Holy Week at Redeemer is not for the weak
Holy Week at Redeemer is not for the weak–especially if you are in charge of the music program! At the end of the service on Palm Sunday I was reminded of an article in the American Guild of Organists’ magazine which listed old newspaper accounts of organists who had died on Easter morning, often in dramatic ways. However, I’m sure an extra trip to Starbucks will be all I need after Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, The Great Paschal Vigil…and, lest we forget, midnight champagne reception!
Thankfully, my energy is matched and rewarded by the choir and instrumentalists involved in the liturgies. The services and community life at Redeemer have such amazing contrasts during this period:
Lenten fasting
communal meals
solemn processions
the joyful pageantry of children
choir families in difficult times
vibrant, focused singing
the darkest psalms
the brightest hymns.
I look forward to sharing these ever more deeply as we move into Holy Week.
In the words of a hymn we’ll sing tomorrow night from Wonder, Love, and Praise:
Draw us to you and with your love transform us:
the love we’ve seen, the love we’ve touched and known;
enlarge our hearts and with compassion fill us
to love, to serve, to follow you alone.
(”You laid aside your rightful reputation”, Rosalind Brown)
–Sheila