Messiah Thoughts

 Here is a note from Rev. Deb Bird.  She has co-authored the play which is embedded in our performance of the Messiah

In the 1800’s a music critic once hailed The Messiah as “the one great work that not only embodies a religion but has become a religion itself.” It was immediately popular when first performed in 1742 and has only increased in popularity ever since.

Although Handel’s masterwork has been a Christmas tradition since the 1790’s, its structure - from nativity to sacrifice to resurrection makes it an Easter story. Themes of peace, hope and redemption connect us with a very human telling of a salvic figure experiencing profound ostracism and abandonment before the story reaches that place where we can sing Hallelujah.

It’s an experience we can all relate to at some point in our lives. Things fall apart in quiet and life changing ways, and we dwell a while in grief and unknowing before the way forward emerges and we make tentative first steps toward the life we are yet to live.  It's a familiar pattern that makes a modern retelling both a completely natural and boldly ambitious move.

In this reimagining, a profoundly broken man converses with a priest about his experiences of war and the impacts of PTSD on his life and relationships. This is no attempt to minimise the complexities of PTSD, nor is it a suggestion that religion is its cure. This is, however, a conversation that explores the search for hope after devastation, firm in the conviction we are each worthy of healing, deserving of fullness of life, and that we each need companions on that journey.

I wish Kim, the musicians, choir, actors and all who have contributed to this heartfelt offering the very best for this performance and congratulate them on their own conviction that this is a story worth telling.

Rev’d Deb Bird