Every Palm Sunday for as long as I can remember has included the magnificent hymn “All Glory Laud and Honor” and today was no exception. But it is only today that I am realizing what the refrain of that spirited hymn says:
“All Glory, laud and honor to you, Redeemer King –
to whom the lips of children made sweet Hosannas ring.”
It never dawned on me until I was looking at my pictures from this morning that I realized that this hymn’s refrain talks about children. And it made our opening call to worship (right before the opening hymn) ideally appropriate. The senior choir combined with the youth and Sunday school choirs to collaborate on a piece that Kate Barrow knows and loves from the sacred musical “Celebrate Life.” It begins in very striking fashion with Kate in one side balcony and my wife in the other- and the two of them singing back and forth in impressive antiphonal style with those big voices of theirs: Prepare the way of the Lord! Clear a straight path for Him! Prepare His Way !” From there we broke into a four-part round, with guitars, oboe and tambourine providing rich accompaniment. It was a glorious Joyful Noise we made, singing “Prepare a way for the Lord, for He Cometh! He cometh! He cometh – prepare His Way.”
The picture above is a bit blurry, I realize – and that’s at least partly because I took it while I was conducting the piece in question. That’s right – during the piece itself I took out my camera from my pocket and proceeded to take a couple of pictures with my one hand while conducting with the other. Nuts, I know. Anyway, the blurriness I think actually helps to recreate the sense of excitement and energy that was part of this performance. Give a bunch of little kids palm branches, a fun song to sing, and an enthusiastic and interested audience and you have the recipe for something very special.
A couple of minutes later, once we had sung the opening hymn- it was time for the senior choir (by now up in the back balcony) to sing my setting of “Hosanna to the Son of David,” one of my peppiest pieces certainly. What added to the excitement in the air was the presence of percussion instruments, including little egg-shaped shakers that virtually everyone in the choir had. (thanks to Katie Nagao.) Add to that Ed Bergles on the tambourine and Kate Barrow wailing away on the congas and you have yet another case of a splendid Joyful Noise. It was wonderful and one even had a sense that we were catching at least a little snippet of what the first Palm Sunday was like. But it was also fun to see this group of adults really excited about their percussion instruments and actually resembling little kids in their unbridled enthusiasm for the task at hand. I could be wrong but I think when a balcony of well-behaved Lutherans gets this worked up, you’ve done something right.
pictured above: at Holy Communion Lutheran Church and some of the kids up front with the adults, singing out like there’ s no tomorrow. It was especially neat to see some of those kids really using those palm branches, I trust without damage to life or limb – especially to their own. And of course it’s also such a delight to have singers young and old alike singing together.