Podcast: The Greg Scheer Music Podcast

Now, when we talk about Palm Sunday we have to start right off the bat by talking about how awkward Palm Sunday is, liturgically speaking. So we’ve been in Lent, which is this somber time of self-reflection and extraordinary devotion, and we are moving into Good Friday and Maundy Thursday and the crucifixion of Jesus, so, obviously the very lowest point of the liturgical year. And right in the middle of all of this valley is this happy blip on the screen, where the children process with palm branches and we sing happy songs and all those kinds of things. And the other awkward thing about Palm Sunday is that we know, because we’re looking back on the story, we know that this procession is going to be very fickle, that the same crowds that were lauding Jesus on Palm Sunday, on his triumphal entry, those same people would be crying, “Crucify him!” a week later. And so, whereas the people in the original Palm Sunday didn’t have that perspective, we have that perspective. And it creates this kind of strange underbelly to whatever we do, whatever celebration that we have.

And, so how do we deal with this issue? I guess if you’re not a liturgical congregation, you don’t celebrate Lent, then you can basically treat Palm Sunday like a mini Easter. We have kind of a warm-up celebration to the big celebration of Easter. And I guess that that’s fine, but I think that that’s missing some richness that is there.

So, let’s think about this. The two directions that we can take on Palm Sunday, or on that, I should say, that Sunday a week before Easter. We can either go the direction of Palm Sunday, or we can go the direction of Passion Sunday. So if you look into liturgical resources, you’ll see that there are actually two routes that you can take. The one is Palm Sunday, where we really emphasize the triumphal entry and the joy, and all of those kinds of things. The other is Passion Sunday, which feels like a foreshadowing of what we’ll experience later in the week during the low points of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. My friend Deb Rienstra has written about this. She has an article online called “The Problem with Palms,” and it really outlines kind of this weirdness of Palm Sunday well. I’ll have the link in the description below this podcast.

So let’s start by looking at what we can do for a Palm Sunday celebration. So, if we’re going to celebrate Palm Sunday, and, you know, if you are in a normal congregation, I don’t think that you’re really going to get away with saying, “Okay, kids, you don’t get your palms this year. We’re celebrating Passion Sunday. Now sit down and be quiet and somber.” It’s probably going to be unrealistic in most congregations. So what I often recommend is actually that we start with a Palm Sunday celebration, and then shift toward a Passion Sunday type of feel. But we’ll get to that later.

So for a Palm Sunday celebration, obviously you want hosannas of all types. If you type into hymnary.org, “hosanna,” you’re going to get lots and lots of songs. Some of them are specifically for Palm Sunday. Some of them just say “hosanna.” So, for example, the Hillsong, “I See the King of Glory.” That’s one that its chorus is one— “I see the king of glory. . .” And then the chorus goes, “Hosanna, hosanna.” So even though it’s not specifically about Palm Sunday, that one is one that could work on Palm Sunday. 

Another one of course, is the tune “Ride On, Ride On in Majesty.” Now, one of the things that I like about this hymn, is that it gets a little bit at the pomp of the moment, but the foreshadowing of the passion. So it says, “Ride on, ride on in majesty, in lowly. . . ride on to die,” is what it says. It’s basically saying that this is the journey, that Jesus knows about it, and then that we know about in retrospect. So that’s a great text, a great hymn text. One of the problems with that song, I think, is that there are not a lot of great tunes that go with it. So there’s ST. DROSTANE, which is very triumphant, so very march-like, and those kinds of things. So it doesn’t really support the passion sides of that hymn text. There’s also WINCHESTER NEW, which is actually quite similar to the previous one, and it’s kind of an unremarkable tune. I think that the person who wrote it is dead, so I can say that and not feel like I’m hurting anybody’s feelings. 

Here are some ideas for tunes that might be, that you might not think about matching to that text, but I think work quite well. There’s a tune called DEO GRACIAS, which has a lot of gravitas to it. It’s a minor key, it’s the one that goes [Greg sings] “Ride on, ride on in majesty, in lowly. . . ride on to die.” So it’s kind of a medieval-sounding tune. Another one that I really like is called THE KING’S MAJESTY. It’s by someone named Graham George, and it’s a very dramatic minor melody. It feels like it was written by Ralph Vaughan Williams. And I believe that it actually comes from a movie, because it’s, the copyright is credited to Columbia Pictures. So someone can write in and give me all the details on that. But it’s very dramatic, very cinematic. So those are some ideas with “Ride On, Ride On.”

Let’s see, some other things that you could do, if we want to start branching out from the center. I mean, I don’t need to tell you about “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” and those kinds of things. You know all of those songs. But, so let’s get a little bit off the beaten path. So we can go in kind of a Jewish or, what would you say, Klezmer kind of groove with “The King of Glory Comes.” That’s, but the text is by Jabusch is his name. And that’s a good one. It’s the. . . [Greg sings.] That one is quite good. I like that one a lot. I have written a different text to that, which goes “Hosanna in the highest. . .” And then it’s got some very specific Palm Sunday verses. So you can look that one up on my website. 

