Music courtesy of The Falls Church Anglican Choir, Falls Church, Virginia, under the musical direction of Simon Dixon. Audio mastering by Andrew Schooley. From Messiah by George Frideric Handel (1742)

Listen to the full playlist for Handel’s Messiah.

Handel’s Messiah is technically an oratorio, as opposed to an opera. Operas generally incorporate stage props, costumes, and acting as a part of the performance, while oratorios center around the music itself, highlighting the singing of the chorus and soloists, combined with instruments. Another distinctive feature of oratorios is that they comprise mostly biblical stories, such as the story of Jesus found in Messiah.

One of the early criticisms of Messiah was that as a sacred story, it was being performed in secular venues. Some felt the only suitable place to perform Messiah was a church. In a letter to one of the local papers published just a few days before Messiah’s first production in London, a reader wrote in to say, “An Oratorio either is an Act of Religion, or it is not; if it is, I ask if the Playhouse is a fit Temple to perform it in, or a Company of players fit Ministers of God’s Word, for in that Case such they are made.”

As Christians, we are often times negotiating the tension between the sacred and the secular, particularly when we work to fulfill Christ’s command to us to go and “make disciples of all nations.” We should be grateful that Handel didn’t take this letter writer’s advice and banish the performance of Messiah to a few churches where it may have disappeared from history. Instead, in God’s providence, He has “sent” Handel’s Messiah out into the world where it has brought “glad tidings of good things” to listeners for almost three hundred years.

What about you? Are there ways that you can beautifully share your faith with others?