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practice resurrection, songs for eastertide

 

"We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our Song." _St. Augustine

How a Resurrection Really Feels :: The Hold Steady

Break on Through (to the other side) :: The Doors

Réveille mon âme :: Mumford & Sons

Wake Up :: Arcade Fire

Changes :: David Bowie

Bowl of Oranges :: Bright Eyes

Hoppípolla :: Sigur Rós

Roll Away Your Stone :: Mumford & Sons

Open Arms :: Elbow

The Other Country :: Burlap to Cashmere

Ára Bátur :: Sigur Rós

The Rising : Bruce Springsteen

or for a live version, link here.

 

Lent Playlist [day forty/40] easter vigil

Wake Up :: Arcade Fire // Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds :: Paul Strodach

Nothing sings Easter and Resurrection like Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds. When I hear it, I track back to Mt. Olive Lutheran Church. I smell insense I wouldn't tolerate anywhere else. I see Pastor Heisley's Gold Chasuble that was put upon him after the Easter Proclamation. I hear Cantor Dave Cherwein bringing us octaves above where we thought our voices could go.  

And Wake Up by Arcade Fire just screams alleluia to me. Whoa-oa!

A few years back, I heard these songs come together in my mind. It took meeting Michael Larson, a local music genius, who worked through an arrangement with me. During Holy Week, Colin, Michael and I gathered around a loaf of bread and good wine and laid down tracks for this mash-up.  

If I was in a church that did the Vigil, and one especially familiar with Arcade Fire, I would use this in that interlude between darkness and light. Between the stories of deliverance from the Old Testament and the Easter proclamation. In the dark would begin a single voice, someone humming the opening whoas from Wake Up. It would build, voice by voice. Percussive beats could be added. Strings could be added. Egg-shakers and tambourines could be added. And then...

listen, here.

 

My God, my God, why?

On the cross, on that Holy Friday we somehow call “Good,” Jesus cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He takes on our own cries, our own fears, our own doubts, our own feelings of abandonment and takes them into his own voice just as he took them into his own body.

Why God? Why let us down? Why all the pain? Why all the suffering? Why do people get sick? Why do people get hurt? My God, my God, why? 

God didn’t need the cross.  We needed it. Pain that wasn’t transformed was transferred. The cross is what we did to Jesus...not because God needed it...but because we needed it. We needed to reach out and hurt the same God we felt so much hurt from. My God, my God, why?

Because pain that is not transformed is transferred. We can look to the cross and see our pain in Jesus’ own brokenness.  We can see our pain transferred to Jesus. We can also see it starting to be transformed. Dark as it seems, we can see light.  

The worst we can do to God cannot overcome the best that God has done and will do for us. God enters into the brokenness so fully that it kills his only beloved and begotten son. But God enters into the brokenness so fully that there is life, there is blessing through it. 

Lent Playlist [good friday]

 

Dead Man Walking :: Bruce Springsteen

 

Anthem :: Leonard Cohen
Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything that's how the light gets in.
Mark 15

 

"This is what will become of my body"

In the night Jesus is betrayed he took bread and he broke it. This is my body, he said. This is what will become of my body. You are part of the breaking, but there is blessing in the brokenness. There is healing in the brokenness. The same with the cup. He took it. He gave thanks. He uttered gratitude in the face of betrayal. This is my blood, he said. This is what will become of my blood. It will be poured out, shed, for you. You are part of that pouring. But there the forgiveness will flow. So when we eat the bread and drink the cup we recognize not only that Jesus body and blood were broken and poured out for us but that we were a part of that breaking and that pouring. And even so, Jesus uses it for to bless us and forgive us.

Lent Playlist [maundy thursday]

Until the End of the World :: U2

“Bono plays the part of Judas ad the Edge plays the role of Jesus as they explore this great story of desire and betrayal from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 14.” _Christian Scharen, One Step Closer, p 24.

Haven’t seen you in quite a while, I was down the hold just killing time. Last time we met it was a low-lit room, we were as close together as a bride and groom. We broke the bread, we drank the wine, everybody having a good time--except you, you were talking of the end of the world.

I took the money, I spiked your drink, you miss too much these days if you stop to think. You led me on with those innocent eyes; you know I love the element of surprise. In the garden I was playing the tart, I kissed your lips and broke your heart--you...you were acting like it was the end of the world.

In my dream I was drowning my sorrows, but my sorrows, they learned to swim. Surrounding me, going down on me, spilling over the brim--waves of regret and waves of joy. I reached out for the one I tried to destroy--you...you said you’d wait ‘til the end of the world.

Lent Playlist [day thirty-seven/40]

Monster Ballads :: Josh Ritter

Out on the desert now and feeling lost, the bonnet wears a wire albatross, monster ballads and the stations of the cross, sighin just a little bit...

Ones and zeros bleeding Mesa noise, when you're empty there's so much space for them, you turn it off, fall down, a still small voice comes in blazin from some vast horizon.

Lent Playlist [day thirty-six/40]

The Devil’s Tears :: Angus & Julia Stone

Some call love a curse, some call love a thief
But she's my home
And she's as much apart for this broken heart,
Broken bones always seem to mend
I'll taste the devil's tears,
drink from his soul,
but I'll never give up you

Lent Playlist [day thirty-five/40]

Not Dark Yet :: Bob Dylan

Shadows are falling and I've been here all day
It's too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I've got the scars that the sun didn't heal
There's not even room enough to be anywhere
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there 

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain...

...I was born here and I'll die here against my will
I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer 
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there  

Lent Playlist [palm sunday]

Avila :: Wailin’ Jennys

O sweet peace, never have you fallen upon this town...
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I longed to gather you...