Truly, truly… it was a stunning, invigorating performance of the Messiah. The performance was at Ursinus College last Sunday and the conductor was our very own redoubtable G.F. Handel… aka John French.

It was a profound joy to hear the music played with fresh and attentive vigor, and because much of it was enhanced by music style, what can I say, a la French… it was made it all the more special.

Errant children aside, well they moved eventually, I was distracted by a couple of women (probably mother and daughter) to my left. The daughter, somewhere in her forties, had brought with her a score of Handel’s Messiah and was intent upon studiously following the music throughout the performance.

It seemed to me that her focus, her attention, her preoccupation was totally with the dry and lifeless score before her – she followed it with her finger, guiding her mother’s eyes; she sang, mercifully softly, whenever her chosen part occurred; her eyes were generally downcast missing the élan, enthusiasm and energy of musicians and singers alike. And she drew her mother, poor thing, into the sam exercise.

And when the most beautiful aria (arioso?) was being sung (one I had never heard) all she did was shake her head in consternation and puzzlement… for she could not find it in her book.

Friends, Advent is the season that calls us to lift our eyes, enlarge our minds, to open our hearts… to look away from the script, the score, lest we miss God doing a new work, coming even now to us in ways that are unexpected and unscripted

Isaiah 61, today’s first lesson, begins, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because…” and moves on to speak of oppressed hearing good news, brokenhearted being made whole, captives and prisoners set free. It is this very passage that Jesus was given in the Nazareth synagogue… he reads it and then declares that he, the one before them, is the one of whom Isaiah had written.
The hearers’ response? “Surely this is Joseph’s son, we’ve known him since he was little”. Their minds were so fixed on the script that what was before them… passed them by, escaped their attention, was considered less than noteworthy.

In the season of Advent we again are strongly urged, vigorously cajoled, maybe even gently bullied a little by God to “forget the script, just for a moment”.

It is tragic if those reading the script about outreach, social care and activism become so engrossed in the script that they overlook the Jesus before them – remember “inasmuch as you did to the least if these, you did it to me”.

It is tragic if those reading the script about patterns in a relationship, overlook the opportunity to begin afresh.

It is tragic if we are so mesmerized by the script of our own failures, relapses, chronic setbacks that we are deaf to the call to begin again.

It is tragic, tragic indeed, if we are seduced by the script of a God who is mean, uncaring, distant and irrelevant that we are blind to the authentic God of love, companionship, forgiveness and transformation.

In today’s Gospel (John 1) the inquisitors sent by the religious leaders clearly have a script before them. Blind to John’s true identity, they bully him with a checklist of identities to which he must conform… are you Messiah, no; are you Elijah, no; are you the prophet, no. We must, by the grace of God, struggle, yearn, work not to be like them. Forget the script… just for a moment and let divine and human identity be formed and experienced before us beyond our expectations and way off script?

In today’s Psalm, 126 vv.6 and7, the script reads tears but before them is joy; the script reads weeping, but before them is joy.

Authentic Advent is be a time when we commit ourselves, in the power of the Spirit and in the safety of community, to let go of our scripts of worship and church, of God in Christ, of others and of ourselves.
Oh dear lady, next time please leave that well-thumbed music score at home and look up… see and hear and welcome… Messiah. AMEN