Musings: Sunday, April 10 - Palm/Passion Sunday

Each week, you may find information here about the music in the traditional worship services at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas. Some of this information is original; most of it is copied from other websites such as Wikipedia, GBOD, and hymnary.org. It is my hope that this information will enhance your understanding and enrich your worship experience.

About the Organ Music:

Draw Nigh to Thy Jerusalem - David Johnson

(c.1976, Schmitt Publications)

Jeremy Taylor, D.D (1613-1667), a poet of preachers, was born of very humble parentage on both sides, at Cambridge. His father was a barber. He entered Cambridge College, of his native city, as a "sizar" in 1626, and his career at the university was a brilliant one. He was made fellow of All Souls College, Oxford; and rector of Uppingham, Rutlandshire. He was "sequestered" by Parliament in 1642 and put in prison. During the opening of the great Protectorate he taught school in Wales along with William Nicholson, and acted as chaplain to the Earl of Carberry at Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire. He then preached at Lisburn and Portmore in Ireland. He returned to London early in 1660, and signed the loyalist or royalist Declaration of the Nobility and Gentry, on April 24th, thirty-five days before the "Restoration." He was consecrated bishop of Down and Connor in 1661; made a member of the Irish Privy Council; entrusted with the diocese of Dromore, and in the same year was chosen Vice-chancellor of the University of Dublin.

Bishop Taylor's complete works have been repeatedly edited and many Selections and single books, such as his Holy Living and Holy Dying have been published. His entire poems and verse-translations were published in the Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies' Library (1870). The following is the original title page of the volume in which the Festival Hymns first appeared:

The Golden Grove, or a Manuall of Daily Prayers and Letanies Fitted to the dayes of the Week. Containing a short Summary of what is to be Believed, Practised, Denied. Also Festival Hymns According to the manner of "The Ancient Church." Composed for the Use of the Devout, especially of Younger Persons; By the Author of "The Great Exemplar." London: Printed by J. F. for R. Rayston, at the Angel in Ivie Lane, 1655. Taylor’s attempts at verse are eloquent, but not poetry, and even the eloquence is often hampered and shallow.

FARLEY CASTLE, composed by Henry Lawes (1596-1662), was first published in treble and bass parts as a setting for Psalm 72 in George Sandys's Paraphrase upon the Divine Poems (1638). Lawes was a well-known composer, singer, and teacher in seventeenth-century England. His teaching career began with his appointment as music tutor to the daughters of the Earl of Bridgewater. In 1631 he was appointed musician in the court of Ring Charles I; he lost this position during Cromwell's reign but was reappointed at the Restoration. Lawes was known as a composer of some four hundred songs, many of which were used in stage productions. He and John Milton collaborated on the famous masque Comus (1634). The writer of about twenty anthems, including one for the coronation of Charles II in 1660, Lawes also contributed tunes to George Sandys' Psalms (1638) and to Choice Psalms put into Musick for three Voices (1648), which he published with his brother. Lawes' tunes were reintroduced to modern hymnody when Ralph Vaughan Williams included five of them in The English Hymnal (1906).

Draw nigh to thy Jerusalem,

O Lord, thy faithful people cry with one accord:

ride on in triumph; Lord, behold,

we lay our passions, lusts, and proud wills in thy way.

Thy road is ready, and thy paths,

made straight, with longing expectations seem to wait

the consecration of thy beauteous feet,

and silently thy promised advent greet.

Hosanna! welcome to our hearts,

for here thou hast a temple too, as Zion dear;

yes, dear as Zion, and as full of sin;

how long shall theives and robbers dwell therein?

Enter and chase them forth,

and cleanse the floor; o'erthrow them all, that they

may nevermore profane with traffic vile that holy place

where thou hast chosen, Lord, to set thy face.

And then, if our stiff tongues shall faithlessly

be mute in praises of thy deity,

the very temple stones shall loud repeat

Hosanna! and thy glorious footsteps greet.

