Georg Frederick Handel - Worthy Is The Lamb and Amen from The Messiah

Yes, we usually hear this at Christmas.  Remember, though, that Handel wrote this for an Easter performance.  I can think of no greater - more emotionally stirring - music for the Lord's rising than this.  The kettle drum at the end of the Amen never fails to thrill.  As a matter of fact, the opening bars of Worthy Is The Lamb never fail to thrill, either.  If you can read music, you have my permission to do a bit of a singalong to the score shown here.

The Lord is risen, alleluia, alleluia.

Thinking about Grace

I have posted special Easter posts for most of this blog's history, despite the fact that I've never really studied theology.  I've done my poor best, but have leaned repeatedly on someone who was a theologian.  Frederick Buechner was a ThD and an ordained Presbyterian minister, as well as a best selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner (back when that meant something).  I found him exceptionally insightful and thought provoking.

Rev. Beuchner passed away last summer at the ripe old age of 96.  As a tribute to him - as well as a meditation on Grace, and Easter, and the human condition - here are his quotes that I've used in the past.

A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do ... There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can only be yours if you'll reach out and take it.

- Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith

To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love Him.

  - Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is…the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.

-Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking

But there is another truth, the sister of this one, and it is that every man is an island. It is a truth that often the tolling of a silence reveals even more than the tolling of a bell. We sit in silence with one another, each of us more or less reluctant to speak, for fear that if he does, he may sound like a fool. And beneath that there is of course the deeper fear, which is really a fear of the self rather than of the other, that maybe the truth of it is that indeed he is a fool. The fear that the self that he reveals by speaking may be a self that the others will reject just as in a way he has himself rejected it. So either we do not speak, or we speak not to reveal who we are but to conceal who we are, because words can be used either way of course. Instead of showing ourselves as we truly are, we show ourselves as we believe others want us to be. We wear masks, and with practice we do it better and better, and they serve us well –except that it gets very lonely inside the mask, because inside the mask that each of us wears there is a person who both longs to be known and fears to be known. In this sense every man is an island separated from every other man by fathoms of distrust and duplicity.

- Frederick Beuchner, The Hungering Dark

Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you . . . remember that the lives of others are not your business. They are their business. They are God’s business . . . even your own life is not your business. It also is God’s business. Leave it to God. It is an astonishing thought. It can become a life-transforming thought . . . unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy . . . What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought. I suspect that there is nothing more crucial to true spiritual comfort . . . than being able from time to time to stop that chatter . . .

- Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

Here are Beuchner quotes that I don't know the source.

The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.  And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you. There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.

If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully — the life you save may be your own — and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.

Rest in Peace, Rev. Beuchner, and may flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest.  I expect that you went to Heav'n a'shouting love for the Father and the Son.

Eric Church - Like Jesus Does

The Kingdom of the Father is spread upon the Earth and men do not see it.

- The (non-canonical and possibly heretical) Gospel of Thomas

We are surrounded by Grace, in ways sometimes large but mostly small, and (mostly) we do not see it.  This song reminds us that the Lord's ever present gospel Grace is not only here for us on Easter.  He has given us signs if we have eyes to see.  The Queen Of The World shows this Grace to me on the regular - remember, Grace is forgiveness that is undeserved but granted anyway.

Wolfgang showed this unconditional love to me, too.  It wasn't exactly Grace, but he loved me like Jesus does.  We see ourselves reflected in our dog's eyes, not as we are but as we would like to be.  This song reminds us that this is how the Lord looks at us, too.

She Loves Me Like Jesus Does (Songwriters: Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell)

I'm a long gone Waylon song on vinyl, 
I'm a backroad sinner at a tent revival, 
She believes in me like she believes her bible, 
And loves me like Jesus does.

I'm a lead foot leaning on a suped up Chevy, 
I'm a good ol' boy, drinking whiskey and rye on the levee, 
But she carries me, when my sins make me heavy, 
And she loves me like Jesus does.