The thing that I like about that is that it’s a tune that people know, and it’s also a tune that you can stretch during a palm processional. So sometimes, when you’re planning music for a palm procession, you really don’t know how many kids are going to be there, are they going to form double lines or single lines, are they going to move fast or slow. It’s really one of these conundrums, these practical conundrums of leading worship on Palm Sunday. But that is one that goes chorus, verse, chorus, verse, so you can do all sorts of things to stretch it out or to trim it back. So that’s something to keep in mind for that one.

Another variation on that is another one that I did, which, I kind of, at a certain point, said, “Well, maybe I should just leave that Jewish tune alone, and think about using my text or some kind of variation on that text that I wrote, the Palm Sunday text, and do a more traditional hymn-like tune.”

Hosanna in the highest.
Hail the one who saves us
O blessed is the one who brings
The kingdom of heaven.
Who is the King of kinds, the Lord God Almighty?
God’s reign is coming
Hosanna in the highest. . .

I think that one is quite learnable, and then also serves as a good Palm Sunday, palm procession song. One issue with teaching songs like this, on the spot on Palm Sunday, is that Palm Sunday only happens once a year. And so this is one of these liturgical problems that we have, is that, whereas normally we can introduce a hymn, say, some of the hymns that I suggested, during Lent. You can introduce that the first week of Lent, and then sing it the second week of Lent, and then give them a week off, and then bring it back the fourth week of Lent. And so by then, it’s kind of become something that they are familiar with. 

The problem with some of these once a year celebrations, like Palm Sunday and Ascension, and those kinds of things, is that we get one shot to do the songs. And so if you’re going to teach something new, you might think about having your choir or your praise team lead it, maybe lead significant chunks of it before you ask the congregation to come in. Or, plan to do it every single year for the next three to five years, and then people will start to say, “Oh, this sounds familiar.” And then they’ll say, “Oh, they’re playing my favorite song!” Anyways, think about that, as I, I’m going to tell you all these new songs that you can do on Palm Sunday, but just kind of go easy on your congregations with these things.

Another song a little bit further off the beaten path is one from South Africa called “Sanna, Sannanina,” and it’s kind of a playful take on the words “hosanna.” It’s kind of like, think like a children’s game of the word “hosanna.” So it’s “Sanna, sannanina, sanna, sanna, sanna.” It’s fairly clear what you’re saying when you’re saying that, that you’re saying hosanna in a different language. And, so that song appears in a number of hymnals, and I have created a version of that that actually works as a Sanctus. So, “Holy, most holy Lord. . .” So if you are a fairly liturgical congregation that sings a Sanctus during your worship, then think about that. You can find that in published form in the Presbyterian Glory to God, #597. I also have a version for piccolo.It’s for piccolo and djembe, and you can also kind of blend in congregation. And this is another way that you can take a song and really extend it with different instruments.

Staying in the global theme, there’s another one that I really like. It’s from Guatemala, and it’s “Holy Is the Lord.” And it’s, has a verse that says, “Hosanna, hosanna.” And it’s a beautiful piece. It appears in a number of hymnals. I think that number might be two. So it’s not super common. It’s in the book that I edited about a decade ago called Global Songs for Worship, and I think it appears in some other ones after that. Now that one, again, I have a rendition of that for choir and flute, and I’ve added, when I’ve done it in the past, I’ve added some simple Latin percussion to that. And so that would be one that if you want to introduce that song, you could introduce it by having the choir sing it, and then the next year have the people sing it. And actually, that’s not so Palm Sunday specific that you can’t use it at other times in the year.

And so those are some ideas of things that you can do that are a little bit, a little bit different twist. And I really like those global songs, because, once again, you can add or subtract to them a little bit more easily than you can with a hymn. Another thing I like to do: I always try to push the idea that global music is not some kind of weird thing that we do as some kind of experiment, and then we’re done with it and we move on. But instead I try to enmesh it in the fabric of my congregation’s worship life. So one way to do that is to put some of these global songs in medley with other songs. And I’ve found some that work really well for me. 

So, for example, “The King of Glory Comes,” that we talked about, you could use that one, or the Guatemalan “Santo,” which is also, both of those are in E minor. That Guatemalan one goes, “Santo, santo, santo, santo, santo es el Señor.” So either one of those that’s in E minor, they work very well in medley with “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” in the key of G. Often it’s written in A-flat, but there are a number of published versions in G. So that has often been my whole palm procession, is one of those global songs and then “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna.” Another one that works with “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna,” is Carl Tuttle’s “Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna to the King of kings. . .” Right? So that’s kind of an old-school tune, but to pull that out once a year is not a bad thing at all, and especially when it’s in medley with something. I’ve used it as a chorus with “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna,” where we just go back and forth between those two.

Another thing, another medley that can work is the South African “Sanna, Sannanina” combined with “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” They’re both in B-flat, so they just kind of blend right back and forth to each other. So something I’ve done is, for congregations that know “Sanna, Sannanina,” I’ll just start singing that, and that will be the bulk of our palm procession. And I’ll time that out until we’re basically done, and then I just segue right into “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” And that makes a real regal start, you know, the organ can come in, and all those kinds of things.

So those are some ideas about how to do a Palm Sunday service. Now, let’s look at Passion Sunday services. So, Passion Sunday is, and you can look this up online for the lectionary readings and all that of Passion Sunday. But, like I said, it gets more foreshadowing of the crucifixion. So, what do we do for Passion Sunday? I’ll give you some ideas about things that have worked well for me in the past.

