If you listen to Imagine Dragons lyrics, especially “Night Visions,” they are very honest about the nature of human existence. As we listen, it rings true with our own experience. But as we’ll see, the hope clung to is more sentimental and not so grounded in reality. The Bible shows us our problematic reality as well but also reveals God’s way of salvation from it.

A 21-year-old Paul Simon would lock himself in the bathroom, sit alone with the lights off and play his guitar. It was while playing his guitar in the darkness he first sang, “Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again”. 

If you listen to Imagine Dragons lyrics, especially “Night Visions,” they are very honest about the nature of human existence. As we listen, it rings true with our own experience. But as we’ll see, the hope clung to is more sentimental and not so grounded in reality. The Bible shows us our problematic reality as well but also reveals God’s way of salvation from it.

It is an uncomfortable, painful, and sometimes even embarrassing experience to be a witness to the extremities of human emotion. In a culture where we are very guarded about our feelings and expression of them we can be lost for words when the agonies of someone’s heart are displayed. It is hard to understand and empathize. There is the fear that we will amplify the pain by trying to offer whatever inadequate comfort we can summon …

Rachel Platten had a dream to become a successful singer-song writer. For over a decade she tried to make this dream come true. She wrote a lot of songs. None of them were hits. She travelled across America and sang in small venues sometimes with an audience of just 20 people. She made many CDs of her music, but sold few. What was she doing with her life? She was 32. Most of her friends had solid jobs, houses and families while she was struggling to get by! She had written over hundred songs that no-one seemed to want to hear. Should she give up or keep on singing?

Bruno Mars released this simple but very catchy song on his first studio album in 2010. In an interview, Bruno Mars talking about the song, said he was trying to capture the feeling “when you’re in Vegas, and you’ve had way too many drinks, and you love everybody, and you want to do something that you probably shouldn’t do and you’ll regret in the morning.” In the song that ‘something’ is to spontaneously marry someone.

A desire for freedom is inherent in man. A yearning for liberty is part of the very soul of mankind. We can see it if we look through any history book. Tale after tale of people struggling to free themselves from oppression.

Did you know we are in the grip of another pandemic? An anxiety pandemic. Anxiety is part of our lives at the best of times. But the Coronavirus has created a perfect storm of worry. Worries about loneliness, failure, change, monotony, anxiety about work, health, finances and the future can overwhelm us. Anxious thoughts fill our minds. “What if this happens?” “What if this doesn’t happen?” Are you worried you read this?

In this fourth article attention is drawn to what happened after Messiah’s suffering and death. The fact of his ‘passion’ is captured in the ‘Messiah’ with words from Isaiah 53:8 “… he was cut off out of the land of the living … .”

The Bible has one central person in focus – the Messiah. After Adam and Eve sinned their only hope lay in the ‘seed of the woman’ promised in Genesis 3:15. God affirmed that this ‘seed’ would crush Satan and redeem his people through suffering and death. That seed is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One.

George Frideric Handel is given all the accolades for the oratorio, ‘Messiah’.  He is indeed worthy of the highest praise for this musical masterpiece, a masterpiece as popular today as when it was first performed in Dublin in April 1742.  Handel, however, was only responsible for the musical score.  It was Charles Jennens who was the mastermind behind the arrangement of the Scripture texts.  These are arranged to show how the Old Testament is perfectly fulfilled in the New.  In a wonderful way these texts depict the person and work of Christ.  This article will concentrate on the Birth of the Messiah.

This article introduces the second part. Through the texts identified the discerning listener can easily glean the purpose of Messiah’s suffering. It was not because of sin he had committed, because Jesus was “without blemish or spot”, but because of the sins of his people. That will become crystal clear as some of these texts are considered.