All the crazy in my dreams, 
Both my broken wings, 
Every single piece of everything I am, 
Yeah, she knows the man I ain't, 
She forgives me when I can't, 
That devil man, he don't stand a chance, 
Cause she loves me like Jesus does.

Always thought she'd give up on me one day, 
Wash her hands of me, leave me staring down some runway, 
But, I thank God each night, and twice on Sunday, 
That she loves me like Jesus does.

All the crazy in my dreams, 
And both my broken wings, 
Every single piece of who I am, 
Yeah, she knows the man I ain't, 
She forgives me when I can't, 
And the devil man, no, he don't have a prayer. 
Cause she loves me like Jesus does

Yeah, she knows the man I ain't, 
She forgives me when I can't, 
That devil man, he don't stand a chance, 
Cause she loves me like Jesus does.

I'm a long gone Waylon song on vinyl

The Kingdom of the Father is spread upon the Earth and men do not see it.

See it. 

Grace is something that you can never get but only be given.  There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about anymore than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks.  A good night's sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace.  The smell of rain is grace.  Somebody loving you is grace.

- Frederick Buechner 

John Wesley and John Arnold (verses), traditional (music) - Jesus Christ Is Risen Today

Alleluia He is risen.

Miklós Rózsa - "Parade Of The Charioteers" from Ben Hur

People's taste in films changes over time.  Look at Ben Hur: eleven Academy Awards, an initial release Box Office of almost $150M (in 1959 dollars; that's over $1.4B in today's money), first TV airing was watched by 85 Million.  It used to be shown on TV every year around the Easter season.

Today, you have to search to find it.

Since today is Palm Sunday, I'm doing the work for you.  Here is Miklós Rózsa's Oscar-winning music which is actually very appropriate for the celebration of Palm Sunday.

Beacon

Free Will is a mixed blessing, to be sure, but it's a thing without which life would not be worth living.  There's a whole blog post category here about freedom, all of which would be meaningless without Free Will.

This is a gift, one that makes us uniquely human:

But man is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which he is endowed above all other animals.

- St. Thomas Aquinas

Easter is a very old holy day, one of the oldest still celebrated.  Things don't stick around that long if they don't speak to something deep in the soul.  If they don't speak from an upwelling from some mysterious depth of great wisdom.  The mystery, and the great strength of Christian doctrine is that it captures the human cycle of growth, middle age, and old age in a view of two gifts: Free Will and Grace.

As a child, we have no Free Will that anyone need respect.  Children hold a special place in society and Law precisely because of this.  In a sense, they represent mankind from the days before the Fall, innocence that calls for protection provided by more capable beings.  But you can't stay a child forever.  Free Will must develop, and the child must set sail, setting his or her own course as they will.  Adults are exposed to risks that we would protect children from.

To never have the chance to risk is to never fully be human.  The chance to take these chances is a gift that most don't much think about.  They should.

No Noble Thing can be done without risk.

- Michel de Montaigne

But the other side of the coin is Grace.  As the Child must go into the world to find his own place, so must the Man return from his journeys.  We watch our children grow, and gain independence.  Sometimes that independence causes friction, or worse.  Sometimes the young adult becomes cut off from the old, because of careless words or foolish pride.

For the longest time, I was confused about the Crucifixion.  Sure, I understood what happened, but I simply couldn't understand why it was needed.  Now I think I know: it's a beacon, lighting the way back.

As we go about our days, exercising the gift of Free Will, we have a marker for our return.  And we should remember that as we are given Grace, so must we also give it.  That we are also beacons, marking the safe return for those loved ones who might even now be seeking safe harbor.   That we should shine out of the darkness of hurt feelings and foolish pride, telling them that their safe harbor is here.  With us.

[God’s love] is at God’s initiative and choice; it isn’t given out on the basis of my performance. God’s gospel love is not wages that I earn with a model life; it is a gift. It is a gift that I cannot earn; more than that, it is a gift that I do not even deserve. God loves weak, ungodly, sinful enemies. The gift is the opposite of what I deserve. God ought to kill me on the spot. Instead, He sent His Son to die in my place.

- David Powlison, Seeing With New Eyes

Instead, he sent his son as a beacon for us.  As an inspiration for us.