One, Psalm 31 is one of the standard Psalm lectionary texts for Passion Sunday, Psalm 31. And I really like Wendell Kimbrough’s setting of Psalm 31 called, “In You Lord, I Refuge Take.”

In you, Lord, I refuge take.
Let me not be put to shame.
Turn your ear and quickly make
Safety for my trembling frame.
You’re a rock and fortress strong.
I am lost and cannot see.
For your name’s sake, lead me on.
In your hands my soul redeemed.

Very easily learnable. I have a setting of that with a flute, flute descant, and a choral arrangement of that, a simple choral arrangement, which works pretty well. So, once again, using your choir or your praise team or your instrumentalists to introduce a song is a good thing. But that’s one, Psalm 31 by Wendell Kimbrough, that’s one that I think can work all year long. Another lectionary reading for Palm Sunday, I don’t think this is a Passion reading, but it’s a Palm Sunday reading, is Psalm 118. 

And so, something that I do if I’m going to emphasize the Palm Sunday side of things. Sorry to just get back into Palm Sunday for a minute, but that, Psalm 118, is both a reading for Palm Sunday and a reading for Easter Sunday. And there are all sorts of great versions of this. A couple that I have liked a lot over the years, Michael Joncas, “This Is the Day.” A really beautiful, very simple, simple arrangement of this. “This is the day the Lord has made. . . ” And like a lot of Catholic songs, Catholic lectionary songs, it has a very short, quickly learnable melody, and then the choir or cantor will take the verses. And so it’s a nice format, because the congregation can do this new song, and just can, just on the spot learn it. It’s like an eight-bar melody, and then the leaders will take care of the rest. So that’s really nice.

Taizé’s “Psallite Deo” is another one that’s really nice. Like a lot of Taizé songs it’s very simple and austere, mostly a capella, light instrumentation. Another one that I like comes from the Lutheran world, Patrick Geary, “Rejoice and Be Glad.” You’ll find that one in Psalm Songs for Lent and Easter, volume 2. I like that one a lot. So those are Psalm 118 ideas.

Another thing for Passion Sunday that I’ve done, and this is kind of a big idea, so I’m going to introduce it to you, and then I will let you explore it if you see fit. So something that I did a number of years ago at my previous church, Church of the Servant, I created a service that was based on the Passion readings from Matthew. So, basically, and I really like to do this: I like to take Scripture and then superimpose it on top of the liturgical structure. So for example, in this particular setting, almost all the words were drawn from Scripture itself. So for example, the greeting at the beginning of the service briefly explained the triumphal entry and gives a little context to the palm procession. The confession part of the service evokes the cleansing of the Temple. The assurance after the confession centers on Jesus’ remarks about wanting to gather Jerusalem as chicks under her wing. So, each one of these things, and then it gets into, in this particular service, we actually did a dramatic reading of the Passion story from Matthew, instead of a sermon. And that Passion reading was interposed with songs and liturgical elements and all of those kinds of things. It becomes very, very powerful, by the time where you get to the part where the people are crying for Jesus to be crucified, and you give that to the congregation. It’s a very powerful moment. So I will have links to those things online. You can see the bulletin that we used, the printed worship order that we used, and you can hear a recording of parts of that service. I will leave links to that.

So, Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday. I hope this has given you a few things to think about, a few ways to kind of get into this and kind of move beyond just the straight-up “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” and then you’re done, sort of thing. I hope this helps you have a richer celebration this year at your Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday service. Like I said, we will continue this Holy Week series with a few more episodes that will center on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, and Eastertide. Until then, this is Greg Scheer for the Greg Scheer Music Podcast.

So today we’re going to talk about, mostly about songs of the cross, and we’re going to include some things for choir. So if you have a choir and you’re wondering what to do during Lent, then stay tuned. We’re going to talk about some different things.

So, let’s start with “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” This is not a cross song; what I often do in Lent, is I start with more, songs of devotion and songs about Christ’s nature and our reliance on Christ in the beginning of Lent, and then focus, really, more and more on the cross as Lent goes on. I think that’s a good way to do that, and it slowly brings into focus the cross, and we get into Holy Week, and there’s a lot of impact there.

So, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” is a very, very well-loved hymn. What’s interesting is that Charles Wesley, who wrote it, his brother John was his editor, and John said, “No, this is, this is too intimate. We shouldn’t publish this.” And it was only published I think after his death, maybe, maybe after a number of years, but it’s one of his most beloved texts, but his brother John felt that it was too intimate. And it’s really interesting, you know, we don’t usually, well we shouldn’t really call Jesus a lover, our lover, because that has sexual connotations, but to say “Jesus, lover of my soul” is a different thing. And many people connect with this text.

There are a number of tunes to go with it, and that’s one of the things about this text that is unfortunate, is that there’s no tune that has just locked in with it. There’s the tune, I think it’s called MARTYN— “Jesus, lover of. . .” Oh, how does it go? Anyway, it’s in 6/4 time, and it’s not my favorite of them, but it’s a lot of people’s favorite, so it’s kind of surprising. So kind of check that out with your church if you’re going to do that.

