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.

Advent realigns our hearts toward wonder. We marvel anew at the climactic moment of history when God took on flesh and dwelt amongst us. But secular sirens draw our attention elsewhere through images of snowfalls and jingle bells.

God has blessed Handel’s Messiah as an antidote to help with Advent’s realignment process. Verses, phrases, and words from Scripture receive treatments that allow our minds and hearts (and voices!) to meditate on the ultimate as we live amidst the mundane.

One meditation-worthy phrase in this drama is John the Baptist’s announcement, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” God inspired John similarly to the prophets. How else could John know such a remarkable truth? A son of a carpenter from Nazareth, born in obscure Bethlehem, would soon die a sacrificial death. And God gave John the image of a lamb to awaken us to that wonder.

A few other lambs may have foreshadowed this “Lamb of God.” Centuries before, a lamb was promised to Abraham after he offered up his son (see Gen. 22:8). Other lambs’ blood was put on doorposts at the time of the Exodus so that God would “pass over” those houses (see Exod. 12). And Isaiah predicted one who would be led to the slaughter “like a lamb” (see Isa. 53:7). All these are incomplete types of the Lamb who would come and take away the sin of the world. Only after we read all of Scripture and see “the lamb who was slain” (see Rev. 5:12) do we encounter all that the Christmas story has to tell.