Shine.

(Image source, Image source) 

Originally posted April 24, 2011.

Hunter Hayes - Flashlight

The Shield was another of the Fear's names. According to Laughter, it means he shields the seed of Abraham the way a man starting a fire shields the flame. When Sarah was about to die childless, the Fear gave her a son. When Abraham was about to slaughter the son, the Fear gave him the ram. He is always shielding us like a guttering wick, Laughter said, because the fire he is trying to start with us is a fire that the whole world will live to warm its hands at. It is a fire in the dark that will light the whole world home.

- Frederick Buechner, The Son of Laughter

Country music has a long list of classic songs for Easter, but the spirit is alive with new songwriters as well.  Hunter Hayes is the youngest male artist to reach #1 on the Billboard Country chart.  This song is from his 2014 album, Storyline.  It fits not just Easter, but the other 364 days of the year too.

Flashlight (Songwriters: Hunter Hayes, Troy Verges, Barry Dean)

I get lost sometimes, like everybody else,

Lose track of my lifelines, lose track of myself

And there's all kinds of reasons to be scared and run away

It's a good time for sad times like heaven couldn't be

Farther from the places, that heaven always finds me,

If nobody cares, tell me how is it I keep getting saved this way

It's a sunrise from a lonely night

Like a smile in a stranger's eyes

It's the moments that save my life,

nobody knows about like flashlights

there's just enough hope when it shines,

to go one scared step at a time

When the world's too dark I find, your flashlight, yeah

I'm glad nobody's counting, and Lord I'm glad you don't keep score

My prayers are all the same, as the ones I prayed before

Thank you, but forgive me, my rough around the edges heart is yours

And the moments where you swear I'm just screaming at the sky,

It's the strangest conversation or a friend just stopping by

and it's funny when I realize all the places that your miracles can hide

It's a sunrise from a lonely night

Like a smile in a stranger's eyes

It's the moments that save my life,

nobody knows about like flashlights

there's just enough hope when it shines,

to go one scared step at a time

When the world's too dark I find, your flashlight, yeah

Like a sunrise from a lonely night

Like a smile in a stranger's eyes

It's the moments that save my life, nobody knows about

Like flashlights

and there's just enough hope when it shines, to go one scared step at a time

When the world's too dark I find, your flashlight

Oh, who am I?

Dust and water,

Touched by the Divine

Tell me who, who am I?

you keep shining on me, shining on me, yeah

shining on me

It's the moments that save my life nobody knows about

It's like a flashlight

(there's just enough hope when it shines)

And it's just enough hope when it shines,

(to go one scared step at a time) to go one step at a time

(when the world's to dark I find your flashlight)

When the world's too dark I find your flashlight

It's a sunrise from a lonely night

It's a smile in a stranger's eyes

It's the moments that save my life nobody knows about

Like flashlights

It's just enough hope when it shines, to go one scared step at a time

When the world's too dark I find, your flashlight

(Like a sunrise from a lonely night

like a smile in a strangers eyes) who am I

(it's the moments that save my life nobody know about

like flashlights) oh yeah

(it's just enough to hope when it shines,

to go one scared step at a time

when the world too dark I find)

you keep shining your light, you keep shining your light, eh eh

I'm just finding your flashlight

Today the world awaits, expectant.  But there is still a light to mark our way.

Troparion of Saint Kassia

The Greek Orthodox liturgy is ancient, dating back to Roman times.  While many things have been lost from this over the centuries, we have music for Holy Week preserved from the ninth century.  This hymn will be sung this week, as it has for the last 1200 years.

Kassia was a Roman noblewoman living in Constantinople in the first half of the 800s.  Both beautiful and intelligent, she was included in what we can call a Medieval beauty pageant.   The imperial court would sometimes have "Bride Shows" where noble families could present their daughters as potential brides for Imperial princes.  Kassia was included in the bride show for prince Theophilos in 830AD, but the chronicles say that her sharp, sarcastic reply to the prince soured him on her beauty.

