Tonight the Chancel Choir, the Masterwork Chorale, and orchestra, will present the Christmas portion of Handel's Messiah. The Messiah remains one of the venerable traditions of Christmas. I imagine many of you have sung it in church choirs, or community choruses, or Messiah sing-alongs. Let me ask, how many of you have sung in the Messiah? Almost everybody. That's wonderful. It is a great tradition.

Joseph Sittler recalls his boyhood as a Lutheran in the Midwest, growing up in a small town. He said that in that small town that the annual presentation of the Messiah by the LutheranChurch was something like the Passion Play at Oberammergau. The soloists were selected from the citizens of the community: the grocery clerk, the school teacher, the bartender sang the bass every year. There was …