Handel’s Messiah and Social Justice
"Great are the words of Isaiah." (3 Nephi 23:1)

During December, many community choirs or local churches offer performances of Handel’s Messiah as part of the “build up” to Christmas. Such performances are a wonderful opportunity to be inspired by the words of the premier social justice prophet of the Old Testament. Several recitatives and arias in Handel’s oratorio echo the poetic utterances of Isaiah, who powerfully expressed the Jewish people’s hope for the Anointed One who would bring a reign of justice. This long anticipated reign of justice has become a universal hope, but one mostly still unfulfilled: the majority of our brothers and sisters still live in inequality or abject poverty.

Social justice is a recurring theme in Isaiah. "Learn to do well," the prophet writes; "seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judget the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isaiah 1:17). "The spoil of the poor is in your houses," he warns. "What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts" (Isaiah 3:15). In the agrarian society of ancient Israel, Isaiah raises a voice of warning to wealthy landowners who sieze the small farms of the poor (Isaiah 5:8-9). He condemns unjust government: “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless” (Isaiah 10:1-2).

In a passage familiar to Latter-day Saints, Isaiah links fasting with social justice. After listing the wrong attitudes and actions of the people on their fast days, the Lord asks: "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen; to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked, to clothe him; and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:6-7).

One translation of the famous “Unto us a child is born” passage and the verses leading up to it highlights the social justice dimension of this prophecy:

Anguish has taken wing, dispelled is darkness;
for there is no gloom where but now there was distress,
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
Upon those who dwell in the land of gloom
a light has shone.

For the yoke that burdened them,
the pole on their shoulder,
and the rod of their taskmaster
you have smashed...

For a child is born to us, a son is given us;
upon his shoulder dominion rests.
They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.