The Composer Whose Greatest Glory Came From Ruin

By 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. The composer who had once dazzled London with lavish Italian operas now faced mounting debts, failing health, and empty concert halls. A stroke had partially paralyzed his right hand four years earlier. Critics wrote him off as a relic. Those who remembered his former triumphs at the King's Theatre shook their heads — the great Handel was finished.

Then, in a cramped room on Brook Street, London, the fifty-six-year-old composer received a libretto compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible. Something stirred. For twenty-four days, Handel barely ate or slept. His servant found him weeping over the manuscript, the "Hallelujah Chorus" spread before him. "I did think I did see all Heaven before me," Handel reportedly said, "and the great God Himself."

When Messiah premiered in Dublin in April 1742, it was unlike anything Handel had ever produced. Not the spectacle of his former operas, but something deeper — the story of redemption set to music that has moved millions for nearly three centuries. The latter work eclipsed the former beyond all measure.

The returned exiles staring at their modest temple foundation could not imagine what the Almighty had planned. "The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former," God declared through Haggai. He does not ask us to rebuild what was. He promises to build what will be — and His Spirit remains among us while He does it.