Dear Friends,

I may hold the record for attending the most school holiday concerts of anyone you know. Our eldest child is 18 years older than our youngest. That means that – starting with elementary school concerts and ending with the last high school concert – we were in school gyms and theaters for a lot of years listening to kids sing or play in an orchestra or band. Not that I am complaining. I enjoyed all of the concerts – with the possible exception of the performances by those young people who were learning to play strings: violin, viola, cello, and bass. Heaven holds special reservations for middle school string teachers.

For seven of the above-mentioned years, we were able to secure tickets for the Granville High School Holiday Concert. These are as hard to come by as the tickets for Hamilton were when the original cast was performing on Broadway. The reason is simple – the music program is terrific, the percentage of the school’s kids participating is astronomical, and the performing arts center simply doesn’t have enough seats to accommodate everyone who wants to attend.

The culmination of every holiday concert was the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. Somehow, they were able to get every single kid on the stage – the choirs, members of the orchestra, and concert band members. It took two conductors to pull it off – one for the instrumentalists and one for the choirs!

Perhaps sometime between now and Christmas, you will hear the Hallelujah Chorus sung live – or if not live – on your record player, CD player, or streaming service. It was always a showstopper at the end of the concert at Granville High. I’m guessing you already know the words. The lyrics are quite repetitive – stop and count the number of times “hallelujah” is sung!

But there’s more there than a bunch of hallelujahs – and the more there underscores that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I know you can hear the music as you read these words: And he shall reign for ever and ever. The kingdom of this world/Is become/The kingdom of our Lord/And of His Christ.

It’s unclear how the Hallelujah Chorus became associated with Christmas. It actually appears in Part II of the oratorio – the part that covers the passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus – rather than Part I, the part that draws its texts from the Christmas readings. It’s probably included because it’s a much more exciting way to bring a concert to its climatic conclusion than the chorus with which Part I ends: “His yoke is easy” – great music, but one wouldn’t fill a stage with teenage musicians to sing it!

The Hallelujah Chorus will be going through my head this Sunday – not because Chelsie has the choir singing it – but because the theme of this Sunday – the Last Sunday after Pentecost – is Christ the King (or if you prefer a less-gendered name: the Reign of Christ).

What does it mean to talk about Christ as King? To call him King of Kings and Lord of Lords? And if the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, how come it so often feels as if someone else is ruling or, perhaps equally troubling, no one is ruling over the darkness and the chaos?

I hope you’ll come this Sunday as we celebrate Christ the King and as we pray our way through what it might mean to acknowledge his reign.

Blessings,
Stephen Applegate