The other one is a Welsh tune, ABERYSTWYTH. I can never pronounce the Welsh tunes because they have way too many Ys in them. But that’s the one— “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly. . .” I think that is just a beautiful tune, but it’s a minor tune, and so a lot of people, really, they feel like it’s too morose. So you kinda have to check that out. Into that fray I added my own version. And this is a choral version that’s published by GIA Music, and the tune goes “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly. . .” It’s really quite an easy anthem, so you should consider trying that out with your choir during Lent. That’s a good one.

Now, let’s move on to more cross-specific songs. The classic is “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” It’s an Isaac Watts text, and you just don’t get a better hymn text than this. It’s just beautiful the way the verse one leads into two, into three, and then in four. The first verses are observing the cross, when I survey, when I look at the cross. And it’s just contemplating Jesus and his sacrifice for us. And then verse four is this beautiful verse of response that responds and says, “If Christ can give all that to me, then certainly I can give my life to him.” What’s really interesting is the traditional tune for that only has five notes. Count em. . . So you get the point, only five notes. But with just five notes, it’s just such a beautiful tune. I don’t know how the tune is so beautiful with just so few notes.

So of course, there’s no reason not to sing that just as a hymn, but you can also do the Chris Tomlin version, which adds the “Oh, the wonderful cross. . .” It’s got a nice chorus that is added to that, so that’s another option for “When I Survey.” And you can try some creative things, especially if you’re in a blended setting. You could have your organist or pianist lead the traditional version of the verse, and then have your praise team take over during the chorus, and sing the Chris Tomlin chorus of it. You can go back and forth like that. All sorts of things that you can do with just very few resources like that.

Another thing to be aware of is the Gilbert Martin choral arrangement. It is just magnificent. If your choir has not sung this then you really need to sing it. It’s just spot-on, really sings well, it’s just, oh, it’s just lovely. So the Gilbert Martin arrangement of “When I Survey.”

Now, interesting, I actually think that the tune, I can’t remember the name of the tune. . . I think the emphasis is a little bit off in these words. “When I survey,” it just doesn’t work quite right for me. And I really like the tune O WALY WALY, “The Water Is Wide.” That, you remember— “The water is wide, I cannot get o’er. . .” Right? So that tune, and we use it for lots and lots of hymns as well. But I like it for this text: “When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died. . .” Doesn’t that fit nicely?

So, something that you can do— I do this a lot— is I’ll take a song that I really want to pound out over and over during the season, but I know that I just can’t sing it every single week as is. So I’ll take it, and I’ll vary it each week. So I might do the traditional one week, I might do the traditional with the Chris Tomlin chorus the next week, I might do the Gilbert Martin choral arrangement the next week, and then just do a folk version. And this is a way of kind of, when we use different tunes, it’s not just to confuse people or irritate them, although that sometimes does happen. . . I led this one time in a church, and this guy walks up to me after the church and says, “Thanks for ruining my favorite hymn.” Like, I don’t know, do I say, “You’re welcome”? So it’s not always going to be a win. But I think the good side of what happens when we do different tunes, is that we hear the words in a different way, right? So we put a different frame on the words and we experience it in a different way. And I think that’s really important that we do that.

Another cross song, if you have a choir. It’s funny, John Stainer’s song, “God So Loved the World,” you know, it’s a classic, but it’s kind of tired, right? You know, a lot of, not many choirs would do that because it’s like, every choral library has it. You have the Hallelujah chorus, you have— I guarantee. Just go and look in your choir folders and you’re going to find John Stainer’s arrangement, or setting, of “God So Loved the World.” And I was, I kind of felt that way about this, and one year I just kind of said, “Okay, it’s a classic. I should do it.” And I sucked it up and I did it, and boy, there’s a lot of music in there. I really, it’s just really quite a beautiful song. So, this is one that if you have that in your choral library I’d encourage you to go look for that.

And then, another one: “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed.” There are lots of Jesus bleeding songs that you can use. And you kind of have to gauge your context, right? So you, in your context something like “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood” might not be the right song. And I understand that “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed” is quite melodramatic, it’s quite graphic. I do think that every church should sing this, you know, once during Lent. And the beauty of this song is that there’s a lot of ways to sing it. So, there’s the traditional tune, I think the tune is called HUDSON— “Alas, and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die. . .” So it’s a little more of a. . . little more upbeat and sturdy, and that’s the one that many people know. There’s one by Bob Kauflin, I can’t recall offhand how that goes. There’s one by Annie Quick, which is really, I just like this version a lot. I’ll just play a little bit of it.

Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
and did my Sovereign die?

I just completely butchered that, but you can see how it goes. It’s kind of a Irish kind of sound, and you can put just a hand drum— boom, chida, boom, dum, boom— and it’s really beautiful because it takes. . . Most of the other versions are quite sweet, and kind of melodramatic, and this one is just very muscular and almost dance-like, and I really like what it brings out in the text.

There is a great choral arrangement by Deborah Govenor, an arrangement of “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed.” And of course I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about my own setting of “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” to the tune of MARTYRDOM— “Alas, and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die. . .” So it’s that tune, MARTYRDOM, you probably know that tune. And so, my choral arrangement, you can go to my website, and you can find it there. Just type in, “Alas, and did my Savior bleed,” and then you can find it. There will also be links to all of these resources below the podcast, so you can just kind of click through to all those things.