But she was the daughter of one of the leading families in the Empire, and so had avenues open to her that were not to most women of the day.  She founded a convent in 843AD and became its abbess.  Her education allowed her to write first poetry and then music - all of a spiritual bent, as you would imagine.

She wrote many, many hymns of which 50 survive to this day.  Unusually, both the text and the musical score have survived.  Twenty three of her hymns are included in today's Orthodox liturgy which is astonishing for any figure from the ninth century, let alone a woman.

This Holy Week you might want to ponder just how ancient our faith is, and the efforts that people have taken to preserve it over the centuries.

Grace inside the Madhouse

If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully — the life you save may be your own — and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.

- Frederick Buechner

The World has gone Mad.  From sea to shining sea people are under house arrest, and by the end of this week the government will have forced 20 million onto the unemployment lines.  It is indeed a heavy Cross to bear.

I posted the following on Easter in 2012, but it applies today as well.

Triumph

(Image source)

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

- John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights

Nietzsche famously wrote that which does not destroy me makes me stronger.  That's almost certainly not true, but even if it is it's a cold comfort.  Some tasks laid at our feet are hard, maybe hard unto death.  Things that are easy leave no mark but we find ourselves branded - sometimes to our core - by the critically important but seemingly impossible.  The Quest with no end in sight, that promises no victory, and maybe not even survival.

If Woody Allen's dictum is true that eighty percent of life is showing up, we see around us people who didn't, or who did for a while and then stopped.  Whether they are destroyed by defeat, or simply overwhelmed by a lifetime of trouble compressed into a few years, human strength has a limit.  The unlucky among us will find that limit of our own strength - the lucky ones manage to get through without ever being tested to the breaking point.  The question before us, as we gaze into that Abyss is what will we do, now at that critical moment?

Our heroes are those who keep going past that 80% mark.  They are the ones who keep going, even in defeat and hopelessness.  They are the ones who when the Quest looks broken and the end is upon them, they go forward anyway.  Heroes are rare because it's not easy.

The purpose of religion is to put us in tune with what it is to be fully and completely human, as we would wish to be.  To take the defeats and turn them to our own spiritual enlightenment.  Those who do this we call saints.  

The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. 

- Frederick Buechner

Nietzsche understood many things, but not saints.  That's a hard road to walk, and most don't.  We can learn from those that do, that despite the difficulty do it anyway.  We can take what we learn from them and turn it around for our own Quest.  Because in that unexpected persistence, even in the face of despair and defeat - especially in the face of despair and defeat - there we find heroes and saints.

There we find triumph, triumph of the soul.

It's easy to say this, and hard to do it.  The eighty percent from showing up is just eighty percent, that last twenty percent sometimes feels like the other eighty percent.  Sometimes the only company we have with us on that impossible road are the footprints of heroes and saints.  Footprints left by those who when faced with as bad or worse as we are, did it anyway.  Who even in defeat found triumph.

Holidays are a meditation, if we bother.  The meditation of Easter is not the joyous renewal; we've been given a great gift, but now we need to ask ourselves what will we do with it.  The hard slog begins again.    But in that journey we walk with saints and heroes.  May the walking be easy.  If not, let it be a triumph.

(Image source)

Easter Morning Music

The LORD is risen, alleluia!  Here is a mix of music worthy of the occasion.

Purcell sets the stage as only he can.



I think that this is my favorite hymn, especially for Easter.



And the celebration ends with a sendoff from Handel's Messiah.



He is risen indeed, alleluia!  Alleluia

Teaching My Fingers to Fight - A Brigid Guest Post

ASM826 saw this on my FB page and asked that I post it here as well.  May you all have an Easter weekend of peaceful time to reflect with loved ones. - Brigid

Blessed be the Lord, my strength, who teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. - Psalms 1:44

On my last trip home before his death, I took my big brother to breakfast one morning while Dad was at the doctor's office. Not feeling so good after chemo, he went only to please his little sister. Before we dug into our plates we prayed. As we bowed our heads, the entrance door opened with a waft of cold air and the murmur of pouring rain. I looked up and noticed the people at the next table were not looking at the door, but rather, at our table, as if our actions were unknown to them

My brother and I were adopted and although not related by blood my family shaped me in ways I'd not have known otherwise. We grew up in a small logging town, a community both inside, and outside of the church. I was raised with the values of my parents, meals taken as a whole family, said around the table, with Grace always being spoken before we began.