David N. Johnson (1922-1987) was an American organist, composer, educator, choral clinician, and lecturer. He studied organ and composition at Curtis Institute of Music. Between 1942 and 1946 he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps/Air Corps in India, Burma, and China, receiving a Meritorious Service Award and campaign ribbons. He continued his music studies at Trinity University (Texas) and Syracuse University. He also held the associate certificate from the American Guild of Organists (AAGO). He was college organist and music department chair at St Olaf College, Minnesota. In 1967, he succeeded Arthur Poister as professor of music and university organist at Syracuse University. Johnson published well over three hundred compositions, most of them for church use, and was author of an Instruction Book for Beginning Organists (1964) and an Organ Teacher's Guide (1971).

About the Choral Music:

Hosanna, Loud Hosanna – Joel Raney

(c.2014, Hope Publishing Co.)

Like "All Glory, Laud, and Honor", this text is based on Christ's triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. However, "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna" focuses more on the children's role in that event. The text was written by Jeannette Threlfall (1821-1880) in an "idle moment" (as she says she wrote all of her hymns, all others of which have been forgotten). Undoubtedly, Threlfall had Mark 11 in mind when she wrote this text, but she also alludes to Jesus' welcoming of the children in Mark 10:13-16. Threlfall's life was extremely difficult: she was orphaned at an early age, and two serious accidents caused her to be an invalid for life. But she bore her misfortune with grace and fortitude and maintained a ministry to many people who came in contact with her. Threlfall wrote devotional verse, which was published anonymously in various periodicals and later collected in Woodsorrel, or Leaves from a Retired Home (1856) and Sunshine and Shadow (1873), which included "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna."

Joel Raney’s (b. 1956) taste for gospel music began in a rural Baptist church in Alabama, an influence that shows strongly in his work to this day. Joel's interest in music of all kinds has led to everything from classical and jazz performance to pop vocal arranging. He has conducted Broadway productions, and has been honored for outstanding musical direction of theater in both Chicago and Los Angeles. Since 1988 he has worked as a composer and producer of commercial music in Chicago and has written soundtracks for more than 2000 television and radio commercials, plus numerous scores for short films. Joel is a choral and keyboard clinician, and performs throughout North America as a piano soloist and in duo-concert with organist Jane Holstein. He has over 200 titles in print, including choral anthems, musicals and cantatas, handbell compositions, piano solos, and instrumental works.

Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang:

Through pillared court and temple the lovely anthem rang:

To Jesus, who had blessed them, close folded to his breast,

The children sang their praises, the simplest and the best.

Hosanna in the highest, hosanna to the King!

Hosanna in the highest, let loud hosannas ring!

Sing hosanna, hosanna to the King!

Sing hosanna, let loud hosannas ring!

O may we ever praise him with heart and life and voice,

And in his blissful presence eternally rejoice!

Hosanna in the highest, let loud hosannas ring!

About the Modern Band Music:

New Wine - Brooke Ligertwood

(c.2017, Hillsong Music Publishing)

Hillsong Worship’s “New Wine” is a call back to the altar. A call back to surrender. Matthew 9:17 says, “Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” So if we are truly born again, we cannot live the way we always have and expect to be able to carry a fresh anointing from God. With lyrics like,”Where there is new wine, there is new power; there is new freedom” the song becomes an anthem for a new revelation of Christ to run through our veins and flow out of us like new wine.

In the crushing

In the pressing

You are making new wine

In the soil I now surrender

You are breaking new ground

So I yield to You and to Your careful hand

When I trust You I don’t need to understand

Make me Your vessel

Make me an offering

Make me whatever You want me to be

I came here with nothing

But all You have given me

Jesus bring new wine out of me

Where there is new wine

There is new power

There is new freedom

The Kingdom is here

I lay down my old flames

To carry Your new fire today

About the Vocal Solo Music:

Via Dolorosa - Billy Sprague and Niles Borop

(c.1985, Meadowgreen Music Co/Word Musc)

This retelling of the story of Christ's climb to Calvary was written by American evangelical pop singer, songwriter and music producer Billy Sprague (b 1952) and American Christian music songwriter Niles A Borop (b 1956). "Via Dolorosa" means in Latin "The Way of Suffering." It is traditionally held to be the path that Jesus walked through Jerusalem on his way to his crucifixion.