One of the things that I have done a number of years, and specifically with “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” some of these tunes that have been around, or texts that have been around for a long time, and have gathered lots of tunes to them, I’ve done a whole series during Lent. So I did a whole series where each week of Lent, we would do a different version of “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed.” And so, what I would often do, what I often do when I do this kind of thing, a series like this, is I’ll write a, you know, I’ve called it different things over the years: a liturgy lesson, a bulletin blurb. But, you know, if you have some kind of publication that people read, or just put it in the bulletin itself where people are, you know, have the worship materials. And you write a little overview of the song and its history, and, you know, points of interest, points of devotion, things that people can be thinking about with that. I’m actually going to have a link in this podcast, to when I was at Church of the Servant, I did this during Lent, so you’ll have a link to the Liturgy Lesson that I wrote. Because it’s a very interesting story, and so it gives you an idea of the kinds of things you can do.

Don’t forget that at hymnary.org, if you dig in to the hymn record, you often will find notes on the hymn, and many of those are very well-written, and you can just pluck those out. That’s what they’re made for— you can pluck them out, put them in your bulletin. You don’t have to write anything yourself. You can give people an overview of the hymn, and I think that’s often a real big win, because not everybody is going to love a hymn that you choose, but when they read about it, then they suddenly have more of an affinity for it.

So, lots of cross songs, lots of blood songs, lots of devotion to Jesus songs, lots of good ideas that you can use for Lent. I think that by the, now that we’re finished with this series, the biggest problem that you’re going to have is too many resources. And I hope you don’t get overwhelmed with all these, but I hope that for each of these episodes you can find just a few songs, a few variations on a theme that might work for your congregation.

Thanks so much for staying with me, and I look forward to chatting later.

So, you know, a person that is not very liturgical could just poo-poo the whole thing, and say, you know, “That’s just ridiculous. I love God all the time.” Well, and that’s true. I’m sure it is. But in the same way that you might take a vacation with your wife, and that is a way of, kind of, rekindling your love and your passion. In that same way, we do those kinds of things in our relationship with Christ.

So Lent is a time when we do that kind of thing. And people often give up something, because that kind of deprivation of whatever it is, it’s a, those things can often be crutches that you do to comfort yourself. So every time you’re feeling stressed, you, you know, eat those kinds of things. So when you give up your kind of go-to food or your go-to drink or whatever the thing you’re giving up, then it’s a way of reminding yourself that Christ is to be our all in all. And, I have done this on a number of years, and it’s just been a very, very powerful thing to go through a whole season thinking about this. And some people will go through the whole season having given something up, and then they will fast for three days at the end of Holy Week. And, I remember an Orthodox friend saying one time, because they cook these yeast breads on Sunday morning of Easter. He says when you walk into the church and you smell those breads wafting up from the kitchen, he says it’s like no smell you’ve ever encountered in your life, because you’re so hungry, you’re so ready to celebrate and to break your fast.

I think my favorite thing that someone gave up for Lent was recorded music. It was fantastic. She gave up listening to any recorded music during the whole season of Lent. And she said it not only changed her devotion to Christ but it also changed the way she listened to music. So she was so eager to go to even student recitals where they’re just playing, you know, songs that you’ve heard a thousand times. It was like a big deal because that was the only music that she was hearing. So really that Lenten discipline is really about being hungry and making sure that our hunger is for God.

So, what does this mean liturgically? So, well, I’ll tell you one thing that it means for me liturgically, what I do in worship. One of the things I really like to do during Lent is to sing a capella. And, in fact, The Hymn Society often encourages a Sunday which is an a capella Sunday. And the reason that we would do this is that we get so connected, so focused on all the bells and whistles of worship. We want a band, we want the organ, we want the choir, we want all this stuff, right? And if that isn’t there then we get all cranky. But, I think that there is a layer of entertainment that happens in worship, that isn’t necessarily bad in and of itself, but I think that we sometimes need to step back, take it away, and just kind of have the purity of an austere worship service, of just the voice, and having that carry it. And there’s just an austere beauty to just the voice singing. So I do a lot of a capella singing during Lent.

Another thing that you’ll find is that you often are going to beef up your confessions. So if you’re a church that does a confession each week, you will often, this will be a little bit oversized during Lent because it’s a time of penitence and discipline. So what kinds of things might you want to do during a confession? We talked last time about Psalm 51, and that’s a fantastic place to start.

There are plenty of songs. I’m just going to choose one to look at today, and it’s “Purify My Heart.” It’s by Jeff Nelson, and for copyright reasons I can’t do the whole song, but it goes like this:

Purify my heart.
Cleanse me with your holy fire.

You know, you get the idea, so it’s by Jeff Nelson. It’s called “Purify My Heart.” I really like that song. It’s kind of an old-school praise song, but because it’s a ballad I think it works well. It continues to hold up over time. One thing that I did recently is I wove together a confession with that song. I like to do this— fairly often I will have people sing their confessions. And, there are a number of reasons to do this. One, is because when you sing something it engages your emotions in it more than it would if you just recited it. And this is one of the big reasons that we sing is because it enflames our hearts and stirs up our passions, and when you combine that with God’s Word, then it brings a new level to our love of the Word and our love of God.

