world discards — a broken composer, a crucified Savior — and making it the very thing on which everything else stands. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.