Music for the Lenten Season: He was despised from "Messiah"

This is one of my favorite airs from Messiah. I must confess, however, that it didn't come to my mind to use for my Lenten series of posts until I saw this video of an angry group of tea-baggers mocking and scorning a man who claimed he had Parkinson's Disease, and who sat on the ground in counter-protest, supporting health care reform. It is not my wish to get into the political aspects or debate of that scene, for that is not my purpose in this forum. However I was struck by the cruelty of the scene--an innocent man accosted and scorned by a crowd of angry men and women who mocked and ridiculed him--and I was deeply touched. I was reminded of Jesus' words in Matthew when he said, "In so much as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have also done it unto me".

Anne Sophie von Otter gives one of the most touching performances of the air, He was despised, I have ever heard.

part one

part two