So, I like to have that. . . Oh, and then I was going to say the second reason. The second reason is that I like to reinforce the idea that music is just, not just music. It’s not just some kind of wallpaper, it’s not just people simply flapping their jaws because that’s what they do when they go to church. Everything that you do, all the music that you sing, that you play in church is doing something. It’s helping you confess. It’s helping you proclaim Scripture. It’s helping us respond to Scripture. You know, there are all sorts of things, but if you look at it, every single song that you do in a service is going to be doing something. It’s very important that we understand that.

So, one of the ways that I reinforce that, in our bulletin, it says, “Call to confession, Confession, Words of Assurance.” And so what I’ll do is I’ll let those titles stand, and then I’ll have a piece of music in, for example, the confession. So it’s bringing home the point that we’re not just singing a song, we’re confessing. And so in this particular case, the call to confession, for example, the pastor, the liturgist will stand up and say, “We seek to do good, but our wills are weak, our motives are mixed, and our hearts are impure. Let us return to our God, the refining fire, who will burn away the chaff of our lives, leaving only what is holy.”

Purify my heart. . .

And often, I will be, actually playing underneath this, just as a way of kind of binding it together. So, I’ll go to the words of assurance.

“People of God, the prayer of our hearts has been answered. Jesus Christ has died to forgive our sins, and rose again to give us new life. Our faith has made us whole. And let us live lives worthy of the grace we’ve been given.”

Purify my heart. . .

Now, I just completely butchered that. Sorry. But, you see what can happen then, is that the liturgist is speaking over this light guitar, and then the people come back in to sing. And it really creates a really good spirit in the room as we do this. So that’s confession.

Now let’s move on to some other things. Another thing that we’re thinking about during Lent, is, how do we conform ourselves to Christ? How do, the whole idea is that we’re walking with Christ through the latter part of his life. And we are walking, this journey is ultimately going to take us to the cross, and we know that in following Christ, we also follow him to the cross. And that’s, that’s one of the, we talk about Christ-likeness, and one of the ways that we achieve Christ-likeness is giving of ourselves, is in giving of our lives, is how we, part of how we imitate Christ.

So what kinds of songs work for that? I’ve got two in mind, and these are classic response songs. One is “May the Mind of Christ, My Savior,” and then the other is “I Surrender All.” Now, the original versions I’m sure you know:

May the mind of Christ my Savior
live in me from day to day.

I don’t have the music in front of me, so I’m not going to play it on guitar. And then “I Surrender All:”

I surrender all,
I surrender all,
I surrender all. . .

I’m butchering this. Sorry. You know that song. Well, I have two songs that I have written that are based on those songs, that, if you are kind of growing tired of using “May the Mind of Christ, My Savior” and “I Surrender All” as things that you can respond to, songs of dedication, then here are some possibilities. The first one, “May the Mind of Christ, My Savior,” goes like this:

May the mind of Christ, my Savior
live in me from day to day.

So, it kind of turns this song into kind of, more of a folk song. So, if you’re in a more contemporary church, this would be a really good option for you to do a song like “May the Mind of Christ, My Savior,” a song that really responds to the Word, and says, “Yes, I want to be like Christ, I want to conform to the image of Christ.” Now, I just created a YouTube video of that song. So not only will a link appear in the podcast episode description, you can go to YouTube, there will be a link on the podcast, too, and you can go to YouTube, and you can learn how to play that song, so you can learn this fancy lick. Because who doesn’t want to learn a lick like that?

Now, the other one is “I Surrender,” and my version is also a little bit more contemporary.

I surrender all to you.

So, you hear how it kind of. . . So you could do this with a praise band. You could do it with just solo guitar. And it’s a song of devotion. It could be done right after a sermon. It could be done at the very end of a service. And, this is a great way to send people out, is to have them dedicating their lives to Christ. I also made a YouTube video for this, “I Surrender All to You,” and you’ll find the link in the podcast episode description. And, so, and that just kind of unpacks how I play that. You can download the music from the website.

The final thing that we’ll talk about is a piece that I wrote, I took an existing hymn by James John Cummins, and it’s called “Jesus, Lord of Life and Glory,” and I’ll just sing the basic melody:

Jesus, Lord of life and glory,
Bend from heaven your gracious ear.
As we wait for you, adoring,
Friend of helpless sinners, hear:
By your mercy, oh, deliver us, good Lord.
By your mercy, oh, deliver us, good Lord.

So this one, once again, the music is at my website. And there are a couple different versions of this, I just want to make you aware. The reason that I think that this is an important song, kind of going back to the beginning of this podcast, where we’re talking about the sense of journey that goes along in Lent, this one goes through a number of verses, so it says, “From the depths of nature’s blindness, from the hardening power of sin,” and then it always says, “In your mercy, O deliver us, good Lord, in your mercy, O deliver us, good Lord.” And verse 3 is about temptations. Verse 4 is, “When the world around us is smiling,” it’s talking about when things are good and we begin to be lured away, “In your mercy, deliver us.” And then “In the weary hour of sickness, and at the time of dying,” so this is one that really covers the whole of life, and says, always comes back to, “By your mercy, deliver us, O Lord.” So it’s a really good one. I have a lead sheet and piano music at my website, and GIA Music publishes a choral anthem of this that I wrote. The choral anthem is G-8892, “Jesus, Lord of Life and Glory.”