The song was originally published in 1984 by Meadowgreen Music/Word music. and included in Songs from the Heart, an album by American singer Sandy Patty. Patty said of the song: "I think the challenge for a songwriter is always to find a new way to say the same story. When 'Via Dolorosa' came along my path, I was just blown away because it did just that. It told the story but in a new and fresh and incredibly artistic way. Because the words 'via dolorosa' are Latin and Spanish, we chose to do part of the song in Spanish. And that was one of those little spur-of-the-moment decisions that proved to be really powerful."

Down the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem that day,

The soldiers tried to clear the narrow street,

But the crowd pressed in to see

The man condemned to die on Calvary.

He was bleeding from a beating, there were stripes upon His back,

And He wore a crown of thorns upon His head.

And He bore with every step

The scorn of those who cried out for His death.

Down the Via Dolorosa called the way of suffering

Like a lamb came the Messiah, Christ the King.

But He chose to walk that road out of His love for you and me,

Down the Via Dolorosa all the way to Calvary.

Por la Vía Dolorosa, triste día en Jerusalém.

Los soldados le abrían paso a Jesús.

Mas la gente se acercaba

Para ver al que llevaba aquella cruz.

Por la Vía Dolorosa, que es la vía del dolor

Como oveja vino Cristo, rey, Señor

Y fue Él quien quiso ir, por su amor por ti y por mí,

Por la Vía Dolorosa al Calvario y a morir.

About the Hymns:

Soul on Fire - Mac Powell and Matt Maher

(c.2014, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Essential Music Publishing, Capitol Christian Music Group)

Celebrating a powerful and uplifting 20+ years since the original independent release of the band’s gold self-titled debut album, Third Day - which Billboard has called “one of the best rock bands, period” - forges new but familiar ground on its 12th studio album, Lead Us Back: Songs of Worship. “Soul on Fire” is one of the most popular songs on the album..Looking beyond the extraordinary stats and accolades including 30 #1 singles, more than 8.5 million albums sold, 24 GMA Dove Awards, four Grammys, an American Music Award and a Georgia Music Hall of Fame inductee, the band is focusing on the spirit of worship and a pure consistency that has driven all of its recordings and live performances, and has always inspired its loyal fans to draw closer to God.

Mac Powell says of “Soul on Fire: ”The song came along almost last minute on the new record...there is such a spiritual fervor in 'Soul on Fire' and it reminds me, reminds us of that excitement we first had when we first gave our lives to the Lord. This is a place where we should all strive to be at with God; a place of joy while calling out to God. All of us who are believers at one point or another, and maybe you're in it right now, you've had that experience of just literally feels like you're on fire. You can't contain it, it's contagious. Life sometimes gets in the way of crying out for God's fire. So the song is all about rediscovering that passion for the Lord.”

God, I’m running for Your heart

I’m running for Your heart

Till I am a soul on fire

Lord, I’m longing for Your ways

I’m waiting for the day

When I am a soul on fire

Till I am a soul on fire

Lord, restore the joy I had

And I have one to bring me back

In this darkness, lead me through

Until all I see is You

Lord, let me burn for You again

Let me return to You again

And Lord, let me burn for You again

Let me return to You again

God, I’m running for Your heart

I’m running for Your heart

Till I am a soul on fire

I want to be

Till I am a soul on fire

Lord, Is It I?

(c. 1999, Dean McIntyre)

"Lord, Is It I" was written for and first used at a Holy Week worship service at First United Methodist Church in Clovis, New Mexico. Its first publication in print is in Worship & Song (2011).

