Good friends took me and my wife and her parents to a Messiah Sing the other night at Stanford Memorial Chapel.
I didn't even know there was such a thing.
Everybody got their own songbook or stood next to someone who had one. The conductor shouted out a song number and then everyone started singing...."For Unto Us a Child is Born." We sang the Halleluia Chorus twice.
There were about a 1000 people or so by my guess. And I wasn't doing the preaching either. Trust me, a preacher's count is always higher.
Though I had sang in a choir that performed the Messiah when I was in high school, I opted to NOT ruin the affect this time for the other 999 people and went up to the balcony and just listened.
I picked out five people that struck me as typical, atypical. I am not sure.
There was a lady in a red dress. She looked like she would/could/should be the star. Long, satin, glamorous. And, by George, she sang all four parts. Seriously, when ever the conductor had a part stand up, she did. Bass, too! Turns out she was a member/director of one of Stanford's choral ensembles. She was there to show people how to get into the spirit of the event. She did it well.
There was a violinist who sat around the corner, deep behind the a large vase 
of flowers (tree?). There was no way he could see the conductor. No way. But, play he did, about a quarter of a beat behind everyone else, I suppose. Still he played.
There was an old bald guy in a Santa Claus red shirt who might fall over had he been pushed from behind but he sang so heartily that the shear force of his voice going forward kept him upright. He sang with force.
There was an old guy in beige sweater who was in the first row of the violins, just one seat away from the conductor. He never smiled, never tapped his foot, never even looked up that I can remember until the conductor pointed him out at the end. This professor had been there for the previous 17 Messiah sings, and he was there again. Doing his duty.
Finally, there was a guy who was playing a cardboard box. He was sitting with the woodwinds which led me to believe it might sound like a clarinet or an oboe. But it looked like a cardboard box, or balsam wood or a combination thereof. Only two or three panels moved. Yet he blew and blew except for the times he looked around and shook his head and interrupted the flute players behind him to find out where in the music they were. Still he was there.
A Messiah Sing - it's for people who put on their best, people who just come to play, people who give it their heart, people who come out of duty and for people who just show up.
Yeah, those are the kind of people the Messiah came for.
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