So these are a number of resources that you can use, and a number of things to think about as you come into Lent. I really hope that this has opened up some good doors for you, and I look forward to continuing this next series in the near future.

But of course, first, we have to discuss what Lent is. So for those of you who are not familiar with the church year, the church year is our basic cycles. You know, of course, Christmas and Easter, but the liturgical year, or the church year as it’s called, is a little bit more involved series of days. So generally speaking Easter and Christmas are the, kind of, pivotal moments, but if you follow the liturgical calendar then you would back up before Christmas with Advent, the preparation for Christ’s coming, and then before Easter with Lent, which is a season of preparation for Christ’s resurrection.

So Lent is a time that it tends to be. . . well, it has a number of themes that go along with it. So Lent is the 40 days before Easter minus Sundays. Now, 40 days minus Sundays. So there are some churches that do what’s called “hiding the alleluia,” and they don’t say “alleluia” for the whole of Lent. But actually, if you’re going to get really technical on this, then every Sunday in Lent is what’s called a “little Easter.” Every Sunday is a celebration, a little celebration of the resurrection. So, you know, officially speaking you can say “alleluia” all you want to during Lent, and we don’t have to get too law-driven about the whole thing.

But it’s 40 days of penitence and those type of things. This mirrors many of the 40s of the Bible. So think about Israel— 40 years in the wilderness, Noah— 40 days and nights on the ark, 40 days of Jesus’ temptation in the desert. So all those kinds of 40s. And there are indeed some songs that focus on this 40. I’m thinking, for example, there’s a song by James Gertmenian called “Throughout These Lenten Days,” and it’s one of these songs that talks about Lent. There’s another one called “Throughout These 40 Days and Nights,” [edit: Greg meant “Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days”] and it’s basically a call to observe Lent. Now, those, they can be useful in certain situations, but I don’t get a lot of mileage out of those. They’re kind of one-trick ponies in a lot of ways. But I can lead you to some other resources that I think are really quite useful.

So, for example, Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. It’s the, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. It marks off the season, and you’ll remember that in that service, you get the sign of ashes on your forehead. Usually what happens is they put the sign of ashes in the form of a cross on your forehead. And, it’s really quite a powerful service. It’s remembering that you are dust. It’s a service of mortality, and it remembers that you are completely reliant on God for life and breath.

So it’s a good way to go into this time of kind of extraordinary discipline, is to remember your own mortality. It’s also, I think, pretty important for us as Christians to always have an eye on the end game. So if we only talk about resurrection and joy and those kinds of things and never talk about death and the inevitability of our own departure from this world and into Christ’s presence, I think that we are underprepared for that.

So what I do with a congregation is I try to make sure that I have some songs that serve as bridges between the liturgical year and funerals. So, and I know this sounds very, very morbid, and I’m sorry. But one of the songs that I use a lot is one that I wrote called “From the Dust.” It’s actually a setting of Psalm 103, and it goes like this:

From the dust you shall raise us up.
From the dust of death, you shall raise us up.
From the dust, you shall raise us up.
From the dust of death, you shall raise us up.

So on the one hand it’s quite somber, but I think that one of the things that this serves is, from Psalm 103, where it says that God remembers that we are frail humans and that we come from dust and will return to dust. So it’s playing on that image. And it’s a really good one to sing on Ash Wednesday because we’re getting the sign of ashes, but it’s also one that I’ve used in funerals many times, and it’s a really good way to make a connection between what we do on Sundays, or on Wednesday in this case, and what we do in these kind of extraordinary circumstances like a funeral. And I think that we need to build in the hope of resurrection into the songs that we. . . Well, I should say it this way: We want to build in the inevitability of death and the hope of resurrection into all that we do on a week-to-week basis, so that it’s baked into our faith and that we’re ready to act on it when someone dies in our congregation.

So, Ash Wednesday. And then once we get beyond Ash Wednesday then we get into the Sundays of Lent. And I remember, it tends to be that Lent is quite, not morose, but it’s a little bit down, right? It’s not the happiest season; in fact it’s probably the lowest season in the church year. As I said, some people will not even sing “alleluia” during this whole time. And we tend to focus on issues of confession and contrition, those kinds of things. And I remember one time, I was in the middle of Lent, and someone comes up to me and says, “The music has all been so down lately.” And I said, “It’s Lent— you’re not supposed to be happy!” And I don’t know if that’s true, actually, if discipline and happiness don’t go together. But certainly there is that side of Lent, so penitence, discipline, confession, spiritual journey, all of those kinds of things are part of it, and I think are really good things to bring out. So, thinking spiritual journey, a really good one, and this is one that is not totally morose. It’s more just looking at the journey and thinking about following Christ wherever Christ will go, including to the cross.

Jesus, draw me ever nearer. . .

You know this one. So it’s the song by Margaret Becker and Keith Getty. That’s a really great one to highlight the devotional and the spiritual journey aspect of Lent.