The hymn's author, Dean B. McIntyre, grew up in a Methodist pastor's family and began at an early age playing piano, organ, and leading choirs in a variety of denominations. After many years as a full-time United Methodist music director, he is currently the Director of Music Resources at The United Methodist Discipleship Ministries in Nashville. He is active in developing and promoting music resources for use in the United Methodist Church, as well as speaking and leading workshops on a variety of worship- and music-related topics. McIntyre served on the editorial committee of The Faith We Sing and chaired the General Conference Music and Worship Study (2004-2007). He was named co-editor (2007) of the United Methodist Hymnal Revision Project. He served on the editorial committee of Worship & Song, was editor of the Worship & Song Worship Resources Edition, and chaired the national introductory event. He is a composer, arranger, and author, major contributor to the Discipleship Ministries worship and music website, and moderator of the Methodist Musicians' Listserv and Ruach List. He has a bachelor's degree in organ performance, a master's degree in post-secondary music education, and a Ph.D. in Fine Arts. He is a member of ASCAP, the Charles Wesley Society, and a Life Member of The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts. He is the compiler of A Reference Companion to The United Methodist Hymnal and The Faith We Sing and Hymns for the Revised Common Lectionary. His two great musical passions are arranging, accompanying, and leading congregational singing and playing the songs of George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and others on the piano.

The well-known PASSION CHORALE setting, familiar from its marriage to a number of texts in many hymnals, including "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," did not begin as a sacred tune. It dates from a medieval melody adapted in 1601 by Hans Leo Hassler for a love song titled "Confused Are All My Feelings, a Tender Maid's the Cause." PASSION CHORALE was first used as the setting for the text "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded" by Johann Crüger (1598-1662) in 1656. The harmonization used for "Lord, Is It I?" is adapted from J. S. Bach's setting in St. Matthew Passion, 1729.

Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) studied with the great Italian Renaissance composer and organist Andrea Gabrieli (1532?-1585) and became friends with Gabrieli's nephew, Giovanni. After returning to Germany, Hassler became a successful and respected composer, organist, organ designer, and consultant to organ builders. In 1602 Hassler became the Kapellmeister (director of town music) in Nuremburg; and in 1606, he became the organist and Kapellmeister to the Elector Christian II of Saxony. Upon his death from tuberculosis in 1612, he was succeeded by Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz.

Who was it who for profit’s gain betrayed with fond embrace

the Lamb of God to suffer pain, enduring my disgrace?

Lord, is it I? Lord, is it I? Am I the one to blame?

Is it for me that you must die? Is it for me you came?

Who made the crown of vine and thorn? Who placed it on his brow?

Whose angry words of mock and scorn are shouted even now?

Lord, is it I? Lord, is it I? Am I the one to blame?

Is it for me that you must die? Is it for me you came?

Who fled that day so fearfully, and who denied their Lord?

Who chose Barabbas to go free? Who scourged Christ with the sword?

Lord, is it I? Lord, is it I? am I the one to blame?

Is it for me that you must die? Is it for me you came?

Have I betrayed him, mocked, or fled? Have I my Lord denied?

The cross if raised, but in my stead, is Jesus crucified?

Lord, it is I! Lord, it is I! I am the one to blame.

It is for me you chose to die. It is for me you came.

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was the son of an English schoolmaster. He is said to have shown remarkable precocity in childhood, beginning the study of Latin at age four, and writing respectable verses at the age of seven. At the age of sixteen, he went to London to study in the Academy of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, an Independent minister. In 1698, he became assistant minister of the Independent Church, Berry St., London. In 1702, he became pastor.

The number of Watts' publications is very large. His collected works, first published in 1720, embrace sermons, treatises, poems and hymns. His Horae Lyricae was published in December, 1705. His "Hymns" appeared in July, 1707. The first hymn he is said to have composed for religious worship, is "Behold the glories of the Lamb," written at the age of twenty. It is as a writer of psalms and hymns that he is best known. Some of his hymns were written to be sung after his sermons, giving expression to the meaning of the text upon which he had preached. His published hymns number more than eight hundred.

The Lutheran Hymnal Handbook includes this little narrative about the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross:” “With regard to the practical application of the final stanza, Father Ignatius of St. Edmund’s Church in London is reported to have blurted to his congregation: ‘Well, I’m surprised to hear you sing that. Do you know that altogether you put only fifteen shillings in the collection bag this morning?’” While Watts might not have been talking explicitly about money in the last line of his text, there is the expectation that we dedicate ourselves entirely to God, for God demands not just a piece of who we are, but “our soul, our life, our all.” This can be an incredibly difficult line to sing with any sense of honesty. Devotional author Jerry Jenkins writes in his book Hymns for Personal Devotions, “Perhaps it’s the distance between where Watts encourages me to be and where I truly am that makes this hymn so hard to sing. It’s a lofty and worthy spiritual goal to say that ‘Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all,’ but how short I fall!” And so as we sing this hymn of love and awe, we must sing it with a prayer in our hearts, asking God to enable us each day to live our life wholly for him.