When I would go back to my hometown, we would eat at that table; still sit in the same pew in church. There's comfort there in that community of saints and sinners. As we prayed, I glanced at my Dad, who has lived a life of total love, service, and honor, sensing how his heart will soon fail him. It's a strong heart, a good heart, but it is failing him more each day. He saw me looking at him and put his hand on mine as we bowed our head in the silence that is not silence but is innumerable.

Is that fair? Yet, he's had almost ten decades more than his first daughter, born in extraordinary perfection, simply too early and too small, the awful perfect prayer of his firstborn, who breathed only days, my mom rendered barren from the travail of the birth. Yet from that death came life, adopting children no one wanted, and soon the table was filled, with small hands, small hearts and much laughter.

Had my parents closed off their hearts in that original loss, that table would have been silent. Although I’ve already lost my Mom, my Stepmom, my brother, and soon Dad, they leave me with love and forgiveness, just as my heavenly Father does.

I've certainly had to ask for that forgiveness in my talks with God. For I talk to Him regularly, in the woods, when the light has a weary quality to it, like a backwater pool of light lying low, winter's light is crisp, clean, illuminating everything so clearly. The words are less than wishes and more than regrets, and even if I didn't state them out loud, I could hear them with my breathing as they gathered within the intent of breath and came forth in a rush of cold air, invisible words going up to an invisible God.

Sometimes He and I talk as I'm standing in the middle of a scene of dark desolation and crime scene tape, black bag in my hand, red smeared on my boots, as bold as if painted on a door frame, a sign, that for tonight, I was to be spared. Perhaps this one time I did not save His sparrow which He perhaps neglected to mark, but I am here to reconcile the remains. It's just talk; but it's still a prayer; prayer being more than the order of words, the conscious calling of the mind that is speaking, or the sound of the voice praying. I do not expect to hear anything back, the communication between us tongued with fire beyond the blaze that is dying next to me. But it's comforting, words spoken into the void, penitence, and belief, as all around hope is falling into embers. He may not respond, but He is there, Never and Always.

So I do not care if someone looks at me oddly if I bow my head. I only smile when someone says, how can you do that with all that you've seen, the pain and harm that man can inflict on one another?

But I can, for I have come to realize that the same God that seemed to sit silently while hearts ceased beating, also blew life into everyone else around me that I love deeply, now shaping their strong hands and putting spark in their vision. So it is, I don't clench my hands in anger in all that I've witnessed, have borne, but simply give thanks. God writes death on all our hearts, just as he writes life, our story penned as much by our actions as His creation, our heart a journal that only we keep, its entries scribed by both man and God, it's ending as much as a mystery as we are.

I, for one, am thankful for the words.

Good Friday was six years since my brother passed, the few precious things he left me, on the shelves with other treasured things where I can see them when I wake up each morning. Small, simple things - powerful things

With the meal, I will say a prayer, of thanks for that and many things. For my brother and his brave heart. For those that prayed for me over the years, even when I didn't deserve it. For forgiveness of sin, for the blessing of the one that loves me, even in my imperfections.

Bless us oh Lord for these thy gifts. . . .

Dolly Parton - He's Alive

You should go read this post by co-blogger and Brother-From-Another-Mother ASM826.  It explains today.  Tomorrow is the day of triumph, but today the World still waits, expectantly.

Dolly Parton captures this story.  The song starts fearfully and expectantly, but ends in triumph.