Another place we’re probably gonna land a lot during Lent is Psalm 51. This is like the, they’re plenty of penitential Psalms, but this is the most famous one. This is the one that David wrote, sang, in response to Nathan’s prophecy saying that God saw his sin. And, so, a lot of times, you’ll read Psalm 51 in church during Lent, maybe you’ll have confessions based on it, those kinds of things. There are lots and lots of great songs based on Psalm 51. I’ll just give you a couple ideas. . . . We’ll see if I can do all these by memory! One is “God, Be Merciful,” and it’s to the tune REDHEAD. Love that.

God, be merciful to me. . .

You know that one, right? So that’s, it’s a hymn called “God, Be Merciful to Me.” That’s a great one. Then there’s the one from the 70s, I think.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit in me.

So that’s a classic one, and it goes along with Psalm 51. If you get creative you often can add a reading of Psalm 51 together with the singing of that. That’s a great way to do that. There’s another one that I really like. There’s a song called “Restore My Soul” by Andi Rozier. He’s from the Harvest, one of the Harvest churches, and it’s just a really wonderful setting. It takes the tune O WALY WALY, which is, the folk tune would be “The Water Is Wide,” and it’s been used as a hymn a number of times.

Restore my soul, O Lord my God. . .

I can’t remember the words. And then it says, “At the cross, I find a way. . .” It adds a chorus to O WALY WALY. That’s a great one. I use that lots and lots. I’m kind of thinking out loud here about the kinds of songs. . . When I go into a season, I often will just create a, kind of a big pile of songs, and some of these are songs that I know that I definitely want to do by the end of the season. You know, it won’t be Christmas until I sing this song, or it won’t be Lent until I sing that song. And, so, you know, you’ll have your bag of tricks and you come back to those. And sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll create a document on my computer that is just, you know, “Lent Songs,” or “Palm Sunday Songs,” something like that, so I can kind of remember over the years what I’ve done.

Another thing, kind of a go-to resource during Lent, is the 10 Commandments. Now, Psalm 51 is a little bit lower-hanging fruit because we can sing it. The 10 Commandments, there are a couple 10 Commandments songs but no one wants to sing a 10 Commandments song. Sorry, to all the people that wrote 10 Commandments songs. But, the 10 Commandments, even though we talk about, kind of, hooking our morality, our faith’s morality on the 10 Commandments, we very rarely use them in worship. And most of us, I read a statistic one time, that most Americans and even Christians can’t name even, like, three of the Commandments. And, I think that’s a shame. I think that we need to use that more often.

Now, in my tradition, which is Christian Reformed tradition, there are many churches that, every week, will follow the confession and assurance with a reading of the 10 Commandments. It’s kind of an interesting thing. So, first of all, that’s one of the distinctives of the Reformed faith, is a very prominent confession and assurance every week in the service. Now, you might not be of that persuasion, and that might seem like too much. I totally get that. I do think that you should be confessing sometimes, in your church, that this is not something only that you do privately, but that one of the things we do in worship is do as a group the kinds of things that we want to encourage in people’s private faith. So if we never read the 10 Commandments, if we never meditate on those, if we never confess in church, then why would we expect that our people will go home and will have any kind of spiritual discipline of confession?

So, now I’m preachin’! So, we were at confession and many Christian Reformed churches will end the confession with the 10 Commandments. And the interesting theological idea here, is that rather than the 10 Commandments being this kind of, truancy officer that comes in and beats you and tells you what you did wrong, that instead in this tradition, you confess and you hear the assurance that God still loves you and forgives your sins, and then you are called to renewed life, and that’s when you read the 10 Commandments. So basically, these are laws of life rather than laws of death. And it says, “God has given you grace, so now let’s live into that grace. And here are 10 things that you should keep in mind as you live joyfully and as well as you can before God’s face.” And that’s the 10 Commandments.

So, and I understand that the 10 Commandments is a really hard sell in a church service. They can feel very, very dry. So one of the things that I’ve done is I recently wrote a responsive reading of the 10 Commandments. So the leader will say each of the 10 Commandments, and after it the congregation will say, let’s see, in the first part it will say, “Let us love our God with our spirit, soul, strength,” something to that effect. And then in the second part, where it’s dealing with laws about how we relate to humans, it says, “Let us love our neighbors as ourselves.”

And so then the people are just, first of all, kind of baked into that reading is the fact that there are two, what they call the two tables of the law. The first is how you should relate to God. The second is, I think the second six Commandments, are how you should relate to people. And so, in the first part of it, it says the Shema, which is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.” That’s the response to how we relate to God. And then the people’s response in the last half of the law is what Jesus said when he had to summarize the law, which is “Love your God with all your heart, soul, and strength,” and, “Let us love our neighbors as ourselves.” And so, so we get that, you know, kind of New Testament eyes as part of the 10 Commandments. And it’s a reading that, it flows pretty well, and you can find this at my website. I’m going to provide a link in the podcast episode so that you can click through to that and use it in your own services. I think it’s quite effective.

So that is an intro to Lent, and gets us started a little bit with thinking about this. I’m hoping that this will help you as you start to kind of wrap your head around what the next few months will be as you start to prepare for Lent. I hope that this will be helpful and give you a few resources that will lead you a little closer to planning your worship services well.

So, thanks. I, once again, am Greg Scheer. This is the Greg Scheer Music Podcast, and I look forward to chatting again.