Lent Devotional – The Music of Holy Week

Thursday, April 17

By: Scott Reid

When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Mark 16:4-8

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As a lifetime church choir member, I am embarrassed to admit that I am not a fan of Easter anthems.  On the other hand, I think that Maundy Thursday and Good Friday anthems contain some of the most profound music ever written.  For me, the difference is how I relate to the Holy Week stories: Jesus’s crucifixion story is tangible because it relates to personal interactions that we would consider “normal”, while his resurrection story and its implications defy understanding because of the magnitude and uniqueness of the divine intervention.

The contemplative music of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday touches on themes that are common to the human experience (betrayal, guilt, mourning, supplication).  Choral anthems about Christ’s crucifixion draw on a composer’s personal experiences to express the emotions of the crucifixion story, and our own experiences help us understand and lend our own voices to the emotions that the music evokes.  These compositions that rely on personal experiences resonate deeply with me.

In contrast, although we try to express the miracle of Easter with beautiful anthems, none of us have experienced a resurrection, and Jesus Christ’s resurrection is an awesome miracle that surpasses understanding.  For me, the challenge of these anthems is that they celebrate an event that I cannot relate to or supplement with my own personal experiences. Instead, Easter anthems somehow seem incomplete—there is always more to tell of God’s infinite majesty witnessed in the Easter story.

                  Holy Week takes us on a journey from the basest aspects of humanity (“Crucify him!”) to the glory of the divine (“He has been raised; he is not here.”).  The music of Holy Week helps us feel each step of this journey more personally, and it is my hope that we all conclude Holy Week with a new sense of how the same awesome power of God that resurrected Jesus Christ continues to be present in our lives today.

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Prayer

As members of the church’s congregation, you are part of church’s largest choir—the congregation.  The Parish Choir prays this Choristers Prayer every week, and I hope these words will bring new meaning to the music we sing in worship during Holy Week and throughout the year:

Bless, O Lord, us Thy servants, who minister in Thy temple.

Grant that what we sing with our lips, we may believe in our hearts,

and what we believe in our hearts, we may show forth in our lives.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.