He's Alive (Songwriter: Don Francisco)

The gates and doors were barred
And all the windows fastened down
I spent the night in sleeplessness
And rose at every sound
Half in hopeless sorrow
And half in fear the day
Would find the soldiers breakin' through
To drag us all away

And just before the sunrise
I heard something at the wall
The gate began to rattle
And a voice began to call
I hurried to the window
Looked down into the street
Expecting swords and torches
And the sound of soldiers' feet

But there was no one there but Mary
So I went down to let her in
John stood there beside me
As she told me where she'd been
She said they might have moved Him in the night
And none of us knows where
The stone's been rolled away
And now His body isn't there

We both ran toward the garden
Then John ran on ahead
We found the stone and empty tomb
Just the way that Mary said
But the winding sheet they wrapped Him in
Was just an empty shell
And how or where they'd taken Him
Was more than I could tell

Oh something strange had happened there
Just what I did not know
John believed a miracle
But I just turned to go
Circumstance and speculation
Couldn't lift me very high
'Cause I'd seen them crucify him
Then I saw him die

Back inside the house again
The guilt and anguish came
Everything I'd promised Him
Just added to my shame
When at last it came to choices
I denied I knew His name
And even if He was alive
It wouldn't be the same

But suddenly the air was filled
With a strange and sweet perfume
Light that came from everywhere
Drove the shadows from the room
And Jesus stood before me
With his arms held open wide
And I fell down on my knees
And I just clung to Him and cried

Then He raised me to my feet
And as I looked into His eyes
The love was shining out from Him
Like sunlight from the skies
Guilt in my confusion
Disappeared in sweet release
And every fear I'd ever had
Just melted into peace

He's alive yes He's alive
Yes He's alive and I'm forgiven
Heaven's gates are open wide
He's alive yes He's alive
Oh He's alive and I'm forgiven
Heaven's gates are open wide
He's alive yes He's alive
Hallelujah He's alive
He's alive and I'm forgiven
Heaven's gates are open wide
He's alive He's alive He's alive
I believe it He's alive
Sweet Jesus

Hector Berlioz - "Resurrexit" from Messe Solennelle

The Church of St. Roche

This is an appropriate composition for Palm Sunday: it was performed twice before the score was destroyed by the composer, but he missed a single copy which was rediscovered almost 200 years later. It was resurrected, you might say.

Hector Berlioz was an interesting fellow.  He was a free thinker and a rebel in a rigidly conformist period, and so his music runs a wide gamut from groundbreaking (like his Symphony Fantastique) to pedestrian (but commercially successful).  He wrote this piece when he was only twenty years old, and it is clearly in the "groundbreaking" category.  Beethoven was still alive, but this is very like Wagner, who would write decades in the future.

The Mass was performed only twice, initially at the Church of St. Roche in Paris.  Berlioz then destroyed all the copies of the score, preserving only this particular piece (Resurrexit).

Palm Sunday calls for triumphant, and this is nothing if not that.  And it is also somewhat poignant, a Mass lost for 167 years and then resurrected.

Handel's "Messiah": the music that might not have been

While we usually hear The Messiah played around Christmas, Handel originally wrote it (and it was first performed) for Easter.  But the music very well might never have been written at all.  You see, the young Handel was a bit of a hot head and got into a duel in 1704:

Scholars speculate that [Johann] Mattheson requested Handel to fill in as conductor while Mattheson sang. After Mattheson performed his part on stage he went to return to the conductor’s seat at the harpsichord. But Handel would not move.

Johann Mattheson

It’s said that the two argued over who should be in the conductor’s seat – Mattheson, being the composer, wanted control, yet Handel refused to leave the post. Mattheson suggested that the two take their quarrel outside. And so, right outside of the theater, the hot-headed young composers drew their swords and conducted, instead, a duel. A detailed account of the duel cannot be found, yet one prevailing report suggests that Handel was nearly killed by a sword thrust from Mattheson. The thrust went right for his heart, but, thankfully, ran into a large metal button on his coat, which prevented Handel’s death. As the duel came to a close, the two composers miraculously reconciled and became life-long friends. They maintained correspondence even after Handel moved to London to live out the rest of his stellar career.