Lowell Mason's hymn tune HAMBURG is one of the most familiar products of the church music reform that swept the United States during the early decades of the nineteenth century.1 Together with the English melody Rockingham (Old) it has become one of the two most common settings in United States hymnals for Isaac Watts's "When I survey the wondrous cross." The church music reform began as a reaction against the elaborate psalmody of eighteenth-century United States composers such as William Billings and the shape-note folk hymnody that was popular in rural areas of the country. In the estimation of the reformers, the complexity, harmonic "ineptitudes," and often dance-like rhythms of the eighteenth-century composers were both too difficult for congregations to sing and lacked the requisite devotional quality. Folk hymnody was suspect because of the secular background of many of its tunes and its association with shape notes, which, though intended to teach people how to read notation, was seen by the reformers as a stumbling block to a true understanding and performance of music.

Lowell Mason and his slightly older contemporary, Thomas Hastings, were the chief figures among the reformers. In their desire to provide what they considered to be acceptable congregational music they took a two-pronged approach: (1) adapting, arranging, and simplifying melodies from European classical masters such as Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven as hymn tunes, and (2) writing new tunes that were characterized by graceful melodies of limited range, clear harmonies emphasizing the primary chords, and easy rhythms. Mason's HAMBURG is representative of both of these techniques.

When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, Save in the death of Christ my God!

All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Were You There?

Were You There was likely composed by African-American slaves in the 19th century. It was first published in William Eleazar Barton's 1899 Old Plantation Hymns. In 1940, it was included in the Episcopal Church hymnal, making it the first spiritual to be included in any major American hymnal. As reported in Howard Thurman's autobiography, the song was one of Mahatma Gandhi's favorites

For a time, the slaves simply by-passed the New Testament, especially since their white taskmasters used it to justify slavery. But there was something about the man Jesus, hanging there upon the hard, wooden cross. Here was a man who was beaten like they were. He was spit upon. He was falsely accused. He was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Finally, he was hung on a tree, a method of execution familiar to the slaves. Through all of these indignities, Jesus prayed, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

"How was he able to forgive?" they questioned. "What was it that enabled him to love those who were unlovable?" Was he in pain? They were in pain. Did he have to drink the cup of suffering? They had to drink theirs, too. Yes, their cross was one with his cross. Jesus died for the sins of all men, of every color. He had to be who he said he was. How else could he have done what he did? In time, they embraced Jesus as their Savior, and they experienced His peace, His grace and forgiveness, and His hope for the future. From this relationship they were able to sing. From the cross they felt a mighty emergence of the divine will, breaking down the barriers that separated man from man, and man from God. And so, instead of taking the destructive road to violence, many began to hum, then to sing, and sometimes to shout the spirituals - a cry to God for freedom and a declaration of faith in His ability to provide it.

“Were You There” utilizes a system of coded language in its lyrics like most, if not all, African-American spirituals. Metaphors, especially those involving Old Testament figures, as well as Jesus, are often central to the meanings of spirituals. “Were You There” tells the story of the Crucifixion of Jesus. Underneath this narrative, however, is a metaphor likening Jesus’s suffering to the suffering of slaves. In some versions of the song, the singer asks “Were you there when they nailed Him to the Tree?” Replacing Jesus’ cross with a tree further strengthens the metaphor between Jesus’ suffering and slaves’ suffering. African-Americans during the antebellum period, and all the way into the Jim Crow era, would have drawn a connection between Jesus nailed to a tree and the frightening prevalence of lynchings in their own lives. This expression of likening one’s experience to Jesus' is underscored by the first-person, present-tense perspective of “Were You There”; the singer personally witnesses the crucifixion. The use of personal pronouns in the spiritual reflects a sense of “communal selfhood” formed by African-American slaves in the face of oppression.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? (Were you there?)

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?