Coffee Klatch

A familiar quote from Handel’s Messiah, which we hear frequently at this time of year, is a quote from the 40th chapter of Isaiah. It involves a prophecy about the Messiah to come. Here are the first five verses:

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

If you’ve heard Handel’s Messiah before, these verses will sound very familiar. This is the King James Version that Handel used directly in his oratorio. A week or two, I heard a sermon that at one point referred to the part in verses 3 & 4: “Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.” And the comment, which made total sense when seen in this light, was about how this referred to the coming of a king.

When a king was going to visit a place, a messenger would be sent ahead of him, telling the people that he was coming and giving them time to prepare. They would especially fix the roads, smoothing out the rough roads, etc., to make it easier and more enjoyable for the king and his entourage to get to their town.

In this case, it was John the Baptist telling people that The King (the Messiah) was coming and that they needed to prepare. But it was their hearts and lives they needed to prepare. Instead of physical roads, they needed to prepare the spiritual roads and themselves for His coming.

Pretty cool, huh? And it definitely brings more sense and understanding to a passage that many of us have sung without really pondering the meaning.

May we all today prepare our hearts and lives during this Advent season so that Christmas may renew our relationship with that same Messiah and King.

Current music: Medieval Christmas, by Kemper Crabb

There is a very interesting case going on in Italy right now, concerning a man named Piergiorgio Welby, a poet who has been battling muscular dystrophy for 40 years and who has been hospitalized and on a respirator for 9 years.

He’s wanting to be taken off life support and be allowed to die. And he’s been blogging about it with one hand and a pencil tapping the keys on the computer keyboard. Plus, he just got a book published, called Let Me Die. He’s ready to die now but isn’t being allowed to have himself taken off life support.

To decline forced medical treatment is allowed under Italian law, experts say, but Italy has another law that makes it a crime to assist in a death, even with consent. So a doctor could not detach the respirator without risking prosecution.

It’s also more complicated in Italy because of the influence of the Catholic Church in politics, society, and life in general. The Catholic Church has always been a very firm supporter and defender of life. That explains their opposition to abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, and contraception. So what’s the problem here? The Church is also against artificially prolonging life.

So you can’t purposefully take him off the machines because that’s assisting in his death. And yet you shouldn’t artificially prolong his life. What a conundrum! Isn’t removing artificial life support the same as assisting in death? It’s a paradox that will have to be resolved before long.

As Welby asks:

“What is natural about a hole in the belly and a pump that fills it with fats and proteins? What is natural about a body kept biologically functional with the help of artificial respirators, artificial feed, artificial hydration, artificial intestinal emptying, of death artificially postponed?”

Be sure to click the link at the top of this post to read the full story from the New York Times.

Current music: A Christmas Together, by John Denver and the Muppets