That might have been it for Herr Handel, 38 years before his masterpiece.  And even then, it was claimed that is wasn't even his masterpiece.  Handel wrote the entire score in just 24 days, while staying at the grand country estate of a patron, Charles Jennens.  Jennens liked to dabble in the arts, and adapted the text of the Bible for the piece.  He said in a letter to a friend that Handel wrote some "pretty music" for "his" (Jennens') piece.  All righty, then.

But the Spirit must have moved Handel, because there is more triumph in a single word - the Amen chorus - than in just about any music I know.  The finale (about 6:30 into this recording) precisely captures that feeling of awe, and triumph, and joy to be in this world that I remember from those Easter Sundays years ago.



Worthy Is The Lamb (Revelations 5:12 - 14, music by George Frederic Handel)

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,
and hath redeemed us to God by his blood,
to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour,
and glory, and blessing. 

Blessing and honour, glory and power, be unto Him
that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.

Amen

Eric Church - Like Jesus Does

Out of the crooked timber that is Man, nothing straight was ever built.

- Immanuel Kant

Bless me, Father, for I have been a Dumb Ass.  It's happened over and over again, throughout all my years on Planet Earth.  I fear that this will continue throughout the rest of my days.

But I'm lucky that I have The Queen Of The World.  No matter what the next Dumbassery, she is there as this world's manifestation of the gift of Grace for me.  She is the Lighthouse that always provides me a beacon in the dark.  It's quite amazing, really.

But she carries me, when my sins make me heavy,
And she loves me like Jesus does.

Easter is an old, old holy day.  It dates back to when christianity was just a tiny group of believers in a vast and unfriendly Roman Empire.  And yet it took over that empire despite the long odds.  I think that the reason is that from the very beginning, the story told by the christian church was about Grace.

None of us is as strong as we would like; all of us need that Grace to keep us from sinking, at least from time to time.  That gift of Grace took the Roman Empire by storm, and is one that I see here today.  The Queen Of The World shows it to me.  It's the gift she gives not when I deserve it, but when I don't deserve it.  And therein lies its power.

Yeah, she knows the man I ain't,
She forgives me when I can't

That's a precious gift to me.  It is in those moments that the spirit of Easter surrounds me.  It may even be that I'm a Dumb Ass as much as I am because I like that moment of Grace from her.  In a sense, it's always Easter here at Castle Borepatch, thanks to The Queen Of The World.

Always thought she'd give up on me one day,
Wash her hands of me, leave me staring down some runway,
Yeah, I thank God each night, and twice on Sunday,
That she loves me like Jesus does.

This Easter weekend you are as lucky as I am.  Well you don't have The Queen Of The World so you're not quite as lucky as I am, but you have that gift of Grace.  That gift doesn't give up on you some day because you've been a Dumb Ass once too many times.  That gift carries you when you when your sins make you heavy.  That gift forgives you when you can't.  We're surrounded by Grace, if we'll just open our eyes. Songs like this tell us some of the places to look, if we dare.

Dare.

She Loves Me Like Jesus Does (Songwriters: Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell)

I'm a long gone Waylon song on vinyl, 
I'm a backroad sinner at a tent revival, 
She believes in me like she believes her bible, 
And loves me like Jesus does.

I'm a lead foot leaning on a suped up Chevy, 
I'm a good ol' boy, drinking whiskey and rye on the levee, 
But she carries me, when my sins make me heavy, 
And she loves me like Jesus does.

All the crazy in my dreams, 
Both my broken wings, 
Every single piece of everything I am, 
Yeah, she knows the man I ain't, 
She forgives me when I can't, 
That devil man, he don't stand a chance, 
Cause she loves me like Jesus does.

Always thought she'd give up on me one day, 
Wash her hands of me, leave me staring down some runway, 
But, I thank God each night, and twice on Sunday, 
That she loves me like Jesus does.

All the crazy in my dreams, 
And both my broken wings, 
Every single piece of who I am, 
Yeah, she knows the man I ain't, 
She forgives me when I can't, 
And the devil man, no, he don't have a prayer. 
Cause she loves me like Jesus does

Yeah, she knows the man I ain't, 
She forgives me when I can't, 
That devil man, he don't stand a chance, 
Cause she loves me like Jesus does.

