The Musician Who Played What Was Written

In 1741, George Frideric Handel received a libretto from Charles Jennens — a collection of scripture passages arranged to tell the story of the Messiah. Handel did not edit the text. He did not substitute his own preferred passages or rearrange the narrative to suit his tastes. He simply sat down and composed music to the words he had been given.

For twenty-four days, Handel worked with an almost feverish obedience to the task before him. He reportedly ate little, slept less, and was found more than once with tears streaming down his face. When he finished the "Hallelujah" chorus, he told a servant, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself."

What Handel produced was not diminished by his submission to the text — it was magnified. Messiah has endured for nearly three centuries precisely because Handel did not try to improve upon the words of Scripture. He served them.

We often think of obedience as a constraint, something that shrinks us. But Handel's example tells a different story. When he surrendered his creative genius to the Word he had been given, the result was not less than what he could have done on his own — it was immeasurably more.

The Lord does not ask for our obedience to limit us. He asks for it because He knows what we cannot yet see — that our highest calling, like Handel's highest music, comes when we trust the composition we have been given.