I'm a long gone Waylon song on vinyl

I'm a lucky man.  The Queen Of The World is there to give me that gift of Grace when I need it.  Even when I don't deserve it - especially when I don't deserve it.  She reminds me of what this weekend is all about.  That's a neat trick, right there.

Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.  

... 

A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. 

... 

There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can only be yours if you'll reach out and take it.

- Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith

The wilderness of Faith

To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love Him.

- Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember

Good Friday is when the early community of the Apostles first entered the wilderness of faith.  Scattered and in hiding, their world was shattered into a million shards.  For most of them, it would not be the last time.

What we know now - and what in later times they knew better than we - is that the Wilderness is where the first and great commandment is found.  Saint Peter ended his days in the Rome of Nero, on the cross.  It was an agonizing end - an end the Romans fully intended to be agonizing - and the first of many persecutions that christians would suffer in that empire.  But Peter knew - he had seen - what is found in the Wilderness.  It is the Faith that conquers the world.

The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.

- Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

Classical All Stars for Easter

This Holy Day calls for the best of the best.  First up, the finale from Handel's Messiah.  We typically hear it at Christmas, but it was written to tell the Easter story and was first performed at Easter.



The Book of Isaiah tells that on the last day a great trumpet will sound, and the dead shall be raised.  Handel included this in the Messiah but Henry Purcell - one of his contemporaries - perhaps did it even better in the Trumpet Voluntary.



And as a recessional for this post is my very favorite hymn, one that would never fail to thrill.



The Lord is risen, alleluia!

Country Music Allstars - Will The Circle Be Unbroken

Easter calls for songs of faith, and Country Music does not disappoint.  Fortunately, they are well practiced on this song - by tradition, it closes each year's Country Music Hall Of Fame ceremony.  This is appropriate as this version (which included a significant lyrics re-write from Ada Habbershom's and Charles Gabriel's 1907 original) was popularized by the Carter Family in the 1930s.  Mother Maybell Carter sang on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 1972 epic version.

About the only thing that could top that version, in fact, is this 1989 performance from the Country Music Hall Of Fame.  Not only was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band there, but a list of everyone who was anyone in Country Music: Johnny Cash, Roy Acuff, Earl Scruggs, The Carter Family, Emmylou Harris, Chet Atkins, Marty Stuart, Ricky Skaggs, and Bruce Hornsby.  Among others.  It's sort of a Borepatch Saturday Redneck reunion.

It's a worthy song for this holy weekend.



Will the Circle Be Unbroken? (Songwriters: Ada Habbershom, Charles Gabriel; lyrics rewriten by A.P. Carter):

I was standing by my window
On a cold and cloudy day
When I saw the hearse come rolling
For to carry my mother away

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, Lord, by and by?
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky

Well, I went back home, home was lonely
For my mother she was gone
And all my family there was cryin'
For our home felt sad and alone

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, Lord, by and by?
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky

Undertaker, undertaker, undertaker
Won't you please drive slow?
For that lady you are haulin'
Lord, I hate to see her go

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, Lord, by and by?
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 2, "The Resurrection"

Image von der Wik

Classical music has a rich catalog for Easter, but not much specifically for Palm Sunday.  So we shall have to make due with what we have.  Fortunately, what we have is very good indeed.

Gustav Mahler was one of the great romantic era composers, perhaps the pinnacle of lyric orchestral music before the taste of the arts world began the long slide into today's atonal wasteland.  He originally wrote this symphony in four movements; he envisioned a fifth movement with a chorus, but could not find appropriate words for the score.  But when he attended the funeral of a friend, he was struck at the reading of the poem Die Auferstehung (The Resurrection).  The lyrics to his fifth movement then more or less wrote themselves.

The lyrics are entirely appropriate to the Easter story, alas, less so for Palm Sunday:

Rise again, yes, rise again, 

Will you My dust, After a brief rest! 

Immortal life! Immortal life 

Will He who called you, give you.

Very Easter-ish.  Ah, well.  As I said, we must make due with what we have for today's Feast Day.  But it is a marvelous piece.